An experimental vaccine against hepatitis B has been shown to give virtually complete protection against the viral liver infection, which is common throughout the world, according to results of a study by researchers at the New York Blood Center.

[Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)], the epidemiologist who was in charge of the vaccine trials for the blood center, said in an interview yesterday that the findings represented an important step toward the marketing of the vaccine. Approval for marketing must be obtained from the Federal Food and Drug Administration, based on additional studies.

Thousands of Cases a Year

The experimental vaccine, which has been given in three shots over a six-month period, was prepared by Merck, Sharpe & Dohme of West Point, Pa. It stems from research on the natural history of hepatitis that began about a quarter of a century ago and involved controversial studies among mentally retarded children at the Willowbrook school on Staten Island.

About 15,000 cases of hepatitis B, which is one of at least three types of hepatitis, are reported to the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta each year. But epidemiologists consider the disease considerably under-reported, and their most conservative estimate is that it affects at least 150,000 Americans each year. Many of these people go on to develop chronic hepatitis, which can be incapacitating for years and in some cases fatal.

Before the 1960's, hepatitis B was belived to be transmitted only through blood transfusions. But studies conducted by Dr. Saul. Krugman of New York University and others have shown that hepatitis B can be spread by intimate person-to-person contact.

Unlike hepatitis A, which is spread through fecal contamination of food and water, hepatitis B is not present in feces. Hepatitis B, found in highest concentration in blood, can also be found in breast milk saliva and semen. It can be transmitted, for example, by sharing a toothbrush or razor, Dr. Krugman said in an interview.

Epidemiological studies have linked hepatitis B with hepatoma, a cancer that develops in the liver. Hepatoma is rare in this country but common elsewhere, particularly in areas of Africa and Asia. A vaccine that protects against hepatitis B would presumably block the development hepatoma, making it the first vaccine to protect against any cancer.

However, [Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)] stressed that the blood center studies did not attempt to assess the vaccine's ability to protect against hepatoma. Such studies would take decades, he said.

Results of the vaccine study are scheduled to be published in the Oct. 9 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. The Blood Center had scheduled a news conference for Oct. 8, but [Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)] and Dr. Krugman said that they agreed discuss the report yesterday because other news organizations had published what they regarded as distorted versions of the results. . .

The blood center tests, which began 1n November 1978, were conducted among 1,083 male homosexuals. That group was selected because homosexuals .have bee!} found to have a risk of developing hepatitis B that is IO times greater than that for the population in general. The risk is three-tenths of 1 percent for the population at large, Dr. Krugman said. Other groups, such as American Indians and children living in institutions for the retarded, also have a higher-than-average incidence of hepatitis B.

About 5.5 percent of male homosexuals persistently harbor the hepatitis B virus, although they have no symptoms. Therefore homosexuals run a higher risk of transmitting the infection. The basic reason why homosexuals came to have a higher incidence of the infection is not known.

The volunteers in the study were divided into two groups, one of which received the experimental vaccine. The other received a placebo, which was the same vaccine but without the hepatitis antigen, the immunological component that protects against the disease.

Neither the researchers nor the volunteers knew what was included in the shots given to each participant. The researchers learned that information last June, when they began to tabulate the data.

According to the results, the probable incidence of hepatitis B was reduced by 92 percent in the group that received the experimental vaccine. About 25 percent of those who received the placebo developed hepatitis B, Dr. Szmuness said.

In the group that received the expenmental vaccine, 96 percent developed antibodies against hepatitis B. Antibodies are the substances produced by the body that ward off specific antigens, such as the virus that causes hepatitis B.

The protection lasted 21 months, indicating that a fourth, or booster, shot would not be necessary for at least that long.

Further, [Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)] said, no case of hepatitis B occurred among the volunteers who had developed protective antibodies after three shots of the vaccine. Two cases developed among individuals who did not develop antibodies or who did not complete the series of three shots.

The vaccine was found to be safe, the researchers reported. Recipients noted only occasional soreness at the site of infection.

Similar Studies Under Way

Two other similar studies are now being conducted in this country among groups that are at high risk of developing hepatitis B, such as health workers and patients being treated with artificial kidneys. These studies are also being coordinated by Dr. Szmuness.

As researchers have struggled to develop a protection against hepatitis B over the last quarter of a century, there have been three crucial steps in the vaccine's development. They were the discovery of the Australia antigen, believed to be a component of the virus that causes hepatitis B; development of a laboratory test to detect hepatitis B, and the purification of the Australia antigen.

The Australia antigen was discovered by a team headed by Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Blumberg won the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 1976.

A symposium was held at the New York Blood Center in New York, N.Y., on October 9, 1980, to review the development of a subunit hepatitis B vaccine and to discuss and review the prevention of hepatitis B and the results of a controlled clinical trial on the protective efficacy of the vaccine in a high-risk population in New York City.

