Merck Vaccine Chief Brings HIV/AIDS to America
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listen now to the voice of the world's
leading vaccine expert,Dr Maurice Hilleman
chief of the Merck pharmaceutical company vaccine division,
relay this problem he was having
with imported monkeys
he best explains the origins of Aids
but what you are about to hear
was cut from any public disclosures
And I think that vaccines have to be considerd
the bargain basement
technology for the 20th century.
50 years ago,when Maurice Hilleman
was a high school student in Miles City,Montana
he hoped he might qualify as a management trainee
for the local JC Penny store,instead
he went on to pioneer more break throughs
in vaccine research and development than anyone in the history of american medicine
Among the discoveries
he made at Merck
are vaccines for mumps,rubella and measles.
Tell me
how you found SV40 in the polio vaccine
Well,that was at Merck,i came to Merck
and huh,
i was going to develop vaccines
and we had wild viruses in those days,remember
the wild monkey kidney viruses and so forth,
and i finally,after 6 months gave up
i said that you cannot develop vaccines
with those damned monkeys,we were finished
and if i can't do something,i will quit,i'm gonna try
so i went down to see Bill Man
at the zoo in Washington DC and i told Bill Man,
i said,look,i've got a problem,i don't know what the hell to do
Bill man is a real bright guy
i said, these ...monkeys are picking it up
and while being stored in the airports
in transit at these loading/off loading venues
he said,very simple
,he said,you go ahead
get you monkeys out of west Africa,get the African Greens
bring them in to Madrid
unload them there,there is no other traffic for animals,
fly them in to Philadelphia,pick them up
or fly them to New York and pick them up
right off the airport
so i brought African greens in,i didnt know we were importing Aids virus at the time.
*laughs*
so it was you who introduced Aids virus in the country!
*repeat*
This is the real story.
*repeat*
What Merck won't do to develop a vaccine.
Yeah,right!
So,what he did,he brought in
we brought in those monkeys,now we had those
and this was the solution,because those monkeys didn't have the wild viruses
but we had all of these-why didn't the greens
have wild viruses,because they came from Africa?
because they weren't,well,they weren't being infected in
these group holding things with all the other 40 different viruses
But they had the ones they brought from the jungle though?
Yeah,they had those but they were relatively few
but what you do is,you have a gang housing,you gonna have an epidemic
transmission of infection in a confined space.
-Oh,is that the problem? -So,anyway,the greens came in
now,we had these and then
we were taking our ?
to clean them up and,
god,now we were discovering new viruses
so,i said,judas priest
I got an invitation from The Sister Kenny Foundation
which was the opposing foundation
and that was the live virus.
Alright- Yeah,they end up sometimes saving ?
They asked me to come down give a talk
they had the Sister Kenny Foundation meeting
and i said,it was an international meeting,god
what am i gonna talk about?
i know what i'm gonna do,i'm gonna talk about
the detection of non detectable viruses
as a topic.-They were those who,
didn't want a live virus vaccine.
They concentrated on ??type paralysis
concentrated all its efforts
and getting more and more people to use the kill virus vaccine...
while they were supporting me
for research on live viruses.
So now i got have something you know,that's gonna attract attention
so i thought,gee,that damn SV40
i mean,that damn vaculating agent that we have
i'm gonna just pick that particular one
that virus has got to be in vaccines and huh,
its gotta to be in the safest vaccines so
i quickly tested them
sure enough it was in there and
-i'll be damned- so now,huh,so i go ahead and...
-so you just took stocks of Sabin vaccine off the shelf here -yeah
well,it had not been made,it was made at Merck
You were making it for Sabin at this point? yeah-
but it was made before i came
yeah,but at this point Sabin was still doing these massive field trials
huh huh-ok- in Russia and so forth so i got down,i talked about the
the detection on non detectable viruses
i told Albert
*repeat*
*repeat*
*repeat*
i told Albert,i said listen Albert,
i said,you and i are good friends,i said,i'm gonna
i'm gonna put it down there and you gonna get upset
I'm gonna talk about a virus that's in your vaccine
You gonna get rid of the virus,don't worry about it,you gonna get rid of it
but,huh...
well,of course Albert was very upset
What did he say?
Well,he said basically,that it's just
another obfuscation
that's gonna upset the vaccine
and i said,well you know,you're absolutely right,we have a new era here,we have a new
era of a detection and the important thing is to get rid of these viruses
Why would he call it an obfuscation if it was the virus
that was contaminating the vaccine?-,well,no because we
well,there were 40 different viruses in these vaccines anyway
that we were inactivating,and huh
-but you weren't inactivating the? that's correct
that's right,but the yellow fever vaccine
had leukemia virus in it and you know
this is in the days of very crude science.
Anyway,i went down and talked to him ?
Why are you concerned about it?
Well,i tell you,i said,i have a feeling in my bones that this virus
is different,i don't know why to tell you this
but i've been around?
i just think this virus may have some long term effects
and he said:what? Well,cancer
*laughs*
i love it!
...no
i said,Albert,i said,you probably think i'm nuts
but,i just have that feeling,on the meantime
we had taken this virus and put it into the monkey
and into the hamsters-uh uh-
so,we had this meeting and that was
sort of the topic of the day and
the jokes that were going around was,gee
we would win the Olympics because the Russians would all be loaded down
with tumors*laughs*
this is where the vaccines were being tested,this is
yeah,right-
so huh,and it really destroyed the meaning of ?,and it was a big
*mumbles*...yeah,right-
and this was the topic
anyway -was this huh,at the meeting in New York
No,no this was the,huh,Sister Kenny
oh Sister Kenny,right-and Delbago got up and said huh,
he foresaw
problems with those kind of agents
-why didnt this get out in the press?-well,i guess
we had no press release and obviously
you dont go around,this is a scientific affair
within the scientific community
*repeat*
*music*
*music*
*music*
"And historic victory over a dread disease has dramatically enfolded
at the University of Michigan,here scientists
sharing new medical aid with the monumental report that proves the Salk vaccine against crippling
polio to be a sensational success.
It's a day of triumph for 40 yo Dr Jonas E.Salk
developper of the vaccine,he arrives with Basil O'Connor
head of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis
which financed the tests.Hundreds of reporters
and scientists from all over the nation gathered for the momentous annoucement
There's too much of a show,there's too much Hollywood
there is too much exaggeration
and the impression in 1957 that was,
huh no, 1954
huh that was given was that the problem had been solved,
that polio had been conquered-but anyway
we know it was in our seed stock for making the vaccines
that virus,you see,is one in ten thousand products
that's not inactivated by formaldehyde .
It was good science at the time because that's what you did,
you didn't worry about these wild viruses.
So,you discovered it wasn't being inactivated in the Salk vaccine?
So then the next thing you know is
3,4 weeks after that,we found that they were tumors
popping out in these hamsters.
Despite Aids and leukemia suddenly becoming pandemic
from wild viruses
Hilleman said,this was "good science" ...
at that time!