RIVERTON resident Marguerite Wegner has volunteered to be a test subject to prove that the rabbit calicivirus does not infect humans.

She has written to Prime Minister John Howard and Primary Industries Minister John Anderson calling on them to join her.

Ms Wegner said she would be prepared to be injected with the live calicivirus as well as eat, inhale and shower with the virus.

"My offer is a genuine one," Ms Wegner told Community.

"I can't see why Mr Howard, Mr Anderson and other bureaucrats and scientists claiming RCD (rabbit calicivirus disease) is no risk to humans wouldn't be prepared to do the same thing."

(The Australian and New Zealand Rabbit Calicivirus Disease Program group has claimed that humans and other animals are not at risk.)

RCD is being spread throughout the country to control the number of rabbits.

The virus originally escaped from a compound in South Australia while it was undergoing CSIRO tests.

Ms Wegner said this was proof there was not enough information known about the disease.

Ms Wegner's recent concern about RCD stems from learning that RCD-coated baits are being investigated by the National Registration Authority(NRA).

"The baits are being considered as a new product to be used to infect wild European rabbits with the disease.Ms Wegner said.

While farmers have welcomed the widespread release of RCD, critics have claimed there has not been adequate testing of RCD to ensure it will not infect humans and other animals.

Ms Wegner referred to a TV interview about the Australian and New Zealand Calicivirus Diseases Program in early I996.

A former chairman, Dr Brian Walker, said no guarantees could be given that the rabbit virus would never infect any other species.

There are five strains of the calicivirus and four are known to affect humans.
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Challenge on virus (page 2)

The fifth is the one being used to reduce rabbit numbers in Australia.

Ms Wegner said she regularly corresponded with international scientists.

Professor Alvin Smith, of Oregon State University's laboratory for calicivirus, had claimed in a letter to her that the Australian Government had misled the community.

"By labelling the rabbit calicivirus species- specific to the European rabbit, it suggests it would not infect any other animal, which has yet to be proven," the letter said.

Ms Wegner said testing on humans needed to done before Australia embarked "on a world first of deliberately blanketing our continent with a deadly live virus of mammals".

"It could be disastrous because there is no vaccine to protect any species other than rabbits." she said.