The Importance of Hepatitis 8

The public health importance of hepatitis B in the United States and indeed throughout the world cannot be exaggerated; acute infection is common, and its incidence is increasing. There is evidence that it is a disease of sexual promiscuity. It affects every field of medical practice and has an important impact on blood transfusion services. Infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) may be followed by a carrier state that may be life-long. The world reservoir of carriers is estimated at present to number more than 200 million persons, and the carrier state has been associated with chronic liver disease progressing to cirrhosis and primary hepatocellular carcinoma in some persons.

Dr. James Maynard (Centers for Disease Control, Phoenix, Ariz.) reviewed the strategies for the control of hepatitis B in the United States. Although environmental measures to separate the agent from the susceptible host have been reasonably effective in some areas such as hemodialysis units, the only way to control hepatitis B, particularly after exposure, is by immunoprophylaxis. However, even under optimal conditions the efficacy of hepatitis B immunoglobulin has been estimated at "-'60070, and therefore there is a clear need for a vaccine. Indeed, because the incubation period of hepatitis B is long, it may be possible to use a vaccine for prophylaxis both before and after exposure.

The overall incidence of hepatitis B is difficult to establish because of underreporting and differing methods of surveillance. It has been estimated that in the United States only 10070-25070 of the to- tal number of cases of icteric disease are reported. In 1977, for example, "-'15,000 cases of hepatitis B were reported. However, the age-specific prevalence of antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) in the United States is 2.3070 among persons younger than the age of 19 years and up to 9.2% among persons at the age of 50 years. Because the age-specific incidence of hepatitis B, based on reports to the national viral hepatitis surveillance program, is linear, it is possible to estimate the total number of cases of hepatitis B in 1977 in the United States at about 200,000. Progression to chronic carriage occurs in 6070-10070, so that these 200,000 infections may result in 12,00020,000 carriers of hepatitis B. In 1977, there were 30,848 deaths due to cirrhosis of the liver, and at conservative estimate 11070 were associated with HBV infection. On this basis, in 19774,000 deaths due to cirrhosis can be attributed to hepatitis B. In the same year, there were 2,409 deaths due to primary hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States, of which "-'36% (867 deaths) can be estimated as associated with HBV infection. Thus, even in the United States, which is an area of low prevalence for hepatitis B, this infection exacts an enormous toll of national resources.

Dr. Palmer Beasley (University of Washington Medical Research Unit, based in Taiwan) reported the preliminary results of prospective studies among Chinese government employees on the incidence of cirrhosis and primary hepatocellular carcinoma in Taiwan. By June 1980, follow-up of 64,300 person-years was completed. Fifty cases of primary hepatocellular carcinoma occurred, 49 among 3,454 hepatitis B carriers and only one among 19,253 n.oncarriers. The relative risk of primary liver cancer for carriers compared with noncarriers is 273. The contribution of cirrhosis to the risk of primary liver cancer was also highly significant, and it is estimated that the life-time risk of male Chinese carriers dying from primary liver cancer or cirrhosis is "-'50070.

Development of the Vaccine

Dr. Saul Krugman (New York University, New York, N.Y.) reviewed the early history of the de- velopment of a vaccine against hepatitis B, although HBV has not been successfully cultivated in tissue culture. In 1970-1973, together with Dr. Joan Giles, Dr. Krugman demonstrated the relative efficacy of serum containing HBV, diluted 1:10 in distilled water and heated to 98 C for 1 min, in preventing or modifying the infection in 69070 of susceptible individuals. These observations provided the stimulus for the preparation of a vaccine using the 22-nm, spherical hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) particles (originally known as Australia antigen) purified from the plasma of healthy carriers and inactivated with formaldehyde.

The Vaccine

Dr. Maurice Hilleman (Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research, West Point, Pa.) described the preparation of the vaccine, the very extensive safety tests in animals and in humans, and the results of immunogenicity studies in a variety of animals before the vaccine was finally tested in adults and children.

The starting material for the vaccine is human plasma obtained from healthy persons who are persistent carriers of HBsAg. After initial concentration with ammonium sulfate, the 22-nm spherical particles are rigorously purified by isopycnic banding on sodium bromide and rate zonal separation on sucrose density gradients. The partially purified antigen is then digested with pepsin at pH 2, and the antigen is treated with a solution of 8 M urea to facilitate the removal of extraneous human liver cell and plasma host components. After gel filtration, the antigen at a concentration of 40 g of protein/ml is treated with 1:4,000 formalin for 72 hr at 36 C, followed by adsorption to aluminum hydroxide as an adjuvant.

