HARVARD UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CANCER BIOLOGY
HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
  665 HUNTINGTON AVENUE
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 021 15

March 18, 1985

Dr. Harold Varmus
Department of Microbiology and

University of California
School of Medicine
San Francisco, CA 94143

Immunology

M. Essex, D.V.M., Ph.D., Chairman
   (617) 732-1023
JohnCairns, M.D., B.A., B.M.
    732-1240
Eric Eisenstadt, Ph.D.


Laurie H. Glimcher, M.D.
    732-0622

732-1158

MarkI. Greene, M.D., Ph.D

William A. Haseltine, Ph.D.

732-1973

732-3068

732-1184

732-1 184

732-2167

732-1 184

732-1184

Ann R. Kennedy, D.Sc.

John B. Little, M.D.

James I. Mullins, Ph.D.

Richard J. Reynolds, Ph.D.

Ralph R. Weichselbaum, M.D.

Dear Harold:

Thank you for your letter of March 4th.

                            I agree to serve on the committee.
I must admit, however, that 1 am not optimistic that a consensus will be reached
very easily.

I might also add that the issue of what to call the new sub-human primate

viruses might also be worth including in the deliberations.
the Mason-Pfizer or the numerous endogenous retroviruses originally described by
Benveniste and Todaro. Rather, I refer to the HTLV-I related viruses of many
Old World monkeys that were discovered by Miyoshi and subsequently shown by us to
be linked to leukemia development as well as the HTLV-III/LAV related viruses  that
we just recently found in macaques (preprints enclosed; please keep this latter
information confidential). It is now clear that both the HTLV-I type agents and
the AIDS type agents are rather widespread in sub-human primates as well.  ThF
are currently called PTLV's, MTLV's and STLV's. No name seems ideal. Fortunately,
however, it is neither as important nor as emotional as the issue of what to call
the human viruses. Yet, the amount of literature on these agents is bound to
increase and it would be nice if readers not intimately involved could make some
sense out of it.

I'm not referring to

I might also add that Bill Haseltine is in the process of considering a

proposal to designate many of these viruses  (along with BLV and perhaps  certain
lentiviruses such as visna) as T-type because of the transactivation mechanism
that is mediated by the x/lor region of the genome.
to consider having him as another interested "non-member" of your subcommittee.
I think it is fairly likely that he will submit a multi-authored proposal along
these lines in the near future, and if he does it could make that issue moot.
As you know, this is in effect what happened with the HTLV/ALTV issue when Robin
Weiss circulated his proposal at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting.

You thus might also want

Dr. Harold Varmus
March 18, 1985

Page -2-

It would indeed be refreshing if a bit more calm and logic could be brought

to bear on the situation. I expect to be in San Francisco on Monday, June 3rd.
If you will also be there at that time perhaps we can meet briefly to discuss
these and other items of mutual interest. As you may know, we have become in-
creasingly interested in the HBV's, particularly in relation to the infection
of cells of the lymphoid/myeloid lineage. I had hoped to get to your (and
Jesse's) CSH meeting on this but I have a conflict at that time. Two junior
people from my group will be there to discuss some of this work.

Personal regards.

Enclosures

ME/jgk

S-incerely ,

M. Essex