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Dr. Carbone Responds to SV40 Controversy
 

This is a letter from Dr.Michele Carbone, M.D., Ph. D., who was one of the moderators at the mesothelioma conference in Philadelphia. He is one of leading scientists who has published his research on the SV40/mesothelioma connection. Dr. Carbone's comments illustrate the need to remove politics from the pursuit of basic research on mesothelioma. On the one hand, the government may not be interested in financing this research, since the government sponsored the use of the polio vaccine in the U.S. that contained the virus. On the other hand, the asbestos industry certainly does want to finance this type of research, not out of concern for the life of mesothelioma patients, but to fend off damages claims in court. We need to create a blind trust to be used to finance basic research.

Dear Mr Worthington:

I read the synopsis about the association of SV40 with human mesothelioma that you made based on the meeting that was held in Philadelphia in May 97. I hope you will find useful the following information:

1. The research was not funded in Italy, but by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and by the National Cancer Institute. I used to work at the NIH were in 1993 I discovered that hamsters injected with SV40 preferentially developed mesothelioma. Later, when I was still at the NIH, together with H.I. Pass, Paola Rizzo and Antonio Procopio, we found SV40 in human mesotheliomas.    
   
   These findings have been confirmed in various laboratories in the USA and around the world. I am presently funded with a grant from the National Cancer Institute to continue my studies about SV40 and human tumors, including mesothelioma, and presently I work at the Loyola University in Chicago. In the past the Cancer Center of the University of Chicago has also funded this research. Neither I nor any of the people with whom I collaborated or I am collaborating is or was funded through the asbestos industry or through companies related to them.
   

2. The possibility that SV40 is associated with the development of human mesothelioma is just a possibility that we are investigating. Recent data that we have in press in Nature Medicine (August 1997) indicate that SV40 is biologically active in mesotheliomas and suggest that SV40 may contribute to tumor development. You should consider that most carcinogens are ineffective by themselves, and that cancer is a multifactorial event. For example, only a minority of people exposed to asbestos developed mesothelioma, only a minority of people exposed to the atomic bomb developed leukemia, and only a minority of people exposed to the sun develops skin cancer. This is just a fact and does not diminish the relevance of these carcinogens.
   
   

3. There is something that makes some individuals more susceptible to the carcinogenicity of asbestos, otherwise, to use a popular argument, since all of us probably have some asbestos fibers in our lungs, we should all die of mesothelioma. Is SV40 one of the factors that makes people more susceptible to asbestos? Can this help us identify people at higher risk of mesothelioma among those exposed to asbestos? Can the presence of SV40 be used as a marker to help the pathologist in formulating the diagnosis of mesothelioma? We do not know, and we are investigating these hypotheses.
   
   

4. The fact that viral sequences are present in mesothelioma cells, gives us a potential tool to design new genetic and immunotherapeutic approaches. We are working around the clock on this hypothesis, with the hope to design an immunotherapeutic approach (a vaccine) and/or a genetic approach to help mesothelioma patients. Some of the best scientists and doctors in the field are working in collaboration with me on this hypothesis. Among others, Dr. Harvey Pass, one of the best surgeons and researchers in this field, Dr. Paola Rizzo, my research associate and a leader molecular biologist, Dr. Antonio Giordano also a very skilled molecular biologist, Dr. Martin Kast, the scientist who invented peptide vaccines, and Drs. Procopio, Tognon and Mutti in Italy.
   
   

5. This research should be supported in the interest of the patients, and mostly in the interest of those who will become patients in the future. Let us not get obsessed about the possible implications of this research in mesothelioma litigation. I understand the problem, but in my opinion it is much more important that we understand the biology of mesothelioma and that we try to cure it. Litigation should not influence the advancement of science.
   

If you are interested in learning more about the relationship between SV40 and mesothelioma I will be glad to send you a review we have in press in the scientific journal "Oncogene".

Best regards, Michele Carbone, M.D., Ph.D.

** POSTED AUGUST 7, 1997 **