Tests for sterility, purity, and safety of the vaccine consisted of assays by generally accepted in vivo and in vitro methods. The vaccine was tested for hepatitis B infectivity in chimpanzees and for live hepatitis A virus in susceptible marmosets; it was also tested extensively to ensure the absence of other extraneous microbial agents. The immunizing potency of the vaccine was measured in terms of anti-HBs responses in several animal species including guinea pigs, grivet monkeys, and mice. The vaccine remains potent after storage for ~28 months at 2-8 C as measured by the mouse potencyassay.

In controlled experiments, susceptible chimpanzees were immunized with three doses of 20 g each of the aqueous vaccine at monthly intervals. The chimpanzees were challenged with 1,000 chimpanzee infectious doses of liver virus, and the vaccine's protective efficacy was complete. In preliminary studies in humans, 75070-90070 of adults developed anti-HBs after two doses of the vaccine, and >90070 developed antibody after the third dose. Normal adults appear to respond satisfactorily to doses of 20 lAg; however, the immunocompromised patient and the dialysis patient require doses of 40 lAg. Children mount a more vigorous antibody response than adults, responding satisfactorily to doses of 10 ug. For example, a third dose of the vaccine resulted in mean antibody titers for children of >25,600 radioimmunoassay ratio units, compared with 1,024 units for adults. Finally, individuals with antibody resulting from previous exposure to HBV responded with a very substantial boost in antibody titer after a single dose of the vaccine. This observation is of practical importance for preparing high-titered human hepatitis B immunoglobulin for passive immunization.

Immunogenicity Studies in Humans

Dr. Cladd Stevens (New York Blood Center), Dr. Palmer Beasley, Dr. William Oleszko (New York Blood Center), and Dr. Friedrich Deinhardt (Max von Pettenkofer Institute, Munich, West Germany) reported briefly on the results of various immunogenicity studies with the vaccine. Dr. Stevens assessed the immune response among patients treated by maintenance hemodialysis. A difference in antibody response was observed between male and female patients. Within three months of the booster injection given at six months, virtually all the female patients developed antibody, whereas only 76070 of the male patients developed antibody. The schedule of the injections influenced only the antibody titers that were achieved; it did not influence the proportion of patients who acquired antibody. Dr. Beasley found no difference in antibody response between male and female children in Taiwan, all of whom rapidly developed antibody in high titer. Dr. Oleszko demonstrated in a study of passive-active immunization that passively acquired anti-HBs from hepatitis B immunoglobulin did not influence vaccine-induced antibody response. Thus, passive-active immunization provided anti-HBs during the lag period between vaccination and the appearance in the circulation of actively induced antibody. Similar preliminary observations were made by Dr. Deinhardt.

Controlled Clinical Trial of the Vaccine

Dr. Wolf Szmuness (New York Blood Center) described the first of a series of five large-scale clinical trials. The base-line data and the design of the efficacy trial of the vaccine were discussed [1]. The vaccine was prepared by the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research and contained highly purified and inactivated HBsAg with determinants adw, with alum added as an adjuvant. The dose of the vaccine used was 1 ml, which contained 40 g of HBsAg, given im twice at an interval of one month, followed by a third injection at six months. The placebo consisted of alum alone in the vaccine diluent.

The efficacy of the vaccine was assessed in a placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind trial in 1,083 susceptible male homosexuals who are known to be at a high risk of HBV infection [2]. The cooperation of the participants in this trial was such that the annual rate of loss to the trial was 15.4070 of those entered, a rate which was much lower than the projected 40% annual rate of loss. Of the 1,083 susceptible volunteers who received the first injection, 96.5070 received the second injection a month later, and 93.4070 of those eligible received the third injection six months after the primary inoculation. The follow-up was excellent, and of the 6,332 scheduled visits and bleedings, 91.2070 were actually carried out.

The vaccine was found to be entirely safe. The incidence of side effects, mainly sore arm (15.8070) and transient low-grade fever (2.6070), did not differ significantly between the vaccine and the placebo groups. High titers of anti-HBs were found in 77070 of the recipients within two months of inoculation, and this rate increased to 96070 after the booster dose. The high titer of antibody remained essentially unchanged for the duration of the trial. Hepatitis B or subclinical HBV infection devel- oped in only 1.4070-3.4070 of the vaccine recipients compared with 18070-27070 of the placebo recipients, a reduction in incidence reaching 92.3070. It is interesting to note that a significant reduction in the incidence of infection was observed within 75 days after randomization, an observation suggesting that the vaccine may be effective even after exposure. Indeed, the results of the trial proved the efficacy of the vaccine with a confidence level of >99.99070.

