The CDC has quickly removed a page from their website, which is now cached here, admitting that more than 98 million Americans received one or more doses of polio vaccine within an 8-year span from 1955-1963 when a proportion of the vaccine was contaminated with a cancer causing polyomavirus called SV40. It has been estimated that 10-30 million Americans could have received an SV40 contaminated dose of the vaccine.

SV40 is an abbreviation for Simian vacuolating virus 40 or Simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans. Like other polyomaviruses, SV40 is a DNA virus that has been found to cause tumors and cancer.SV40 is believed to suppress the transcriptional properties of the tumor-suppressing genes in humans through the SV40 Large T-antigen and SV40 Small T-antigen. Mutated genes may contribute to uncontrolled cellular proliferation, leading to cancer.

Michele Carbone, Assistant Professor of Pathology at Loyola University in Chicago, has recently isolated fragments of the SV-40 virus in human bone cancers and in a lethal form of lung cancer called mesothelioma. He found SV-40 in 33% of the osteosarcoma bone cancers studied, in 40% of other bone cancers, and in 60% of the mesotheliomas lung cancers, writes Geraldo Fuentes.Dr. Michele Carbone openly acknowledged HIV/AIDS was spread by the hepatitis B vaccine produced by Merck & Co. during the early 1970s. It was the first time since the initial transmissions took place in 1972-74, that a leading expert in the field of vaccine manufacturing and testing has openly admitted the Merck & Co. liability for AIDS.

Locusts threatening livelihood of 60% of population, and have already destroyed a quarter of Madagascar's food crops

Madagascar is in a race against time to raise enough money to tackle its worst plague of locusts since the 1950s. Locusts have already infested over half of the island's cultivated land and pastures, causing the loss of 630,000 tonnes of rice, corresponding to 25% of food consumption.

At least 1.5m hectares (3.7m acres) could be infested by locusts in two-thirds of the country by September, warns the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Findings from a damage assessment indicate that rice and maize crop losses due to locusts in the mid- and south-western parts of Madagascar vary, on average, from 40% to 70%, reaching up to 100% in some plots.

Madagascar's agriculture ministry declared a national disaster in November. The food security and livelihoods of 13 million people are at stake, about 60% of the island's population. Around 9 million people depend directly on agriculture for food and income.

"We don't have enough funds for pesticide, helicopters and training," said Alexandre Huynh, the FAO's representative in Madagascar. "What is extremely costly is to run helicopters [needed to spray pesticides]. We have to start in September, and we have two to three months to prepare. We need $22.4m [£15.1m] but we are quite short of that. Discussions are going on with donors."

Pork prices may be on the rise in the next few months because of a new virus that has migrated to the U.S, killing piglets in 15 states at an alarming rate in facilities where it has been reported.

Dr. Nick Striegel (STREE'-gel), assistant state veterinarian for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, said Wednesday the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, also known as PED, was thought to exist only in Europe and China, but Colorado and 14 other states began reporting the virus in April, and officials confirmed its presence in May. The virus causes severe diarrhea, vomiting and severe dehydration in pigs, and can be fatal.

"It has been devastating for those producers where it has been diagnosed. It affects nursing pigs, and in some places, there has been 100 percent mortality," he said.

Striegel said the disease is not harmful to humans, and there is no evidence it affects pork products.

A new disease spread by deer ticks has already infected 100,000 New Yorkers since the state first started keeping track.

As CBS 2's Dr. Max Gomez reported, the new deer tick-borne illness resembles Lyme disease, but is a different malady altogether - and it could be even worse.

The common deer tick is capable of spreading dangerous germs into the human bloodstream with its bite. However, Lyme disease is one of many diseases that ticks carry.

The latest disease is related to Lyme, and an infected person will suffer similar symptoms.

"Patients with this illness will develop, perhaps, fever, headache, flu-like symptoms, muscle pains - so they'll have typical Lyme-like flu symptoms in the spring, summer, early fall," said Dr. Brian Fallon of Columbia University. "But most of them will not develop the typical rash that you see with Lyme disease."

Thousands of sheep have died across the Western District in recent weeks from phalaris poisoning.
Vets have dubbed the condition "phalaris sudden death" but the causes are not yet fully understood and are different from the more commonly-known phalaris staggers.

Part of the reason is believed to be a build-up of toxins in the plant over a long period of dry conditions in the lead-up to the autumn break.

Livestock Logic vet David Rendell, who is based in Hamilton, estimated "thousands" of sheep would have been lost due to the phalaris sudden death outbreak in recent weeks.

"We need to get more data on this so we can understand the factors influencing it," he said.

Producers who have introduced sheep on to phalaris after the break are being urged to complete a survey at www.livestocklogic.com.au

A scary virus is sweeping Saudi Arabia. Six million religious pilgrims are about to descend on the country from across the world. The result could be disastrous.

When the Black Death exploded in Arabia in the 14th century, killing an estimated third of the population, it spread across the Islamic world via infected religious pilgrims. Today, the Middle East is threatened with a new plague, one eponymously if not ominously named the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV, or MERS for short). This novel coronavirus was discovered in Jordan in March 2012, and as of June 26, there have been 77 laboratory-confirmed infections, 62 of which have been in Saudi Arabia; 34 of these Saudi patients have died.

Although the numbers -- so far -- are small, the disease is raising anxiety throughout the region. But officials in Saudi Arabia are particularly concerned.

