Virus Research

As a founder of the nonprofit ERACE Foundation that supports Coxsackie viral research, I was very gratified to read the article on the Coxsackie virus role in insulin-dependent diabetes (front page, June 26). These viruses have long been suspected of also triggering myocarditis, dilated cardiomyopathy, pericarditis, aseptic meningitis, encephalitis, pleurodynia and many other diseases.

While there have been other ongoing Coxsackie viral studies around the United States, Europe and Japan for many years, the difficulty in finding irrefutable proof of links to these various diseases lies in the fact that the virus disappears from a person’s body after the damage has been done.

We hope that this discovery by Allan Tobin, UCLA biologist, helps others to now unlock further secrets of these viruses so that many fatal and debilitating diseases can be prevented or cured.

FERN SCHIFF, President

ERACE Foundation

(Eradication of Respiratory Ailments

due to Coxsackie/Echo Enteroviruses)

Los Angeles