Subject: Salk Polio Vaccine Is Used to Treat AIDS in a Few Patients Date: Published: 1/27/88 138 lines Source: WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. Salk Polio Vaccine Is Used to Treat AIDS in Experiments on a Few Patients --- By Michael Waldholz Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal The Salk polio vaccine, developed 33 years ago, is being tried as a treatment for AIDS. An initial report indicates the vaccine has improved the health of the handful of patients who have received repeated doses. But neither this preliminary data, nor anecdotal reports from other physicians, indicate whether the improvement was due to the vaccine or if its effect is long-lasting. The improvement being reported in vaccinated patients is neither greater nor less than seen initially in a number of other experimental treatments for the fatal AIDS virus -- some of which subsequently proved useless. Researchers said past vaccinations with the Salk preventive couldn't affect AIDS and have no bearing on the experimental treatment. But the polio-vaccine experiments are attracting unusual attention. The Salk vaccine is available and can be administered by physicians for uses other than preventing polio, although such use isn't encouraged. Despite the tenuousness of the results, there is fear that publicity about the Salk vaccine experiments, which use repeated injections, will create a stampede for the limited supplies. Because the Sabin oral polio vaccine is now the preferred and most widely used polio preventive, the injectable Salk vaccine, which costs about $10 a shot, is distributed only in limited quantities by a single company, Connaught Laboratories Inc., Swiftwater, Pa. Connaught, a unit of CDC Life Sciences Inc. of Toronto, declined to comment on the validity of the AIDS research. But through a spokeswoman Connaught said that "when and if the company receives" a research request from a legitimate investigator "it will be reviewed ... to see if the company can be of any assistance." Researchers familiar with the AIDS-Salk vaccine link said they expected a further study of the vaccine to be undertaken soon, but they wouldn't identify the investigator. The Salk vaccine experiments are expected to be controversial, partly because the initial experiments are being carried out by a Los Angeles psychiatrist, Ferris Pitts, who is outside the conventional circle of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, researchers. Dr. Pitts, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Southern California, also has a financial interest in the vaccine; he and a colleague, Allen D. Allen, have applied to the U. S. government to patent its AIDS-related use. Dr. Pitts currently is treating only eight patients. A preliminary review involving the treatment of four of the patients will be published in coming months in the medical journal, Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology, published by Academic Press, San Diego. The experiments are also attracting unusual scientific interest. That's because a group of government scientists speculate that the Salk vaccine works in a manner similar to Peptide T, an experimental and controversial drug that also blocked the activity of the AIDS virus in laboratory tests. Peptide T is also stirring considerable interest even though it, too, has been administered to only a handful of patients in very early stages of human testing and is otherwise unavailable for use. In his study, Dr. Pitts reported that all AIDS-related symptoms, such as opportunistic infections, disappeared in patients injected with the vaccine three times a week for a period of time between three months and one year. Moreover, there was an increase in each of the patient's T4 cells, white blood cells involved in the immune system that are killed by the AIDS virus. He cited no adverse side effects, but the report is otherwise thin in the kind of details needed to evaluate the vaccine's effectiveness. Dr. Pitts first used repeated Salk vaccinations 20 years ago to treat his son, who was suffering from a type of leukemia. Dr. Pitts said the disease has since been in remission. Several years ago, he tried the treatment on an AIDS patient, believing the vaccine stimulated the immune system. The patient improved, Dr. Pitts said, but he added that he has lost touch with the patient and doesn't know whether he is still alive. Several months ago, Dr. Pitts's colleague, Mr. Allen, suggested there was a similarity between the polio virus and Peptide T following a conversation with scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health, the government agency in Bethesda, Md. The NIMH researchers, who discovered Peptide T in 1986, confirmed that one strain of the polio virus contains protein fragments that are identical to Peptide T. The Salk vaccine is composed of killed polio virus. In November, Mr. Allen, a researcher at Algorithm Inc., Northridge, Calif., sent 20 blood samples to the NIMH researchers. Included, but not identified, were four from Dr. Pitts's patients who had been treated with Salk vaccine. In a report sent to Mr. Allen, the NIMH researchers found that only the blood of the patients treated with Salk vaccine neutralized the AIDS virus in a test tube. The neutralizing action was similar to that of Peptide T, the NIMH researchers reported. Candace Pert, the NIMH researcher who discovered Peptide T, declined to comment. But Micheal Pistoli, a Washington, D. C., doctor who treats AIDS patients, said Ms. Pert suggested he try the Salk vaccine in patients for whom other treatment had failed or was too toxic. Dr. Pistoli said he currently is treating 10 patients who can't tolerate AZT, the AIDS drug marketed by Burroughs Wellcome Co. Only one patient has received the Salk vaccine for more than a few weeks, and that patient's severe skin problems have been relieved since being vaccinated, he said. But, he added, "The response at this point could be due to any number of things." The NIMH researchers believe that Peptide T works by blocking the action of a protein, called gp120, on the outer coat of the AIDS virus. Thus blocked, the researchers believe, the virus is unable to invade and destroy the immune system's T4 cells. Their hypothesis came under heavy attack last summer by respected AIDS researchers who were unable to duplicate the NIMH laboratory work. But the findings have since been reproduced by researchers at Oncogen, a Seattle-based unit of Bristol-Myers Co., New York, which is collaborating with NIMH researchers to further develop Peptide T. Neither Oncogen nor Bristol-Myers would comment on their research or on the drug's possible link to the Salk vaccine. Jonas Salk, who at 73 still works at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., said he had heard of "suggestions" that the vaccine he developed might be useful against AIDS. "It's a hypothesis, and only a careful, controlled study can resolve the matter," he said. [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]