Merck Vaccine Chief Brings HIV/AIDS to America

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!