This is the story of the discovery of the first human cancer virus. Through intriguing accounts that include some remarkable characters and individual stories from around the globe - including the UK, Africa, USA, and China - it tells the story of the Epstein-Barr virus and the understanding of its connections to a variety of other diseases.

The Immunization Safety Review Committee was established by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to evaluate the evidence on possible causal associations between immunizations and certain adverse outcomes, and to then present conclusions and recommendations. The committee's mandate also includes assessing the broader societal significance of these immunization safety issues. While all the committee members share the view that immunization is generally beneficial, none of them has a vested interest in the specific immunization safety issues that come before the group. The committee reviews three immunization safety review topics each year, addressing each one at a time. In this fifth report in a series, the committee examines the hypothesis that exposure to polio vaccine contaminated with simian virus 40 (SV40), a virus that causes inapparent infection in some monkeys, can cause certain types of cancer.

Is cancer a contagious disease? In the late nineteenth century this idea, and attending efforts to identify a cancer “germ,” inspired fear and ignited controversy. Yet speculation that cancer might be contagious also contained a kernel of hope that the strategies used against infectious diseases, especially vaccination, might be able to subdue this dread disease. Today, nearly one in six cancers are thought to have an infectious cause, but the path to that understanding was twisting and turbulent. ​ A Contagious Cause is the first book to trace the century-long hunt for a human cancer virus in America, an effort whose scale exceeded that of the Human Genome Project. The government’s campaign merged the worlds of molecular biology, public health, and military planning in the name of translating laboratory discoveries into useful medical therapies. However, its expansion into biomedical research sparked fierce conflict. Many biologists dismissed the suggestion that research should be planned and the idea of curing cancer by a vaccine or any other means as unrealistic, if not dangerous. Although the American hunt was ultimately fruitless, this effort nonetheless profoundly shaped our understanding of life at its most fundamental levels. A Contagious Cause links laboratory and legislature as has rarely been done before, creating a new chapter in the histories of science and American politics.

This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.

This comprehensive account of the human herpesviruses provides an encyclopedic overview of their basic virology and clinical manifestations. This group of viruses includes human simplex type 1 and 2, Epstein–Barr virus, Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, HHV6A, 6B and 7, and varicella-zoster virus. The viral diseases and cancers they cause are significant and often recurrent. Their prevalence in the developed world accounts for a major burden of disease, and as a result there is a great deal of research into the pathophysiology of infection and immunobiology. Another important area covered within this volume concerns antiviral therapy and the development of vaccines. All these aspects are covered in depth, both scientifically and in terms of clinical guidelines for patient care. The text is illustrated generously throughout and is fully referenced to the latest research and developments.

Jonas Salk's polio vaccine has taken on an almost legendary quality as a medical miracle, for it largely eradicated one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century. But the story of the vaccine has a dark side, one that has never been fully told before... Between 1954 and 1963, close to 98 million Americans received polio vaccinations contaminated with a carcinogenic monkey virus, now known as SV40. A concerted government effort downplayed the incident, and it was generally accepted that although oncogenic to laboratory animals, SV40 was harmless to humans. But now SV40 in showing up in human cancers, and prominent researchers are demanding a serious public health response to this forgotten polio vaccine contaminant. A gripping medical detective story, The Virus and the Vaccine raises major questions about vaccine policy.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common human cancers. Its association with chronic hepatitis B and C virus infections is well established. As one of the first human cancers to be etiologically associated with any virus, it provides a model for studying viral carcinogenesis in humans. The latest concepts in molecular biology have been brought to bear on the study of HCC and have led to dramatic breakthroughs in our understanding of how it develops.

The Epstein-Barr virus was discovered 15 years ago. Since that time an immense body of information has been accumu lated on this agent which has come to assume great signifi cance in many different fields of biological science. Thus, the virus has very special relevance in human medicine and oncology, in tumor virology, in immunology, and in mole cular virology, since it is the cause of infectious mononu cleosis and also the first human cancer virus, etiologically related to endemic Burkitt's lymphoma and probably to nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In addition, continuous human lymphoid cell lines initiated and maintained by the transform ing function of the virus genome provide a laboratory tool with wide and ever-growing applications. Innumerable papers on the Epstein-Barr virus have ap peared over recent years and reports of work with this agent now constitute a veritable flood. The present book provides the first and only comprehensive, authoritative over-view of all aspects of the virus by authors who have been the original and major contributors in their particular disciplines. A complete and up-to-date survey of this unique and important agent is thus provided which should be of great interest to experts, teachers, and students engaged in cancer research, virology, immunology, molecular biology, epide miology, and cell culture. Where topics have been dealt with from more than one of these viewpoints, some inevitable overlap and duplication has resulted; although this has been kept to a minimum, it has been retained in some places because of positive usefulness.

Ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma (OPA) is a contagious lung cancer of sheep, first reported in South Africa in 1832 as "jaagsiekte" (chasing sickness). Starting in the 1970s evidence began to accumulate that the etiologic agent of OPA is a retrovirus, culminating in the deduction of the sequence of a novel retrovirus associated with the disease, jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV). Very recently, substantial progress has been made in JSRV research, including isolation of infectious and oncogenic molecular clones of JSRV, identification and cloning of the JSRV receptor, and demonstration that the envelope gene of JSRV functions as an oncogene. This book is a consensus volume that comprehensively reviews all aspects of JSRV research, including natural history of the disease, histopathology of OPA, molecular biology of JSRV, oncogenic transformation by JSRV, and comparison with human lung cancer.