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University of California Berkeley Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California The San Francisco AIDS Oral History Series THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IN SAN FRANCISCO: THE MEDICAL RESPONSE 1981-1984 VOLUME VIII Jay A. Levy, M.D. ANIMAL VIROLOGY AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE AIDS VIRUS With an Introduction by James Chin, M.D., M.P.H. Interviews Conducted by Sally Smith Hughes, Ph.D. in 1993 Copyright o 2001 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well- informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ************************************ All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Jay A. Levy. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with Jay A. Levy requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: "The AIDS Epidemic in San Francisco: The Medical Response, 1981-1984, Volume VIII," an oral history conducted in 1993 by Sally Smith Hughes, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2001. Copy no, Jay A. Levy, M.D., 1996. Photograph by Karen Preuss Cataloguing information THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IN SAN FRANCISCO: THE MEDICAL RESPONSE, 1981-1984, Volume VIII, 2001, xix, 159 pp. Jay A. Levy, M.D. (b. 1938), "Animal Virology and the Discovery of the AIDS Virus": virologist. Education at Wesleyan and Columbia, internship, residency, and research at University of Pennsylvania; pre-AIDS career and research at the National Cancer Institute, UCSF, and in France; Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic, UCSF, visit to Haiti; 1983 State AIDS research grant; heat treatment of blood products and viral cause of AIDS; Robert Gallo at NCI, Luc Montagnier and Pasteur Institute group, and Levy laboratory in race to identify AIDS virus, and ensuing claims for priority; controversy over AIDS antibody tests; cloning and sequencing AIDS virus, Chiron Corp.; naming the virus HIV, and research on immune mechanisms and CDS cells in long-term AIDS survivors; comments on Robert Gallo, Gertrude (Brigitta) and Werner Henle, and William J. Rutter. Introduction by James Chin, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. Interviews conducted in 1993 by Sally Smith Hughes, Ph.D. for the San Francisco AIDS Oral History Series, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Regional Oral History Office wishes to express deep gratitude to Evelyne and David Lennette of Virolab, Inc., for their financial support of this project, incisive conceptual contributions, and sustaining interest and enthusiasm. TABLE OF CONTENTS--The AIDS Epidemic in San Francisco: The Medical Response, 1981-1984: Volume VIII PREFACE- -by David and Evelyne Lennette i SERIES INTRODUCTION- -by James Chin iii SERIES HISTORY- -by Sally Smith Hughes vi SERIES LIST xv INTERVIEW HISTORY--by Sally Smith Hughes xvii BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION xix INTERVIEW WITH JAY A. LEVY, M.D. I EDUCATION AND EARLY RESEARCH 1 Undergraduate Research at Wesleyan University and Research in Paris 1 Fellowships at the University of Paris, Orsay, France, 1961 2 Medical Student, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1961-1965 3 Research in Medical School 4 Research on Bacteriophage 4 Research on Burkitt ' s Lymphoma 5 Research on Reovirus 7 Internship, 1965-1966, and Residency in Medicine, 1966-1967, University of Pennsylvania 8 Research at the Wistar Institute 8 Research with the Henles on Burkitt 's Lymphoma 10 II PRE-AIDS RESEARCH 12 Staff Associate, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 1967-1970 12 Robert J. Huebner 12 Discovery of Xenotropic Viruses 14 Second-year Resident in Medicine, University of California, San Francisco [UCSF] , 1970-1971 16 Visiting Scientist, France, 1971-1972 17 Hopital St. Louis, Paris 17 Collaboration with Claude Jasmin, Mirek Hill, and Jana Hillova, Hopital Paul Brouse, Villejuif 18 The University of California, San Francisco 19 Assistant Professor of Medicine, 1972-1977 19 Research on Endogenous Viruses 19 Further Research on Xenotropic Viruses 20 Research on Xenotropic Viruses in