The.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (The "Bird") (01/05/91)
My good friend is at the NIH right now on a 22day hospitalization to test a
drug called Pentosan Polysulphate. He said this drug had been used in europe
for 30 years but Gallo is now interested in it. It's too soon to tell
anything. But I will keep you posted.
For those of you who believe we are now in "superhuman research and testing
modes", I have learned that that is pure horseshit. There are a total of 5
AIDS patients at the NIH being tested for various items. My friend is the only
patient currently undergoing this particular phase I trial.
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Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!135!38!The."Bird"
Internet: The."Bird"@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.orgdgreen@uunet.UU.NET (01/08/91)
The.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (The "Bird") writes: |> For those of you who believe we are now in "superhuman research and testing |> modes", I have learned that that is pure horseshit. There are a total of 5 |> AIDS patients at the NIH being tested for various items. My friend is the only |> patient currently undergoing this particular phase I trial. I question your accusation, since I visit the NIH every couple of months and see many AIDS patients there every time I go. The NIH is now trying to localize drug trials, rather than ship everyone to Bethesda. Perhaps this is the phenomenon you are observing. When making such accusations, it is essential that you be extremely clear about what you mean. "5 AIDS patients" being tested for what? KS drugs? HIV drugs? Do you mean "5 *hospitalized* AIDS patients"? If so, that comes as no surprise, because most of NIH's work is going toward those who are infected, but whose immune systems are not completely destroyed. I believe this is a proper approach, to save/extend the maximum number of lives per unit cost. However, I am disturbed by the slowness of NIH as well. The AIDS vaccine trial which I have been involved with for 2.5 years has been extremely slow, ostensibly to avoid risks to its experimental subjects. However, having seen several friends die, I would be happy to add more risk to myself to see fewer people die of AIDS. It is quite infuriating. Medical practitioners involved with AIDS seem to lose their sense of "the big picture" to the individual concerns of their experimental subjects, or the day-to-day issues of grant pursuit. ____ \ /Dan Greening IBM T.J.Watson Research Center NY (914) 784-7861 \/ dgreen@cs.ucla.edu Yorktown Heights, NY 10598-0704 CA (213) 825-2266
jpalmer@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (John D. Palmer) (01/14/91)
In article <1991Jan7.171245.17639@cs.ucla.edu> bywater!arnor!cs.ucla.edu!dgreen@uunet.UU.NET writes: > >However, I am disturbed by the slowness of NIH as well. The >AIDS vaccine trial which I have been involved with for 2.5 years has >been extremely slow, ostensibly to avoid risks to its experimental >subjects. However, having seen several friends die, I would be happy >to add more risk to myself to see fewer people die of AIDS. > >It is quite infuriating. Medical practitioners involved with AIDS seem >to lose their sense of "the big picture" to the individual concerns of >their experimental subjects, or the day-to-day issues of grant pursuit. > A lot of people are mentioning this in frustration; studies going slowly and forgetting the 'big picture'. . . If you got AIDS in a clinical test of a vaccination, you PROBABLY wouldn't care that you were a hero helping many other to live. . . It is true if left to themselves the doctors may take forever to find a vaccination or cure, but one must also accept that there is a certain rate of speed in research, which if exceeded, will result in incorrect conclusoins. In the case of AIDS, this could be a noncure touted as a cure, a vaccination with an unacceptable rate of the inoculee acquiring AIDS, or any one of a number of nightmares. Crazyman