Finally, a most important finding of this study was that the development of anti-HBs is synonymous with protection against infection with HBV. There is, of course, the possibility that the vigorous antibody response found in some of the participants was boosted naturally by repeated exposure to the virus. However, a high protective efficacy was observed in all subgroups of participants, including those with a large number of sexual partners who are at the highest risk of single or repeated exposure to HBV. A more complete discussion of the results has been published [3].

The results of this study are such that once immunogenicity has been demonstrated with this vaccine in a particular population that might not respond as well as healthy young adults, there should be no need to prove efficacy again; indeed, such repetition might be questionable ethically because such studies will delay the availability of the vaccine to those who need protection.

Comments and Conclusions

Dr. Aaron Kellner (New York Blood Center) stressed that the unprecedented rapidity with which this potent vaccine was developed was a result of remarkable cooperation between government, the academic community, and the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, a similar study is being carried out by the Centers for Disease Control in Phoenix, Ariz., and another study is in progress in medical schools and hospitals in Boston, Mass., on the efficacy of the vaccine in medical personnel.

The Symposium was honored by the presence of Dr. Baruch Blumberg, who discovered the Australia antigen; Dr. Saul Krugman, who conceived the idea of this unconventional vaccine and laid down the foundations for the vaccine; Dr. Maurice Hilleman, who had the foresight to develop and produce the hepatitis B vaccine; and Dr. Wolf Szmuness and his colleagues, who conducted the clinical trial of the vaccine. It has already been noted [4] that the remarkable success of this meticulously controlled trial [3] must be regarded as a milestone in the annals of preventive medicine, to which must now be added the comment that it is one of the most elegant evaluations of any vaccine in the history of medicine.

There is now every reason to expect that largescale immunization programs against HBV infection will ultimately affect not only the incidence of acute hepatitis B and reduce the pool of chronic carriers, but it may also reduce the morbidity and mortality due to chronic liver disease, including chronic active hepatitis, cirrhosis, and primary hepatocellular carcinoma.

ARIE J. ZUCKERMAN

[Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)], a Polish-born epidemiologist who spent 10 years in a Siberian labor camp and who later designed the New York Blood Center studies that documented the efficacy of the first [Hepatitis B vaccine], died Sunday at his home in Flushing, Queens, after a long illness. He was 63 years old.

Dr. Szmuness joined the New York Blood Center in 1969 and had headed its laboratory of epidemiology since 1973. He was in charge of the hepatitis B vaccine field trials that began in 1978 and that were conducted among 1,083 male homosexuals. That group was selected because homosexuals had been found to have a risk of developing hepatitis B that is 10 times greater than that for the population in general.

Dr. Szmuness' interest in finding a prevention for hepatitis, a potentially fatal liver infection, arose when his wife, Maya, had a near-fatal attack in the Soviet Union in the early 1950's. She developed hepatitis as a complication of blood transfusions given during gall bladder surgery. 'Imagination and Self-Discipline'

June Goodfield, a scientist who is writing a book about Dr. Szmuness and seven other researchers, described him yesterday as ''a man who combined the most beautiful imagination, tempered by the most rigid self-discipline to the point of obsessiveness.''

Dr. Aaron Kellner, president of the New York Blood Center, said Dr. Szmuness had ''a mind that worked like a steel trap, a mind that is clear, that directs proper questions, that is capable of finding answers to those questions in a clear, unambiguous fashion.''

Dr. Kellner also said Dr. Szmuness had ''an impeccable, toughminded honesty. He didn't fool himself. His experiments either demonstrated what they were supposed to do or they were discarded and other experiments were designed.''

Wolf Szmuness was born in Warsaw on March 12, 1919. After studying medicine in Italy, he returned to Poland to join his family at the outset of World War II. But one day, he was trapped in the fighting while he was with friends in one part of Warsaw. He did not see his family thereafter. Asked to Fight Nazis

Moving eastward, he kept just a step ahead of the frontier. He crossed the Russian border and asked to fight the Nazis, but instead he was sent to a labor camp in Siberia. After a period of hard physical labor, he was put in charge of sanitary conditions in the camp and later of epidemiology in the area.

In 1950, after his release from the labor camp, he received a medical degree from the University of Tomsk. In 1955, he received an advanced scientific degree from the University of Kharkov.

He returned to Poland and received another advanced scientific degree from the University of Lublin in 1964. In 1968, he left Poland for religious and political reasons.

He arrived in New York in 1968 with his wife, his daughter and $700. He divided his time between visits to employment agencies and medical libraries. While Dr. Szmuness was sitting in the library at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, he was paged by Dr. Walsh McDermott, a leader in public health. Swift Rise From Technician

While Dr. Szmuness was in his office, Dr. McDermott called Dr. Kellner for help in finding Dr. Szmuness a job. Dr. Kellner said no positions were available for an epidemiologist. Soon afterward, Dr. Szmuness accepted his only opportunity, an offer to become a medical technician at the New York Blood Center.

