Chiron and The Virus That Never Was

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> CHIRON AND THE VIRUS THAT NEVER WAS

>

> OCTOBER 12, 2004. Below is an excerpt from an article written by Dr.

> Peter Duesberg and Bryan Ellison. It involves Chiron's role is

> promoting the false discovery of an unproven disease, hepatitis C.

>

> I have written about this phantom disease and phantom virus before.

>

> In today's world of virology, the researchers are in a constant drool

> to find new germs. There are major bucks and major prestige at stake.

>

> Therefore, the procedures for truly isolating a virus and determining

> that it plays role in disease are short-circuited. Just about

> anything goes.

>

> " We say it exists and therefore it does exist, and we will develop a

> drug and a vaccine to fight it. "

>

> As you'll see, Chiron parlayed its false science into fame and $$.

>

> " Slow Viruses: The Original Sin Against the Laws of Virology "

>

> Phantom Viruses and Big Bucks

>

> Most virus hunters prefer chasing real, if arguably harmless, viruses

> as their deadly enemies. But Gajdusek's " unconventional " viruses -

> the ones neither he nor anyone else have ever found - have been

> making a comeback in recent years.

>

> Given the abundance of research dollars being poured into biomedical

> science by the NIH and other agencies, opportunistic virus hunters

> have been finding creative ways to cash in. One increasingly

> successful method utilizes modern biotechnology to isolate viruses

> that may not even exist.

>

> Hepatitis, or liver disease, has yielded profitable virus-hunting

> opportunities in recent years...

>

> ...This form of hepatitis [hepatitis C] does not behave as an

> infectious disease, for it rigidly confines itself to people in well-

> defined risk groups rather than spreading to larger populations or

> even to the doctors treating hepatitis patients.

>

> Yet virologists have been eyeing the disease from the beginning,

> hoping one day to find a virus causing it. That day arrived in 1987.

> The laboratory for the job was no less than the research facility of

> the Chiron Corporation, a biotechnology company located directly

> across the bay from San Francisco.

>

> Equipped with the most advanced techniques, a research team started

> its search in 1982 by injecting blood from patients into chimpanzees.

> None of monkeys contracted hepatitis, although subtle signs vaguely

> resembling infection or reddening did appear.

>

> For the next step, the scientists probed liver tissue for a virus.

> None could be found. Growing desperate, the team fished even for the

> smallest print of a virus, finally coming across and greatly

> amplifying a small piece of genetic information, encoded in a

> molecule known as ribonucleic acid (RNA), that did not seem to belong

> in the host's genetic code.

>

> This fragment of presumably foreign RNA, the researchers assumed,

> must be the genetic information of some undetected virus. Whatever it

> was, liver tissue contains it only in barely detectable amounts. Only

> about half of all hepatitis C patients contain the rare foreign RNA.

> And in those who contain it, there is only one RNA molecule for every

> ten liver cells - hardly a plausible cause for disease.

>

> The Chiron team used newly available technology to reconstruct pieces

> of the mystery virus. Now they could test patients for antibodies

> against this hypothetical virus and soon discovered that only a

> slight majority of hepatitis C patients had any evidence of these

> antibodies in their blood.

>

> Koch's first postulate, of course, demands that a truly harmful virus

> be found in huge quantities in every single patient.

>

> His second postulate requires that the virus particles be isolated and

> grown, although this supposed hepatitis virus has never been found

> intact.

>

> And the third postulate insists that newly infected animals, such as

> chimpanzees, should get the disease when injected with the virus. This

> hypothetical microbe fails all three tests. But Koch's standards were

> the furthest thing from the minds of the Chiron scientists when they

> announced in 1987 that they had finally found the " hepatitis C "

> virus.

>

> Now more paradoxes are confronting the viral hypothesis. Huge numbers

> of people testing positive for the hypothetical hepatitis C virus

> never develop any symptoms of the disease, even though the " virus " is

> no less active in their bodies than in hepatitis patients.

>

> And according to a recent large-scale study of people watched for

> eighteen years, those with signs of " infection " live just as long as

> those without.

>

> Despite these facts, scientists defend their still-elusive virus by

> giving it an undefined latent period extending into decades.

>

> Paradoxes like these no longer faze the virus-hunting research

> establishment. Indeed, rewards are generally showered upon any new

> virus hypothesis, no matter how bizarre. Chiron did not spend five

> years creating its own virus for nothing. Having patented the test

> for the virus, the company put it into production and began a

> publicity campaign to win powerful allies.

>

> The first step was a paper published in Science, the world's most

> prestigious science magazine, edited by Dan Koshland, Jr., professor

> of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at

> Berkeley.

> Edward Penhoet, chief executive officer for Chiron, also holds a

> position as professor of molecular and cell biology at the University

> of California at Berkeley.

>

> The NIH-supported virology establishment soon lent the full weight of

> its credibility to the hepatitis C virus camp. As Chiron's CEO

> boasted, " We have a blockbuster product. "

>

> A regulatory order from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to

> test the blood supply would reap enormous sales for Chiron. Their big

> chance presented itself in late 1988 as a special request from

> Japanese Emperor Hirohito's doctors. The monarch was dying and

> constantly needed blood transfusions; could Chiron provide a test to

> make sure he received no blood tainted with hepatitis C?

>

> The biotech company jumped at the opportunity, making for itself such

> a name in Japan that the Tokyo government gave the product its

> approval within one year. The emperor died in the meantime, but

> excitement over Chiron's test was fueled when the Japanese government

> placed hepatitis C high on its medical priority list.

>

> Chiron's test kit now earns some $60 million annually in that country

> alone. By the middle of 1990, the United States followed suit. The

> FDA not only approved the test, but even recommended the universal

> testing of donated blood.The American Association of Blood Banks

> followed suit by mandating the $5 test for all 12 million blood

> donations made each year in this country - raking in another $60

> million annually for Chiron while raising the nation's medical costs

> that much more.

>

> And all this testing is being done for a virus that has never been

> isolated. Profits from the test kit have generated another all-too-

> common part of virus hunting. With Chiron's new income from the

> hepatitis C test, Penhoet's company bought out Cetus, another biotech

> company, founded by Donald Glaser, who, like Penhoet, also holds a

> position as professor of molecular and cell biology at the University

> of California at Berkeley. And Chiron made an unrestricted donation

> of about 12 million to the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology

> at the University of California at Berkeley that generates $100,000

> in interest each year.

>

> Unfortunately for Peter Duesberg, who belongs to the same department,

> his supervisor is yet another professor who consults for Chiron

> Corporation - and displays little sympathy for Duesberg for

> challenging modern virus hunting by restricting his academic duties

> to undergraduate student teaching and by not appointing him to

> decision-making committees. Such conflicts of interest have become

> standard fixtures in university biology departments.

>

> The modern biomedical research establishment differs radically from

> any previous scientific program in history. Driven by vast infusions

> of federal and commercial money, it has grown into an enormous and

> powerful bureaucracy that greatly amplifies its successes, all the

> while stifling dissent. Such a process can no longer be called

> science, which by definition depends on self-correction by internal

> challenge and debate.

>

> end of article excerpt

>

> So, Chiron pretends to isolate a virus, and by welding together

> powerful players in the virus-hunting field, steamrolls its way into

> a new construct of a disease that has never been proven to exist. And

> rakes in major $$$.

>

> Chiron, who now has millions of contaminated flu vaccine shots loose

> in the US.

>

> JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com

> http://www.nomorefakenews.com/archives/archiveview.php?key=2213

>

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