Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
RESPONSE: Paul M. Osterrieth, MD, Ph.D. - November 20, 2001
"The point is that creationists and social critics who decry science as dogmatic obedience to authority and old-boys network of closed-minded fogies are simply mistaken"
Michael Shermer, I Was Wrong, Scientific American, October 2001
In a paper presented at a meeting of the Academmia Nazionale dei Lincei on September 28, 2001, Mr. Edward Hooper made a very grave accusation: namely, that I had prepared CHAT oral polio vaccine in chimpanzee cells for human use in the former Belgian Congo, which cells were contaminated with the chimpanzee relative of HIV-1. This accusation was based on the alleged statements of an unnamed African assistant. Mr. Hooper also states that I did this clandestinely at night on the orders of the Provincial Medical Director, and that documents of the time reveal that only cultured chimpanzee cells were available in the laboratory.
All of these statements are false. It is worth remembering that these allegations follow numerous others by Mr. Hooper, all demolished at the meeting held in September 2000 at the Royal Society1.
Previously he had argued that SIVcpz contamination of polio vaccine had occurred in Philadelphia, in Belgium, or in Rwanda. Mr. Hooper appears to have abandoned those theories in favor of putting the blame on myself and the tiny virology laboratory in Kisangani.
This response supplements my prior paper at the Royal Society2, which was accompanied by other refutations (Plotkin, Koprowski, Plotkin et al). As discussed in those papers, the reports of the virology laboratory published at the time are quite clear on my activities.
In 1958 tissue culture was carried out exclusively with kidneys from Cynocephalus monkeys, 200 tubes and 10 bottles were produced. 36 tubes were used for the 9 analysis that were all negatives. The remaining tubes and the bottles were used to prepare adenovirus antigen for complement fixation tests3.
In 1959 tissue culture was carried out with Hela cells, over the year 2500 tubes were produced and used for isolation of viruses4.
Trypsinisation was used to obtain the cell suspensions.
On six occasions chimpanzee kidneys were roughly minced, suspended in nutrient fluid and send to the USA. No Maitland type tissue cultures of any animal were produced in the lab, and no vaccine was produced. As already said, we did not have the facilities to produce polio vaccine and we could not even check reliably the titre of vaccine lots.
To use chimpanzees kidneys for tissue culture would have been economically nonsensical since they were costly to obtain when other monkeys were easily and cheaply available from natives.
Liver biopsies were taken from chimpanzees during the study on infectious hepatitis, and may have been misinterpreted by congolese helps; these persons were manual workers who had only basic practical traning.
The allegation that chimpanzee serum was prepared to be used in tissue culture medium for chimpanzee cells in culture is sheer nonsense, since at that time one used calf serum or sometimes foetal calf serum to enrich the culture medium, because this kind of serum was easily available in sufficient amounts.
It is true that the access of the tissue culture laboratory was restricted to myself, and quite possible that some days I did work there after sunset since at that time of the day I would not have been disturbed by visitors or phone calls. It remains astonishing that people who recognise that they had no access to these facilities would know precisely what kind of work I did carry in this lab, what kind of tissue culture was performed, what kind of virus was inoculated, what kind of serum was used.
Mr Hooper states that in year 2000 I wrote to natives in Stanleyville to ask them to say nothing about what was carried out in my lab in the years of vaccination. This is simply not true, I never wrote such a letter, and if such a document exists Mr. Hooper should produce it for examination.
I would now like to clarify my role in the laboratory.
During the late fifties I was working at the Laboratoire Medical Provincial in Stanleyville, Belgian Congo. Several MDs were working in this institute, each having the responsibility of a department. Dr Ghislain Courtois was the director of the laboratory, and he was one of the experts of the WHO, Dr Gaston Ninane was the pathologist, and I was the microbiologist in charge with bacteriology, virology and mycology with the efficient help of Pierre Doupagne for bacteriology and mycology, his special skill.
With P. Doupagne I published in 1958 a paper on the incidence of the different bacteria in cultures of human urine5.
In 1958 Prof. M. Welsch visited our lab; we studied together the transformation of Gram negative rods into «protoplasts»6,
Many chimpanzees of the Lindi camp were dying with signs of pneumonia and quite often the isolated germ was a Klebsiella, thus I made a comparative study of the biochemical properties of these bacteria7. One should remember that the presence of Klebsiella is not an indication of HIV infection, but that this opportunistic bacteria can colonize any organism that has a decrease in its natural defences, as is well known in hospitals. The chimpanzees because of their captivity were in such a state of decreased resistance.
