Foulpox.(a retrovirus, found in in a vaccine for chickens, confirms that such viruses can reproduce themselves by placing their genes in a conventional virus)(Brief Article)

From: The Economist (US) | Date: November 22, 1997 | Copyright information

FEW accidents would be more ironic than the contamination of a vaccine by a virulent disease. Fortunately, despite rumours that contaminated vaccines assisted the rapid spread of AIDS, this has never been proved to have happened in a vaccine intended for people. Chickens are not so lucky. Christian Hertig, a biologist at the University of Bern, and his colleagues have just found a beast called reticuloendotheliosis virus (REV) lurking unpronounceably in one of the vaccines used to in...

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