Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...There is new evidence that the main cancer villains are viruses, submicroscopic packets of nucleic acids that can invade cells and take over their genetic machinery. Using immunological techniques to identify antigens (the substances that trigger the body's defenses), Dr. Donald Morton of the University of California at Los Angeles has found signs of viral activity in human sarcomas, or cancers of connective tissue. Drs. Werner and Gertrude Henle of the University of Pennsylvania have studied an intruder known as the Epstein-Barr virus in cells from victims of Burkitt's lymphoma, a tumor of the lymph...
...cancer contagious? Only a few years ago, most doctors would have answered this question with an emphatic "No!" Now their replies are likely to be less dogmatic. Researchers have long suspected that cancer viruses can be passed genetically from parents to offspring in both animals and humans. A team of veterinarians and cancer researchers headed by Dr. William D. Hardy Jr., 33, of New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has just reported in Nature that among cats, at least, one animal can infect another with the virus that causes leukemia...
Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) was first identified in 1964 by a Scotsman named William Jarrett; it has since been determined that FeLV can be found in 90% of all cats with leukemia-like illnesses. But this is the first large-scale study showing that it could be spread from one cat to others. That fact is significant both for veterinary and human medicine. Leukemia occurs in cats about 2½ times as often as it does in man. Furthermore, says Hardy, "dogs and cats live with us. They are under the same household stresses and are exposed to the same...
...Boston's Angell Memorial Hospital, seem to provide convincing evidence that feline leukemia is contagious. Simple blood tests made on 1,462 apparently healthy pet cats from disease-free households showed that only two cats carried FeLV. But of 543 cats from FeLV-infected households, 177 harbored the virus, and many of these later developed leukemic disease. Of the 148 cats from this group that researchers continued to study, 35, or 23.7%, died within six months-24 of them from leukemia, 11 from an FeLV-related anemia. The normal leukemia incidence for the general cat population over the same...
Lethal Litter. Hardy has found FeLV in cat blood, saliva and urine; he believes that the animals may spread the virus through their fighting and mating habits, which involve biting, and their grooming practices, which include using their tongues for bathing themselves and their companions. But he also believes that litter boxes are a possible source of the lethal disease. He points out that while many cat owners keep more than one cat, few have more than one box for their animals...