''Within a few months it was perfectly apparent that Wolf was capable of being far more than someone else's technical assistant,'' Dr. Kellner told Miss Goodfield. ''Within a few months he was designing his own experiments. Within two years, he had his own laboratory. Within five, he was an international figure in epidemiology and the field of hepatitis.''

Beginning in 1971, Dr. Szmuness did a series of epidemiological experiments that furthered the scientific understanding of the natural history of the disease. By the time a vaccine was available, he had prepared the groundwork for testing it.

''Szmuness was clearly the man to do'' the vaccine trials, Dr. Kellner said. ''Indeed, he was almost the only man to do it.'' His studies are now considered classics in the field.

Dr. Szmuness is survived by his wife and his daughter, Helena of London. Funeral services will be held today at 1 P.M. at Parkside Memorial Chapel, 98-60 Queens Boulevard, in Forest Hills, Queens.

ROBERTSVILLE, Liberia STANDING on the bow of the outboard motor boat rocking in the brown water of the Little Bassa river, Betsy Brotman cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed toward the jungle island. ''Char-lie! Char-lie!''

She turned to a passenger in the boat. ''Wait till you see Charlie,'' she whispered. ''He's fantastic.'' She shouted again: ''Char-lie! Char- lie!''

For a while it seemed no one was listening. Then, finally, a small, dark, hulking chimpanzee emerged from the dense bush. He lumbered across the beach and waded thigh-deep into the water. Scowling, he raised his right hand and let fly a rock in the direction of the boat. It plopped into the river several inches short of its target.

''That's Charlie,'' Miss Brotman explained. ''Didn't I tell you? Isn't he fantastic?''

Charlie is one of about 200 chimpanzees in Liberia who have ''retired'' as research animals in studies of hepatitis viruses, research that now appears to be close to a successful conclusion. He is the dominant chimp on Red Deer Island, a sort of halfway house for a select group of experimental animals that are in the process of being reintroduced to the wild.

''They did human society a favor,'' said Miss Brotman, head of Vilab II, a research facility operated by the New York Blood Center in association with the Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research. ''It's our responsibility to try to pay them back by letting them live out their lives in their natural environment.''

Vilab II, a complex of laboratories, staff housing and screened-in chimp bungalows set in the rain forest about 40 miles from Monrovia, is one of several hepatitis research institutes that are attempting the difficult task of returning ''retired'' chimpanzees to the wild in Africa. It was established 10 years ago, and about 50 chimps were captured to serve as an initial experimental and breeding colony.

Young chimps are excellent models for hepatitis research because they are so genetically close to humans and exhibit the same biochemical changes from the hepatitis viruses, yet they do not contract the clinical disease that makes tests on humans so risky. Miss Brotman emphasized that no experiment performed at Vilab has ever resulted in the death or disablement of a chimp.

But the chimps lose their value as research animals by the time they reach about four years of age. Since a chimp may live for 40 years, that leaves a long retirement.

Some can be put into zoos or used in breeding programs, but for the rest the prospects are bleak. It is expensive to keep an adult chimpanzee in captivity, and chimps that have outlived their research usefulness are often put to death. Until recently they have not been able to be returned to the wild because they never learned survival skills; most were bred in captivity, but some were taken by poachers who killed the mother and sold the baby for $15,000 or more.

1,500 Chimps in U.S. Laboratories

With that in mind, Miss Brotman and Alfred M. Prince, the New York- based director of the Vilab project, began in 1978 to try to develop a program to return the chimps to the wild.

Though that may sound like a simple and logical idea, only a few laboratories have set up such programs. There are currently as many as 1,500 chimpanzees in American labs, breeding facilities and zoos. Almost all of them will spend their entire lives behind bars.

About one chimp in every four used in hepatitis research becomes an asymptomatic carrier. These must stay in captivity.

Vilab's rehabilitation program begins by placing groups of about 10 chimps between 5 and 10 years of age on an island downriver from the institute.

On the island, the chimps are provided with some supplementary food and their progress is carefully monitored. Any animals that are not adjusting to freedom - for example, those that are not eating or are being frequently beaten up by other animals - can be returned to the protection of civilization.

Most of the chimps, however, do appear to gradually become accustomed to life in a natural habitat, Miss Brotman said. They learn to forage for food, build nests in the trees, have sexual relations, give birth - in the last two and a half years four babies have been born on Red Deer Island - care for the young and form a closely knit troop with a normal social hierarchy.

''Many of these animals lived in my house and slept in my bed as infants,'' Miss Brotman said. But after they have been two to three years on the island, she added, ''even I can't walk among them safely. An adult male chimp weighs in at about 150 pounds, is stronger than a man and far more aggressive than a gorilla.''

