Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1984. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Friday, March 16, 1984
The report, to be published today in the journal Science, said people who donated blood to those who contracted AIDS showed significantly greater evidence of the virus than a randomly selected group of other donors.
Researchers noted that the study does not prove conclusively that blood transfusions or the virus in question cause AIDS. But they say it does indicate a possible route of transmission for the disease and further implicates the virus.
AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is a condition that results in the collapse of the immune system that defends the body against disease. Victims become susceptible to rare cancers, pneumonia and other infections that lead to disability and death.
The federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said more than 3,600 AIDS cases have been reported since 1981 and that the incurable disease continues to have a death rate of 40 per cent.
Most victims have been promiscuous male homosexuals, but other high-risk groups identified by the CDC are intravenous drug abusers, Haitian immigrants and hemophiliacs.
About 24 hemophiliacs who use plasma products to control their bleeding have contracted AIDS. More than 40 other transfusion recipients who do not fall into the high-risk groups also have come down with the disease.
Even though a few cases of AIDS have been associated with transfusions, the American Red Cross says the nation's blood supply is safe for the three million Americans who receive blood each year for a variety of ills.
However, to reduce potential risk, the Red Cross last year issued guidelines calling for suspected AIDS victims and those in high-risk groups to refrain from donating blood.
Although the cause is unknown, scientists suspect that AIDS is transmitted by an infectious agent, probably a virus, through intimate contact with body fluids such as saliva and blood. One of the suspect viruses, human T-cell leukemia virus, or HTLV, is further implicated in the latest study.
In the report, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, the CDC and other institutions said they tested blood serum samples from 12 patients who had AIDS associated with blood transfusions they received an average of 24 months before diagnosis.
The test looked for antibodies against HTLV-infected cells, an indication of exposure to the virus.
The researchers also looked at samples from 117 donors who gave blood to the 12 and compared the results with 298 randomly selected specimens from other donors.
The study found that nine of the 117 donors to the AIDS patients had HTLV antibodies, while only one of the 298 donors in the control group had such antibodies.
Moreover, when donors were divided into groups according to who directly contributed blood to each of the 12 AIDS patients, the researchers found that nine of the 12 groups included one donor with HTLV antibodies.
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