To be complete I also carried out a serological study on Lymphogranulomatosis venereum using a complement fixation test8.
For years prior to 1957, Dr Courtois had shown, by the examination of liver sections, that yellow fever was present in the Belgian Congo. The thin sections, when declared positives by him and Dr Ninane, were always sent for confirmation to various other experts Dr Levaditi (Institut Pasteur de Paris), Dr Bearcroft (Virus research Institute Lagos) Dr Thys (Institut Princesse Astrid Léopoldville) Dr Smithburn (South African Institute Medical Research) Dr Gast-Galves (Institut Carlos Finlay Bogota) Dr Camain (Institut Pasteur de Dakar). But since the presence of Councilman bodies is not as good a proof as virus isolation, and because some people disagreed with the anatomical evidence, Dr Courtois longed for the ability to isolate the yellow fever virus. For this reason he asked a WHO fellowship and sent me to the USA at the Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory of the United States Public Health Service, Communicable Disease Center at Montgomery Alabama, to follow the course «Laboratory diagnosis of viral and rickettsial diseases».
After that I spent another month and a half in these laboratories and a further month at the Wistar Institute to get some additional training in tissue culture and virus work.
After return to Stanleyville, where I took office on February 28 19589, and not earlier as stated by Mr Hooper, my job was to isolate arboviruses, especially yellow fever virus. I was also asked to open a virus lab for isolation on tissue10 culture of various other virus and to develop serological tests.
I had brought various viruses of the arbovirus group that could be passed into baby mice, and which therefore could be used for in vivo neutralisation tests. Using this technique I tested a large number of sera against a battery of viruses, involving the inoculation of large number of mice and a follow up of the inoculated animals for two weeks at least. The results of these experiments were published 11, 12.
As Dr Courtois and myself were looking for cases of yellow fever, therefore we asked the doctors in the various «bush» hospitals to alert us immediately when a suspected case of yellow fever was detected. Dr Blanes, responsible for the medical service in Doruma called us, and a joint mission went immediately to investigate. I stayed there from November 11 to December 15, 1958. Various strains of viruses were isolated in mice that later were diagnosed by Dr Haddow of Entebbe some as Yellow Fever virus13 and others as Chikungunya14, 15. The next year I went to Bili (from December 9 to December 14 1959) at the request of Dr Rathe to investigate another case, and once more isolated other strains of arboviruses, yellow fever and Chikungunnya, as typed by Dr Haddow. The results of these investigations were published16. The report on arbovirus work takes 6.5 of 10 pages in the 1958 report of the virus laboratory, and 3 of 5 in the 1959 report, showing clearly that arbovirus work was my main task at that time, and the one for which I had been trained. Back in Belgium I continued to study arboviruses and my Doctoral thesis was on an arbovirus, Semliki Forest Virus17. Quite clearly my primary task was neither to prepare cell culture nor to prepare vaccine, as stated by Mr Hooper.
I did help some researchers to carry out their work on chimpanzees. The general idea was that since the lab had a chimpanzee colony it was a good opportunity to study their blood groups18 and lipid metabolism19. I helped in preparing and sending the serum samples and thus was associated to the publication. For this same reason, preparing and sending samples, I am among the authors of a paper on the liver function tests20.
In fact I had nothing to do with the polio experiments in chimpanzees at the Lindi camp. I went there only occasionally with some visitor at the request of Dr Courtois . I did not carry out any autopsy since this was the job of Dr Ninane the pathologist, (who is stated to have examined organs from 21 chimpanzees in the 1959 report), and I was not the one who took blood from the chimpanzees. Blood samples that were taken, in very limited quantities , for serological and biochemical analysis. However, serum was never used for tissue culture. When an autopsy was carried out, limited pieces of different organs were taken to carry out various analysis either to determine the cause of a natural death or to look for pathological changes following an inoculation.
Chimpanzees are very strong animals, and quite difficult to handle, for instance to take a blood sample. For this reason they were kept alone in individual cages and not together in a common one, with the possible exception of infants that could be handled easily. Pictures taken at the time of the cages, built of wood and iron mesh, by units of twin cages, show that it was so.