This fall, millions of devout Muslims will descend upon Mecca, Medina, and Saudi Arabia's holy sites in one of the largest annual migrations in human history. In 2012, approximately 6 million pilgrims came through Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals associated with umrah, and this number is predicted to rise in 2013. Umrah literally means "to visit a populated place," and it's the very proximity that has health officials so worried. In Mecca alone, millions of pilgrims will fulfill the religious obligation of circling the Kaaba. And having a large group of people together in a single, fairly confined space threatens to turn the holiest site in Islam into a massive petri dish.

The disease is still mysterious. Little is understood about how it is transmitted and even less regarding its origins. But we do know that MERS is deadly, with a mortality rate of about 55 percent -- a remarkably higher lethality than that posed by its close cousin, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, which in 2003 terrified travelers across the globe but posed a fatality rate of only 9.6 percent. The MERS coronavirus is new to our species, so mild and asymptomatic infections seem to be rare, but the human immune response to infection is itself so extreme that it can prove deadly in some cases.

The outbreak of avian-origin influenza A (H7N9) virus in eastern China^1,2 has reminded the world of the imminent threat of unexpected pathogens, including an "old" virus, influenza. Recent conversation has centered on H5N1, H9N2, H7N3, and H7N7, but never before had we considered H7N9 to be the cause of outbreaks of human infection or the next possible pandemic. Maybe we have to take a closer look at the possibility of reassortment among any of the 16 hemagglutinins and 9 neuraminidases subtypes, and even within the newly identified bat-derived, influenza-like virus H17N10.^3,4

A new coronavirus, called human coronavirus Erasmus Medical Center (hCoV-EMC) (with a recent proposed new name as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV in abbreviation), has caused alarm in the Middle East, as human infection was first reported in March 2012.⁵ In one year, as of May 12, 2013, there have been 34 cases, with 18 fatalities in total (www.who.org). More importantly, human-to-human transmission has been reported, with second-generation infections in France and the UK in those individuals who have had close contact with patients with a history of travel to the Middle East.

Less publicized but equally significant, the recently emerged severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) expanded its geographic spectrum in 2012 - 2013, from China to the USA, and now to Japan.

SFTSV-induced disease was first suspected in China in 2009, and the virus was isolated and confirmed in 2011.⁶ SFTSV is a new member of the genus Phlebovirus, with over 70 known members in the genus, which is in the family Bunyaviridae. Although the phlebovirus has been found in Africa and Europe for many years, SFTSV is the first-ever virus of this type isolated in China.^6,7,8,9,10 The virus is known as the Heartland virus after the name of the place (Heartland, Missouri) where the virus was first isolated in the USA. The Heartland virus is phylogenetically distinct from SFTSV isolated in China, although similar clinical manifestations have been observed.⁹

Researchers have discovered a new virus in patients in Vietnam suffering from severe brain infections, a team of scientists reported today in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The virus was detected in 28 of 644 patients who had severe brain infections and none of 122 patients who had non-infectious brain disorders, according to researchers at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Wellcome Trust South East Asia Major Overseas Programme and the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam. It's tentatively called CyCV-VN and is part of a group of viruses known as Circoviridae known to circulate in animals such as birds and pigs, they said.

Swimming has been banned at a former blue flag beach in Co Cork due to excessive E.coli levels while the public has been warned of "potential risks" at three other bathing spots, including two current blue flag beaches.

Cork County Council was forced to prohibit swimming at Fountainstown beach, 23km south of Cork City.

A previous recipient of the coveted EU-approved symbol, the council did not make an application this year for Fountainstown to retain its blue flag status due to stricter bathing water criteria.

Recent tests showed Fountainstown had more than double the EU permitted levels of E.coli.

However, advisory notices have also been placed at three beaches in West Cork - Barleycove in the Mizen peninsula, The Warren at Rosscarbery and Tragumna near Skibbereen.

A mysterious group of viruses known for their circular genome has been detected in patients with severe disease on two continents. In papers published independently this week, researchers report the discovery of agents called cycloviruses in Vietnam and in Malawi. The studies suggest that the viruses - one of which also widely circulates in animals in Vietnam - could be involved in brain inflammation and paraplegia, but further studies are needed to confirm a causative link.

The discovery in Vietnam grew out of a frustrating lack of information about the causes of some central nervous system (CNS) infections such as encephalitis and meningitis, which can be fatal or leave lasting damage. "There are a lot of severe cases in the hospitals here, and very often we can't come to a diagnosis," says H. Rogier van Doorn, a clinical virologist with the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Ho Chi Minh City. Extensive diagnostic tests turn up pathogens in only about half of patients with such infections, he says. Van Doorn and colleagues in Vietnam and at the University of Amsterdam's Academic Medical Center hoped that they might uncover new pathogens using a powerful new technique called next-generation sequencing.

The group sequenced all the genetic material in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples taken from more than 100 patients with undiagnosed CNS infections. One sample batch returned a promising lead: a viral sequence belonging to the Circoviridae family.

Probing the original patient samples, the scientists ferreted out the sequence in two of the samples - one from an adult and one from a child. Next, they expanded their search, testing samples from an additional 642 patients with CNS infections using a sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test developed to specifically target the detected sequence. Roughly 4% of the samples tested positive, the team reported in mBio on Tuesday. Whole-genome sequencing confirmed that the virus, which the scientists have dubbed CyCV-VN, for cyclovirus-Vietnam, is novel; it belongs to a genus within the Circoviridae family called cycloviruses.