"Study Finds No Link Between Polio Vaccine, Cancer"

Immunization Newsbriefs (c) Copyright Information Inc., Bethesda, MD. Brought to you by the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii). Visit NNii's new website at http://www.immunizationinfo.org.

 

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January 03, 2003

 

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

 

"Study Finds No Link Between Polio Vaccine, Cancer"

Reuters Health Information Services (www.reutershealth.com) (01/01/03)

 

A theory that the polio vaccine used 40 years ago caused an increase in cancer risk among recipients was recently disproved by researchers, who found no evidence that the monkey virus, called simian virus 40 (SV40), contaminated the vaccine through production methods that used cultured kidney cells from monkeys to grow poliovirus.  According to U.S. health officials, polio vaccines have been free of the monkey virus since 1963; but concern for people vaccinated with the original formula between 1953 and 1963 has mounted as SV40 DNA has been detected in some pleural mesothelioma tumors.  However, new research by Dr. Howard D. Strickler and colleagues of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City shows no definitive link between the contaminated polio vaccine and cancer after studying national pleural mesothelioma incidence rates between 1975 and 1997.  The cancer was rare--with less than one person per 100,000 diagnosed each year--and although there were increases in incidence over time, the most significant increases were seen in the most senior groups of individuals, who were unlikely to have received the contaminated vaccine.

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