The camp and the buildings were closed to the public, and only a very limited number of persons could enter : the keeper Mr Daenen, the congolese help, and the medical staff of the lab. This was not due to secrecy, but in respect of the rules of sound epidemiology: when one deals with animals and infectious diseases isolation must be imposed to protect the animals from germs coming from outside and to protect humans from the inoculated diseases. Of course, to lay people it might appear as «top secret business»!
As a final note I wish to say how disgraceful and mean I found Mr.Hooper's public statements concerning illnesses that my late colleague and friend Dr. G Ninane is supposed to have suffered, and the use of those statements to cast doubt on the value of his testimony. In fact, his family denies that he had either Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer disease, neither of which were clinically apparent when he was interviewed.
My conclusion is simple: the whole story of my producing vaccine in chimpanzee kidney cultures, and of chimpanzees being kept for the production of CHAT vaccine is pure fantasy built in the imagination of irresponsible people. In Stanleyville I had a much more interesting job, that of arbovirus hunter. Paul M. Osterrieth, MD, Ph.D. Hon. Ass. Prof of Microbiology University of Liège Belgium
1. Proceedings of the Royal Society,Special issue, Origins of HIV and the AIDS epidemic,2000,356,777- 977
2 Vaccine could not have been prepared in Stanleyville» P. Osterrieth, Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2000,356,839.
3 Rapport annuel 1958, Laboratoire Medical Provincial, Stanleyville, Congo Belge.
4 Rapport Annuel 1959 du Laboratoire Medical Provincial de Stanleyville, Congo Belge, Section virologie, Compte rendu analytique.
5 Note sur l’incidence des differents germes dans les urinocultures, leur sensibilité aux antibiotiques» P. Osterrieth, P. Doupagne Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop. 1958,38,731-736
6 A comparative study of the transformation of gram-negative rods into «protoplasts» under the influence of Penicillin and glycine» M. Welsch, P. Osterrieth, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, 1958, 24,257-273
7 Propriétés biochimiques des Klebsiella»P. Osterrieth, Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop. 1958,38,721-730
8 La réaction de deviation du complément avec l’anytigène de la lymphogranulomatose vénérienne (Maladie de Nicolas-Favre) chez l’indigène de la région de Stranleyville (Congo Belge).»P. Osterrieth, Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop. 1959,39,663-674.
9 cf note N° 4
10 0y tissue culture one really mean culture of cells and not of tissues
11 Arthropod-borne viruses in the north-eastern part of the Congo»P. Osterrieth, P. Deleplanque-Liégeois, R. Renoirte, Trans. Roy. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1961, 55, 246- 257
12 Présence d’anticorps vis-à-vis des virus transmis par arthropodes chez les cj
13 Isolement du virus de la fièvre jaune au Congo Belge»G. Courtois, P. Osterrieth, G. Blanes-Ridaura, Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop. 1960 40, 20-65
14 Recherches sur le virus Chikungunya au Congo Belge.1. Isolement du virus dans le haut Uele» P. Osterrieth, G. Blanes-Ridaura, Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop. 1960 40199-204
15 Recherches sur le virus Chikungunya au Congo Belge. 2. Enquete serologique» P. Oszterrieth, P. Deleplanque-Liégeois, R. Renoirte, Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop. 1961, 40, 205-214.
16 « Isolement simultané des virus de la fièvre jaune et Chikunguny à Bili (Haut Uele, Congo Belge) P. Osterrieth, P. Deleplanque-Liégeois, E. Rathe, Ann. Soc. Belge Med. Trop.1961, 41, 207-212.
17 Recherches sur la structure et la fonction des couches externes du virus de la Foret de la Semliki: modifications de celle-ci par la Caseinase C » P. Osterrieth, Memoires de la Soc. Roy. des Sciences de Liège, 1968,16, fasc. 5, 1-125.
18 Mise en évidence d’ntigènes de groupes sanguins A, B, C et Rh chez les singes chimpanzés» A. André, G. Courtopis, G. Ldennes, G. Ninane, P. Osterrieth, Ann. Inst. Pasteur,1961, 101, 82-95
19 Le métabolisme lipidique du chimpanzé (Pan satyrus schweinfurti). R. Dezlcourt, M. Vastesaeger, G. Ninane, P. Osterrieth, Acta Cardiol., 1964, 6, 531-545.
20 Studies of liver function tests in chimpanzees after inoculation with human infectiuous hepatitis virus». F. Deinhardt, G. Courtois, P. Dherte, P. Osterrieth, G. Ninane; G. Henle; W. Henle, American J. Hyg.,1962, 75, 311-321.
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