Emergent Human Pathogen Simian Virus 40 and Its Role in Cancer
The use of viral vectors in vaccine development
SV-40 mentioned as a vector.
Contamination, my arse.
The discovery of the polyomavirus SV40, as well as its introduction as a pathogen into the human population, was tied to the development and worldwide distribution of early forms of the polio vaccine (13, 95, 111, 123). Inactivated (Salk) and early live attenuated (Sabin) forms of polio vaccines were inadvertently contaminated with SV40 (95, 97, 111). In addition, different adenovirus vaccines distributed to some U.S. military personnel from 1961 to 1965 also contained SV40 (64). The viral contamination occurred because these early vaccines were prepared in primary cultures of kidney cells derived from rhesus monkeys, which are often naturally infected with SV40 (13, 95, 111). Infectious SV40 survived the vaccine inactivation treatments, and conservative estimates indicate that up to 30 million people (children and adults) in the United States may have been exposed to live SV40 from 1955 through 1963 when administered potentially contaminated polio vaccines (95, 111). Millions of people worldwide were also potentially exposed to SV40 because contaminated polio vaccines were distributed and used in many countries (85, 123). These data led the Institute of Medicine to conclude that “the biological evidence is of moderate strength that SV40 exposure from the polio vaccine is related to SV40 infection in humans” (111).