From gwyn@annwfn.indstate.edu  Wed Nov 23 14:17:26 1994
The following story is a follow-up to yesterday's announcement about the
results of the European study of the use of 3TC and AZT in combination
against AIDS.  It is from _The Globe and Mail_, Tuesday, November 22, 1994.

David Vereschagin
quadrat@interlog.com
75645.1752@compuserve.com

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Reports on new AIDS therapy assailed
Not enough data to say whether drug will extend life, researcher says

by Paul Taylor and Joan Breckenridge
The Globe and Mail

TORONTO -- AIDS researchers and activists threw cold water yesterday on
reports of an experimental drug therapy offered as a powerful weapon
against the deadly virus.
     The new compound -- known as 3TC -- reportedly reduced replication of
the human immunodeficiency virus in the blood when used in combination with
the drug AZT.
     The announcement brought a barrage of phone calls to doctor's offices
from patients who believed a cure, or something close to it, had been
found.
     But a Canadian AIDS researcher was quick to call the reports
misleading because the findings give no indication of whether the drug will
help AIDS patients in the long term.
     "There just isn't enough data to comment upon whether or not it
extends life," said Dr. Douglas MacFadden, an assistant professor at the
University of Toronto who reviewed the results yesterday.
     The preliminary results, based on research done in Europe, were
released Sunday at an international conference in Glasgow by
representatives of BioChem Pharma Ltd., the Montreal-based company that
developed 3TC.
     John Russell, a spokesman for the AIDS Committee of Toronto, said that
while the results seem encouraging, "we've seen this a lot over the past 10
years.  Something looks very good in early trials but then for one reason
or another it doesn't pan out."
     Claudio Brabazon, a spokeswoman for the Canadian AIDS Society in
Ottawa, said the latest study is just another step in the process of
finding an AIDS cure.  She characterized the reports as "not terribly
exciting."
     BioChem officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
     Dr. Philip Berger, who treats HIV-infected patients in Toronto, was
more blunt.  "There is no indication that this combination [3TC and AZT]
will be any different clinically than anything else we have."  Existing
treatment are of extremely limited value in controlling the disease, he
said.
     The two drugs in combination were found to combat the virus during an
early stage of replication within a type of immune cell known as T-4,
before the virus takes over the cell by hijacking its DNA.
     However, other research has shown that by the time most people know
they are infected with HIV, the virus has already spread extensively
through the body's T-4 cells.
     A recent international AIDS conference in Japan was told that soon
after a patient is infected with HIV, the virus integrates itself into as
many as 25 per cent of the T-4 cells.  Dr. Berger said the extent of
infection is "so great that none of the current therapies can keep up with
the destruction that will result from those 25 per cent of infected cells."
     Dr. Berger, who is chief of the department of family and community
medicine at Wellesely Hospital in Toronto, was highly critical of the way
the experimental data were handled by BioChem Pharma and the news media.
     "All of us [physicians treating AIDS] were rolling our eyes this
morning in anticipation of all the phone calls from desperate people who
are looking for a final hope," he said.
     His expectations were soon borne out.  "The word on the street is that
a near-cure has been found for AIDS," he said.
     Patients and their physicians need to be informed about developments
in AIDS research, but "it is irresponsible for drug companies ... to
promote their drug in this high-profile fashion which gives people a hope
which doesn't exist in reality," Dr. Berger said.
     "And it's equally irresponsible for the media to co-operate in that
type of promotion ... It's reckless and it causes a great deal of pain."
     Despite the efforts by researchers and AIDS activists to put the
latest findings into proper perspective, Dr. MacFadden expects physicians
to be inundated with more inquiries from desperate patients.

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