VIRUS AS CAUSE OF CANCER

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27988, 7 June 1956, Page 19

VIRUS AS CAUSE OF CANCER

‘lncreasing Evidence Found”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) DETROIT. June 5.

Dr. Wendell Stanley, a Nobel Prize scientist, said today he thinks viruses i cause most or all cancers, including these of humans. The evidence was all logical, and it was increasing, said Dr. Stanley, a University' of California virologist. He urged a wholly new attack against cancer on this theory, and said it would lead to vaccines to prevent cancer and news ways to cure it. It was possible that all of us were walking around with “sleeping” cancer viruses, Dr. Stanley said in an address to the third National Cancer Conference. The cancer viruses would not do any harm until and unless something made them become active. The something could be ageing, changes in hormones. dietary faults, chemicals, radi--1 ation or other things, or a combination iof them. 1 Dr. Stanley, who won a Nobel Prize for the .firsts purification and crystallisation of a virus, said that from the work of a half dozen scientists there were these reasons, among others, for thinking viruses caused cancer: It was known that numerous cancers in animals, chickens, and other living things were caused by viruses. No proved viruses had been found in human cancers, but the reason could be that so few attempts have been made to find them. ’

Very recently dozens of hithertounknown viruses had been discovered in humans. It was known that some viruses could exist in living systems for years, a lifetime, or even be passed from generation to generation. Some caused infections, others did not. It was known that some viruses could change, under some stress or condition. to cause an entirely different kind of disease symptom. And it was known that various cancer-inducing agents could awaken a sleeping virus, and bring about cell destruction.

“It is difficult to escape the conclusion that viruses may be the etiological (causative) agents for most, if not all, cancers, including cancer in man,” Dr-. Stanley said. Recent discoveries about the fundamental nature of viruses, and new methods of studying them, opened bright prosnects of attacking the cancer problem from the theory of virus causation. Dr. Stanley said.