Life Without Groceries

The process does not end there, however. After five or six years on the island, the chimps need to be transferred to a game reserve where they will have enough space, roughly one acre per chimp, to fend for themselves without anyone bringing them groceries. The area into which they are released must also not have other chimpanzee troops too close by, since that could lead to conflicts that the tenderfoot chimps, unused to the laws of the jungle, would probably lose.

A first group of 10 chimpanzees is scheduled to be released this summer in the Asagny National Park in the Ivory Coast, one of only a handful of reserves in West Africa that conservationists consider reasonably well- protected from poachers and other forms of human encroachment.

For their first year or so in the wild, the chimps will wear radio telemeters on collars, each with its own frequency, so that every individual's whereabouts and progress can be monitored. Within two years, the collars will disintegrate.

While there is no guarantee that everything will work out as planned, there are encouraging signs, such as Charlie throwing the rock at Miss Brotman, an aggressive display that suggests that Charlie has become a true troop leader and is no longer anyone's pet.

''The point is to give them a quality of life they couldn't have in even the best facility,'' Miss Brotman said. ''It's only right. They really are near human, you know.''

Before dawn on the day before Easter, huddled with several other people in the center hall of her house in Monrovia, Liberia, as a storm of explosions and gunfire swept the neighborhood.

For 21 years, Ms. Brotman, a Newark native, had run a Liberian laboratory affiliated with the New York Blood Center where chimpanzees were used in pioneering studies of hepatitis and other human ills. But as a new wave of warfare engulfed the long-suffering West African country, that work faded into insignificance. Like all of Liberia's 2.6 million inhabitants, Ms. Brotman was once again forced to focus on the basic task of staying alive.

In a country where sporadic civil war has claimed 150,000 lives since 1989, the plight of a single expatriate and a laboratory full of chimpanzees provides only the smallest glimpse of a great tragedy -- something like viewing a few square inches of Picasso's "Guernica." Yet even in that detail, the pain is boundless.

War claimed the life of Ms. Brotman's husband three years ago and gave her a daughter when she adopted one of dozens of infants left behind to starve after a village was massacred in 1990. And now, war was threatening to end her life's work.

With shouting and rifle shots all around, Ms. Brotman, 53, asked a hired hand to turn off the small generator that powered an incubator warming blood cells for a hepatitis study. The noise of the motor might attract attention. "I began counting the hours," she said. "At a certain point, I knew I'd lost the cells."

Yesterday, Ms. [Betsy Brotman] -- who was evacuated by American troops two weeks ago and has been staying with her father in Maplewood, N.J. -- was still holding out hope that she could return to Monrovia this week with money for the laboratory's 45 employees and food for its 66 chimpanzees.

But in an endless round of telephone calls to Liberia, she learned that the laboratory -- which she established for the New York Blood Center in 1974 and had rebuilt twice in the last six years -- had been overrun by soldiers of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, one of several well-armed, largely adolescent armies vying for control of the region.

Employees living nearby were robbed of watches and jewelry, but so far, the animals were apparently not harmed, Ms. Brotman said. On Monday, one employee hiked eight miles to the lab along a forest trail to carry food to the chimpanzees, she said.

Officials at the Blood Center, which supplies blood to 200 hospitals in and around New York City and studies blood-borne diseases, said that 15 of the chimps at the Liberian lab carried hepatitis C and one had hepatitis B, but that they posed no serious risk to people or wildlife should they be released or eaten.

Last weekend, Ms. Brotman sat with her 7-year-old daughter, Sylvannah, on a white leather sofa in her father's den and -- between phone calls and cigarettes -- tried to grapple with her losses and plan her return to Liberia, which she said was her only home.

Ms. Brotman left Bennington College in 1968 to take a secretarial position with the New York Blood Center's research laboratory on East 67th Street. But her desk job did not last long. Described as "a brilliant woman and superb manager" by her longtime supervisor, Dr. Alfred M. Prince, Ms. Brotman was dispatched to West Africa in 1971 to try to collect blood samples from wild chimpanzees, then to investigate whether hepatitis B was being transmitted by such blood-sucking insects as bed bugs.

For the insect study, she visited the rooms of prostitutes in the Ivory Coast, spraying pesticides to collect samples. With vermin exterminated, "the prostitutes were very appreciative," Ms. Brotman said.

In 1974, Ms. Brotman moved to Liberia to assemble a colony of chimpanzees for hepatitis studies and vaccine tests. Chimpanzees are well suited for such work because they can carry human hepatitis viruses, Ms. Brotman said, but unlike their human relations do not develop serious illness.

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Liberia was ideal, said Dr. Prince, a senior researcher at the Blood Center, because it was part of the chimpanzee's home range. At the jungle compound, the chimps live in spacious outdoor cages, Ms. Brotman said, instead of cramped in small cages inside sealed buildings, as they are in primate centers here.

