Interesting view of leukemia.

[Maury Siskel <maury@webtexas.com>]

Researcher Says Childhood Leukemia Is Caused By Infection

August 16, 1999

LONDON (The Independent) - Childhood leukemia is caused by an
infection and not by radiation or environmental pollution, according
to one of the world's most eminent cancer specialists.

Sir Richard Doll, who first established the link between smoking and
lung cancer, has given his full support to a controversial theory that
cancer clusters, including those near to nuclear installations, are the
result of a virus or other infectious agents.

In an article for the British Journal of Cancer, Sir Richard says that
new research into the reasons why some children develop the blood
cancer has now established the cause as an infection by an as-yet
unidentified agent.

"What I'm saying, in layman's terms, is that we believe that the
principal cause of childhood leukemia is an infection of some sort. We
can't say what it is but we now know where we've got to look," Sir
Richard said Friday.

(British cancer specialists hailed the new research as a major step
forward in helping them to develop a vaccine.)

For two decades scientists have been trying to explain why leukemia in
children - an exceptionally rare disease - clusters around certain
industrial sites, in particular the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing
plant in
Cumbria. Several investigations by leading cancer experts,
epidemiologists
and radiobiologists, have failed to establish a link with radiation or
any
other single factor, such as chemical pollution.

However, a theory developed by Professor Leo Kinlen, a cancer
epidemiologist at Oxford University, has gradually become the most
convincing explanation of the clusters.

Kinlen, who is funded by the Cancer Research Campaign and has no
financial ties with the nuclear industry, believes childhood leukemia is

caused by viruses or other infectious agents being introduced into a
local community by the mass movement of migrant workers. Some
children may be more susceptible to developing leukemia as a result of
being exposed to an infectious agent that may have little or no effect
on other children, Kinlen suggested.

Heather Dickinson and Louise Parker of the Children's Cancer Research
Unit at the University of Newcastle have produced a computer model of
the Kinlen hypothesis and found that it can correctly predict the
incidence
of leukemia according to the amount of population mixing involved.

Sir Richard believes this is the final piece of the jigsaw which
validates
Professor Kinlen's hypothesis as the most likely explanation for
childhood leukemia clusters around Sellafield and elsewhere.

"My view now is that Kinlen's hypothesis should be considered as
established. It indicates an infective cause," he said. He criticized
the
government's Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the
Environment for downgrading the Kinlen hypothesis when it published
its fourth report in 1996.

Sir Richard, who is now retired but takes an active interest in cancer
epidemiology from his base at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary, said
scientists can now concentrate on trying to find the infective agent
responsible. "It is possibly a common virus which only in special
circumstances actually gives rise to leukemia, rather than some rare
one - but that's speculation. All I can say is that we're now convinced
that it must be infection," he said.

Professor Kinlen said he could not comment on the findings until they
are published Monday in the British Journal of Cancer.

Copyright 1999 The Independent. All rights reserved.

Maury Siskel              maury@webtexas.com
--------------
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