Humans 24 Research on Anti-xenotropic Virus Neutralizing Factor 28 Visiting Scientist, Weizmann Institute, July 1978- January 1979 30 Visiting Scientist, Institut Pasteur, January 1979- July 1979 30 Research Cuts 32 III THE AIDS EPIDEMIC Kaposi's Sarcoma, August, 1981 35 National Cancer Institute Grant for AIDS Research, 1983 36 The Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic, UCSF 37 Visit to Haiti and the Dominican Republic 38 San Francisco AIDS Researchers 42 The State of California Appropriation for AIDS Research, 1983 44 AIDS Etiology and Heat Treatment of Blood Products 47 Chasing the Virus The Gallo and Montagnier Teams 51 Immunology Meeting, Japan, July, 1983 More on the Levy Lab ' s Search for the Virus Carlton Gajdusek 55 Hepatitis B as a Model for AIDS 56 Levy Misses a Key Meeting 56 Gallo Reverses His Stand on the AIDS Virus 58 The French Group's Conclusion: A New Virus Causing AIDS 59 Levy's First Reverse Transcriptase-positive Viral Isolates, Late 1983 61 Announcing Levy's AIDS-Associated Retrovirus 62 The UCSF AIDS Specimen Bank 64 Research on Kaposi's Sarcoma 65 Immune Deficiency 68 Seropositivity Without AIDS 68 Puzzling over Etiology 69 The Immunofluorescence Assay for HIV 71 More on RT-positive Viral Cultures, Fall 1983 Visit to the Pasteur Institute, October 1984 73 Research on Blood-clotting Factors More on Isolating AIDS-associated Retrovirus 76 Press Conference on the Isolation of ARV, August 16, 1984 78 Infecting Cell Lines More on the Immunofluorescence Assay for HIV 80 Changing Research Foci Discovering the Importance of CDS Cells 85 Collaborating with Chiron Corporation 86 Cloning and Sequencing the Virus Controversy over the Virtual Identity of HTLV-III and LAV 92 Mikula Popovic's Use of Pooled AIDS Virus 93 Controversy over the Cell Line, HUT78 95 Scientific Controversy and AIDS Research 96 Giving the Virus an Official Name Patenting the Virus 99 TAPE GUIDE 100 APPENDICES 101 A. UCSF News Release "UC-San Francisco Studies Confirm French Finding of Retrovirus in AIDS and Demonstrate a Retrovirus Could be Passed Through Blood Clotting Factor," May 8, 1984 101 B. Letter to Jay A. Levy from UC Office of the President, Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Office, June 27, 1984 103 C. "Virus Outpaces AIDS Here, Study Finds," San Francisco Examiner, July 1, 1984 105 D. "HIV Survivors Who Have Beaten Disease," San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 1994 107 E. "Jay Levy Still Forging Ahead Despite Years of Being Ignored by Peers," UCSF News break, February 25-March 10, 1995 108 F. "Proven Connection- -HIV Causes AIDS," San Francisco Chronicle, May 30, 2000 110 G. Curriculum vitae, Jay A. Levy 112 INDEX 156 PREFACE by David A. Lennette, Ph.D., and Evelyne T. Lennette, Ph.D. As two young medical virologists working in Pennsylvania, we experienced first hand some of the excitement of medical detective work. We had our first glimpse of how personalities can shape the course and outcome of events during the swine influenza and Legionnaires' disease outbreaks . On our return to California, we were soon embroiled in another much more frightening epidemic. In 1981, our laboratory began receiving samples for virologic testing from many of the early San Francisco AIDS patients-- whose names are now recorded in Randy Shilts 1 book And the Band Played On. Our previous experience with the legionellosis outbreak had primed us for this new mystery disease. While the medical and scientific communities were hotly debating and coping with various issues during the following three years, we were already subconsciously framing the developments in an historical point of view. In San Francisco, dedicated junior physicians and researchers banded together to pool resources and knowledge out of necessity, and in doing so, organized part of the local medical community in a very unusual way. Once again, we were struck by how the personalities of each of these individuals shaped the course of events. Even before HIV was discovered, we knew we were witnessing a new page in the history of science and medicine. The swine flu and legionellosis outbreaks were both very local and short lived.