Ms. Brotman, who moved to Liberia with a daughter from a prior marriage, said she thrived on the "challenge of living in a difficult place." Soon after settling in, she adopted the first of four African girls. In 1986, Ms. Brotman married a British engineer, Brian Garnham, who went to work at the compound.

Scientists at the compound, 40 miles outside of Monrovia, made substantial progress in the fight against viral hepatitis. A vaccine for hepatitis B was developed and tested, and methods for eliminating viruses from blood also were refined there, Dr. Prince said. In addition, the work has helped unravel the puzzle of hepatitis C, which afflicts some four million Americans and millions more overseas, he said. The laboratory also worked on a possible vaccine against the parasite that causes river blindness, an ailment affecting some 17 million Africans.

But in December 1989, an era of violence and anarchy began, and it has continued to swell and ebb. Dr. Eugene Johnson, a veterinarian at Yale University School of Medicine, worked with Ms. Brotman from 1989 until 1992. "It's a miracle any of us stayed alive during that time," he said.

Massacres, looting and starvation were commonplace, Ms. Brotman said. They abandoned the laboratory, and half of the chimpanzees died of starvation or thirst. Dr. Johnson said that he, Ms. Brotman and Mr. Garnham spent most of their time helping relief agencies distribute rice to thousands of people hiding in the forest and gathered in camps and ruined villages.

In November 1990, Ms. Brotman and her husband filled their house with starving babies left behind after a village was massacred. One of the infants soon became Ms. Brotman's youngest daughter, Sylvannah.

"All these babies just sat there and didn't say a word," Ms. Brotman said. "They just ate and ate and ate. They never dropped a grain of rice."

She also adopted two older girls. Velma, now 20, attends Hunter College and works at the Blood Center two days a week. Harriet, 18, is a high school senior on Staten Island, where she lives with relatives. Ms. Brotman's oldest adopted daughter is a nurse in Minnesota.

In Maplewood last weekend, Sylvannah scribbled in a coloring book and played with her grandfather's two dogs, seemingly unfazed by her mother's accounts of the war. The girl will stay with her grandfather, Sidney, if Ms. Brotman returns to Liberia.

In October 1992, after a flicker of peace in which research had resumed, fighting erupted again. As the front approached the compound, Ms. Brotman and her husband did not flee. "We just figured we'd survived to this point, so we could survive some more," she said.

But on Jan. 31, 1993, soldiers broke down the door and shot and killed Mr. Garnham in front of her.

Ms. Brotman spent seven months in the United States, but once relative calm returned, she went back to the laboratory. Several significant research projects were under way when warfare overwhelmed Liberia again early this month. "We were right in the middle of evaluations of a candidate hepatitis C vaccine," Dr. Prince said. Also under way were experimental treatments to stop chronic hepatitis C infections, he said.

Some of the research can be salvaged if peace returns, he said. In the meantime, Dr. Prince said, the Blood Center is negotiating with two countries, which he would not identify, to try to find a new site for the lab. But any move would probably take two years of preparation, he said.

Many scientists who have worked at the center are already mourning its loss, even though Ms. Brotman remains determined to rebuild it. Dr. Preston Marx, a professor of microbiology at New York University, first visited the Liberian center in 1988 to study the correlation between viruses found in monkeys and those in neighboring human populations. He returned during a break in the fighting in 1994 and worked with Ms. Brotman on monkey viruses.

They will share authorship on a paper in the June issue of the journal Virology that bolsters the theory that viruses related to the agent causing AIDS can move quite readily from monkeys to humans, Dr. Marx said. That is one of many papers on which Ms. Brotman -- despite the lack of an advanced degree -- has shared authorship.

"It was the best lab in West Africa," Dr. Marx said, "a wonderful place for getting work done." He described the laboratory in the past tense, he said, because he was convinced there was little hope it would be saved.

Undeterred, Ms. Brotman yesterday caught a bus from Maplewood into Manhattan and continued to make phone calls from the New York Blood Center's office to contacts in Liberia and neighboring countries.

Ms. Brotman has also spent time shopping. Among her purchases at a mall in Summit, N.J., were a raincoat and some sheets -- for her bed back in Monrovia.

[...] The National Reference Lab of Liberia is a former chimpanzee-research center and sits at the end of a dirt road in the forest near Monrovia’s international airport. It is well staffed and well equipped. An American virologist named Lisa Hensley had been working there with Liberian and American colleagues, testing dozens of clinical samples of liquids from the bodies of people suspected of having Ebola. Hensley works with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and has been doing research on Ebola in U.S. government biocontainment labs for more than fifteen years. She and her colleagues, wearing pressurized P.P.E. suits, were using devices called PCR machines to find out if Ebola was present in the samples, in order to help doctors in Liberia identify people who were infected. Technicians at the lab tested the blood of Tamba Snell. It came up negative for Ebola, and Hensley e-mailed the result to a doctor at Samaritan’s Purse. The real Tamba Snell, Kent Brantly, got sicker. [...]

