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From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: HICN410 News -- excerpts.
Message-ID: <1991May29.132144.24673@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 29 May 91 12:31:16 GMT
References: <1991May27.154130.19915@cs.ucla.edu> <1991May28.144110.10846@cs.ucla.edu> <1991May29.103535.18656@cs.ucla.edu>
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In article <1991May29.103535.18656@cs.ucla.edu> dmcanzi@watserv1.waterloo.edu (David Canzi) writes:
>In article <1991May28.144110.10846@cs.ucla.edu> John_Graves@cellbio.duke.edu (John Graves) writes:
>>>The mystery of the origin of the world's first known AIDS virus, whose
>>>discovery was claimed by both French and American researchers, has
>>>apparently been solved, according to a report in Sunday's Chicago
>>>Tribune.  French scientists at Paris' Pasteur Institute say they are
>>>now virtually certain the virus originated in their laboratories.
>>
>>This is a very confusing posting.
>>[I] would certainly like more information than obtained 
>>in your briefly worded summary.  
>
>I didn't write it, I only excerpted it from HICN News (which is posted

I think that a full article can be found in the Tuesday 'Science Times'
in the New York Times some two weeks ago.  The issue was what the origin
of the first identified sample of the HIV virus *isolated in the
laboratory from an infected patient* (not made de novo).  Credit for this
useful and worthwhile discovery (which has resulted in significant
worthwhile research, including all vaccine trials, the HIV blood test,
identification of very earily victims of HIV etc) had been claimed by
both a group at the NIH in Washington and at the Institute Pasteur in
Paris.  It had been generally thought that the French group correctly
claimed precidence, hence the name HIV rather than HLTV-3 which latter 
was given by the US group.  In fact it is now thought that:

A viral sample from the French group was taken to the US.  This was a
relatively vigorous sample and contaminated a sample in the US.  In
addition it had or would contaminate a sample in France.  This explains
why the French and US samples had identical genetic make-up, despite the
rapid mutations in retroviruses.  It also demonstrates that mistakes were
made in both laboratories but that all of this could well have happened
without and bad faith or scientific misconduct in either laboratory, as
it is known that a sample (but not the sample from which the virus was
finally isolated in either laboratory) was shared.
--
Rolfe G. Petschek			Petschek@cwru.bitnet
Associate Professor of Physics		rgp@po.cwru.edu
Case Western Reserve University		(216)368-4035 
Cleveland Oh 44106-7970