Subject: AIDS Work and Cat Research Share Benefits
Date: Published: 8/14/80 112 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones Inc. 

   AIDS Work,
   Cat Research
   Share Benefits
    ---
   By Jerry E. Bishop
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   Humans are repaying a debt to the world's cats.
   The debt was incurred when a lethal cat disease called
feline leukemia helped pinpoint a human leukemia virus as a
probable cause of human AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency
syndrome.  Now, scientists say AIDS research is helping in the
struggle against feline leukemia.
   "Cats have given their lives for humans for years, so it's
about time we did something for them," says Mary Burr
Fristachi, a Brooklyn artist who lost three of her five cats
to feline leukemia.
   Feline leukemia is one of the most common -- and most
dreaded -- cat diseases.  Up to a million of the nation's 52
million pet cats are expected to die of it.  Once loose in a
household or a cattery, it can decimate the cat population.
   In 1945, Scottish scientists discovered that the disease
is caused by a virus.  At the time, scientists believed that
animal cancer viruses were transmitted only "vertically,"
that is, from parent to offspring through the genes.  But in
the late 1960s, William D. Hardy of Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center developed a diagnostic test for feline leukemia
that enabled scientists to study the pattern of the leukemia
virus's spread among cats.  In 1973 they reported that feline
leukemia is contagious -- it spreads "horizontally" from cat
to cat, via saliva and possibly through urine and mother's
milk.
   Contact has to be "close and intimate," says Dr. Hardy.
Cats that groom each other and share the same feeding bowls
and litter pans are the susceptible ones.  The virus can also
be spread by blood transfusions.
   (Scientists have found no evidence that the cat virus is
dangerous to humans.  But, Dr. Hardy, who owns three cats,
says he believes children and pregnant women shouldn't be
exposed to cats harboring the virus.)  
   Most cats can develop an immunity to the virus, or seem to
be infected only temporarily.  Those that become chronically
infected will initially seem healthy but die within three
years.  Researchers also noticed that only about a fifth of
chronically infected cats developed leukemia.  The remainder
succumbed to a host of other ailments, including anemias,
chronic infections, pneumonias and nonhealing wounds.  These
ailments suggested the cats' immune systems were being
suppressed, making them vulnerable to microbes that
ordinarily wouldn't cause serious disease.
   When the human AIDS epidemic broke out three years ago,
scientists noticed that the characteristics of feline
leukemia were strikingly similar to the characteristics of
AIDS. They began to speculate that AIDS too might be caused
by a virus.
   Robert C. Gallo, a virologist at the National Cancer
Institute, and his colleagues here and in Japan had proved
that a human virus was the cause of a rare human leukemia
called T-cell leukemia.  If a virus could cause both leukemia
and immune suppression in cats, then perhaps this human
leukemia virus might also be causing AIDS. The scientists
began checking the blood of AIDS victims for signs of
infection by the human T-cell leukemia virus, or HTLV. 
   At the same time, Max Essex, a veterinarian at the Harvard
School of Public Health in Boston, found that the feline
leukemia virus did indeed cause a feline version of AIDS,
nicknamed FAIDS. 
   Recently, Dr. Gallo and his colleagues reported evidence
that human AIDS is caused by a virus related to, but separate
from, HTLV. Scientists are now trying to see if the same is
true in feline leukemia/FAIDS. 
   "Research efforts on HTLV and feline leukemia are
cross-fertilizing each other and should make it more likely
that diagnostic tests and vaccines will be available far
earlier than would ordinarily be the case," says Dr. Essex.
   The cat researchers are several steps ahead of AIDS
researchers.  Dr. Hardy's diagnostic test has been available
for several years.  And earlier this year, a new diagnostic
test for the feline leukemia virus was introduced by
TechAmerica Group Inc., an Elwood, Kan., producer of
veterinary products.  The test can be performed by a
veterinarian in about 20 minutes at a cost to the cat owner
of about $15.
   A team of immunologists headed by Richard Olsen at Ohio
State University is completing work on another feline
leukemia vaccine.  These scientists had to overcome a problem
that may face researchers into AIDS. Traditionally, explains
Lawrence Mathes, one of the Ohio State scientists, vaccines
are made by either killing or weakening the virus so that
when administered it can stimulate the body to build up an
immunity without causing disease.  This failed to work in
feline leukemia/FAIDS. The killed virus vaccine was
ineffective; the weakened virus vaccine caused leukemia.
   The scientists solved this by infecting feline cells in
the test tube with the virus and then extracting the proteins
that the cells released.  When these proteins were used as a
vaccine, 87% of the vaccinated cats didn't contract the
disease after being bombarded with the virus.
   The Ohio State vaccine has been turned over to Norden
Laboratories, the veterinary subsidiary of SmithKline-Beckman
Corp., the big drug maker.  Norden is in the final stages of
testing the vaccine and expects to seek federal approval soon
to market it.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
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hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]