– Millions given infected polio vaccine:
A federal government agency knowingly released polio vaccine contaminated with a monkey virus in the 1960s that has since been linked to a range of cancers, including mesothelioma.
The virus contaminated at least four batches of vaccine totalling almost three million doses between 1956 and 1962.
Two of the batches were released after testing positive to contamination. The other two were released before tests could be done. An unknown number of earlier batches were also almost certainly contaminated.
An investigation by The Age has found documents from the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories which reveal bosses there released one batch of about 700,000 doses of contaminated vaccine in 1962 on the grounds that “much vaccine issued in the past was probably similarly contaminated”.
Australia’s leading experts on the virus, which is known as simian virus 40 or SV40, have found traces of it in human tumour cells and are calling for urgent funding to clarify the links.
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