THE most poignant examples of "technology bite-back" come from medicine, when a treatment designed to help people destroys them instead. Among the most tragic are the unlucky souls who, in the 1970s and 1980s, were given pituitary hormones from cadavers. Some injections were contaminated with the prions that cause CJD. Dozens have already died.
The notion of a medical treatment gone wrong has also exercised researchers hunting for the origins of HIV. They've been exploring author Edward Hooper's controversial theory that using chimpanzee cells to make the CHAT polio vaccine allowed simian immunodeficiency virus to infect people and mutate into HIV. The latest studies all suggest his theory is wrong (see "Face the facts").
Hooper will almost certainly be preparing a response. But this week's results will lay his theory to rest in the minds of many. That begs the question: "Was it all worth it?"
The answer must ...