After about 30 years of using a colony of chimpanzees in Liberia for biomedical research, which ended 10 years ago [which would be 2005], the New York Blood Center has now withdrawn all funding for them, prompting animal welfare groups to urge the center to reconsider its decision.

For now, the Humane Society of the United States is supporting the chimps, which are owned by the government of Liberia, and is starting a campaign to raise funds for them.

“The New York Blood Center is abandoning 66 chimpanzees and leaving their fate to chance,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the society. The cost of caring for and feeding the chimps is about $30,000 a month.

Brian Hare, an anthropologist and primatologist at Duke University who is also known for his studies of dog intelligence, started a petition on Change.org to urge people to contact the New York Blood Center.

Mr. Hare said in an email, “I have studied great apes for 20 years in all contexts across the globe — labs, zoos, sanctuaries, the wild” and others. “Never, ever have I seen anything even remotely as disgusting as this.”

Victoria O’Neill, a spokeswoman for the blood center, said officials there would not grant interviews regarding the issue because “there is arbitration going on, brought by the Liberian government.”

A brief statement from the center said it had withdrawn support after “a long period of unproductive discussions with the Liberian government about their responsibilities in this regard, during which time we incurred millions of dollars of costs.”

Ms. O’Neill said the center “never had any obligation for care for the chimps, contractual or otherwise.”

The news site Front Page Africa first reported on the uncertain fate of the chimps last week [note - as of April 2022, this link does not work: http://www.frontpageafricaonline.com/index.php/news/5267-new-york-blood-center-leaves-liberia-s-chimps-to-starvation ].

Fatorma K. Bolay, director of the Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research in Charlesville, which cares for the chimpanzees — who live uncaged on six mangrove islands — said that the institute cannot afford to pay for their food and care.

He said the humane society has been paying for food and repairs since March 6, when funding from the blood center stopped, but that caretakers are working for free.

“Why would they walk away from the animals?” Dr. Bolay said about the blood center’s funding withdrawal. “We have to find a solution to take care of these animals.”

The history of the research center, called Vilab II, dates back to 1974, when the blood center contracted with the institute to do research primarily on the hepatitis virus, which survives in blood and posed a threat to the safety of the supply of donated blood. Around this time, the United States banned importation of chimpanzees caught in the wild.

By 2005, the blood center had stopped research on the chimps and started trying to make arrangements for their long-term care. [...]

A decade ago, the blood center appeared to be committed to caring for the chimps in retirement. Alfred M. Prince, director of the Vilab II project for the blood center, wrote an article in the American Society of Primatologists Bulletin in December 2005, seeking a foundation to take over care of the chimps. Dr. Prince wrote that the blood center “recognizes its responsibility to provide an endowment to fund the Sanctuary for the lifetime care of the chimpanzees.”

But Ms. O’Neill said in an email that this was Dr. Prince’s opinion and was “not authorized or approved” by the blood center. She added that the center “did not ever establish any endowment for animal care, chimpanzees included.”

In 2007, the blood center withdrew its staff from the institute in Liberia, but continued to support the chimpanzees. In January, Dr. Bolay said the blood center informed the institute that March 5 would be the last day of support. Previous negotiations about the chimps’ future had broken down, Dr. Bolay said.

The humane society hired Agnes Souchal, general manager of the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, to assess the state of the chimpanzees. She said in an interview that there is little to no natural food on the islands and the animals were completely dependent on their caretakers, who were feeding them every other day.

The feeding schedule had not changed, but there was more food in the past, she said.

She said she found chimpanzees “without water.” There is no fresh water on the islands and the water system had broken down. Since Ms. Souchal’s visit, it has been fixed with funds from the United States and international humane societies.

Kathleen Conlee, vice president for animal research at the Humane Society of the United States, said the group is starting a crowdfunding effort on the site GoFundMe to raise about $150,000. “Our long-term goal is to provide these chimpanzees with true sanctuary,” she said. She said at least 16 other animal welfare groups are also calling on the center to reinstate funding.

Ms. Conlee said, “You cannot just use chimps like this and just abandon them and get away with it.”

• Correction: June 4, 2015 : In article on Friday about the fate of chimpanzees in Liberia that were used by the New York Blood Center for medical research referred incorrectly in some editions to Kathleen Conlee, vice president for animal research at the Humane Society of the United States. She does not have a Ph.D. and therefore is not “Dr. Conlee.”