Subject: FDA Clears Test Of Polio Vaccine As AIDS Therapy
Date: Published: 6/23/88 60 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   FDA Clears Test
   Of Polio Vaccine
   As AIDS Therapy
    ---
   By Michael Waldholz
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   The U. S. Food and Drug Administration said yesterday it
gave a Los Angeles doctor permission to test the Salk polio
vaccine as a treatment for acquired immune deficiency
syndrome.
   The approval follows months of negotiations among FDA
officials, Connaught Laboratories Inc., which is the sole
manufacturer of injectable polio vaccine in the U. S., and a
group of Los Angeles researchers who claim, based on limited
studies, that the vaccine can help relieve AIDS symptoms.
   In January, it was reported that several researchers had
shown that a handful of patients showed an improvement in
their health after being administered daily doses of
inactivated polio virus.  The researchers, Allen D. Allen and
Ferris Pitts of Los Angeles, also argued that the vaccine
might be useful because it works in a manner similar to
Peptide T, a drug under investigation for treating AIDS. 
   The researchers' claims are considered highly
controversial, especially because reports about the vaccine
have led some doctors to try it on their patients with AIDS. 
The FDA and Connaught said the new study will be undertaken
in order to determine if the vaccine has any usefulness.
   The 30-patient study, paid for by Los Angeles County and
the University of California at Los Angeles, will be
conducted by Glenn Mathisen at the Los Angeles County-Olive
View Medical Center in Sylmar, Calif.
   Mr. Allen, a researcher at Algorithm Inc., Northridge,
Calif., said, "We don't believe this is a cure; we think it
deserves a legitimate study, and that's what we've got."
Swiftwater, Pa.-based Connaught, a unit of CDC Life Sciences
Inc. in Toronto, makes only a limited supply of injectable
Salk vaccine because the Sabin oral polio vaccine is
preferred by physicians for use in preventing polio.  A
company spokeswoman said that Connaught has no evidence that
the vaccine works against AIDS, and that it was supplying the
vaccine based on "theoretical possibilities."
   Yesterday's announcement by the FDA isn't the first time
in recent weeks that the name of the developer of the Salk
polio vaccine, Jonas Salk, has been linked to research into
AIDS therapies.  Last week, the 73-year-old Dr. Salk sparked a
controversy at the international AIDS conference in Stockholm
by proposing that people afflicted with AIDS be inoculated
with whole but inactivated AIDS viruses in an effort to
bolster their immune systems.

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