| Viruses were originally detected as disease agents that traveled. They went from one person who was sick to a second person who was healthy. It was noticed that the second person then got sick. That fact implied that the disease agent had gone from one to the other person. Although much more is now known about viruses, that original model of disease transference from one person to the next is still the one that�s first resorted to when trying to explain a new viral disease. In 1992 I suggested that human papilloma virus (HPV) can be generated from sperm. That hypothesis was based on a paper by two Indiana University researchers. The paper�s title was �Human Papilloavirus Type 6 Long Control Region and Human Cellular DNA Contain Related Sequences.� The title tells us that, as with HIV, some viral components of HPV are similar to or the same as those in human DNA. The paper was in the October 1990 Journal of Virology, page 5188. The authors were Tom F. Hrisomalos, Denise Boggs and Kenneth H. Fife. After reading their paper, I speculated in writing, not only that HPV could be derived from sperm, but that the use of birth control pills could, therefore, lead to increased risk for cervical cancer. Unlike the fearless Dr. Derosiers, the researchers at IU didn�t want to discuss that possibility at all. No doubt that was because of organizational or professional constraint. (As an example of how restraint might work, in 2005 a program called Sound Medicine on PBS which features doctors from the IU School of Medicine was sponsored by Pfizer, a leading maker of birth control pharmaceuticals. Perhaps the willingness of IU to ignore the cervical cancer issued had been a point in IU's favor with Pfizer.) CONTINUE |
| " . . . as with HIV, some viral components of HPV are similar to or the same as those in human DNA." |