BS: HIV/Aids Medicine

Subject: BS: HIV/Aids Medicine
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 21 Jul 04 - 08:20 PM

Since reading, for days, about the inexpensive AIDS medicines in Thailand I am wondering why it is that the sufferers of this disease cannot get the same thing for the same cost. A question that has to make you wonder about our society, our values, and our commitment to our own. Though---as in the film On The Waterfront and others---the answer is in front of our eyes---Greed and Profiteering on those least able to resist.

A doctor in Thailand---interviewed on NPR (who formulated the meds) even flavored them for, as she stated, "...these are human beings and should be made as comfortable as possible".

So--the question again----how is it that in Thailand these patients get meds for, say, .50 a day and our people pay in excess of 25,000 dollars per year-----------------OR DIE.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: HIV/Aids Medicine
From: Amergin
Date: 21 Jul 04 - 11:06 PM

the greed of the ama and the drug companies and the politicians who bend over for them.

Subject: RE: BS: HIV/Aids Medicine
From: mg
Date: 21 Jul 04 - 11:46 PM

Read what Dr. Mary Enig, biochemist, has to say about AIDS and other viral diseases and coconut. It can greatly reduce viral loads...it breaks the envelope of the virus. Very interesting. And a very nourishing food besides. Very medicinal. I'm not saying it can cure AIDS, but certainly is a common nut in places like Thailand and could probably be (or is?) grown in much of Africa. Could supplement drugs perhaps...

m

Subject: RE: BS: HIV/Aids Medicine
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 22 Jul 04 - 05:48 AM

Greed and Profiteering on those least able to resist

That really is the bottom line.

I found this article below. It talks about the Indian Company-Cipla Ltd who are trying to bring low cost generic AIDs medication into Africa.(The article is from 2001, but I know they have been continuing their efforts.)

http://www.aegis.com/news/wsj/2001/WJ010801.html

Also this-

(The New York Times June 2, 2004)
Study Finds Generic AIDS Drug Effective
The first clinical trial of generic AIDS drugs in a simple 3-in-1 pill has found that they work as well as brand-name drugs, researchers are reporting today.

Because of patent problems, brand-name drugs for first-line treatment do not come in 3-in-1 pills, and medicines that are deeply discounted for poor countries by their makers usually still cost more than generics.

The issue is important because the United States has refused to let the $15 billion that President Bush has committed to fighting AIDS in the third world be used for generic drugs, arguing that there is not enough proof they are effective.

Normally, the makers of generics need only prove that their drugs are chemically identical to brand-name drugs. But because of the skepticism about generics, Doctors Without Borders, a charity that wants to use the drugs widely in Africa and Asia, and the University of Montpellier's Research Institute for Development in France, which does scientific research benefiting poor countries, did the study to confirm that the drugs worked in the field.

The research was overseen by the French National Agency for Research on AIDS, a leading European research institution, and was published in the July 3 issue of the medical journal The Lancet.

The trial followed 60 patients in two hospitals in Cameroon for 24 weeks who took Triomune, a combination of nevirapine, stavudine and lamivudine made by Cipla Ltd. of Mumbai, India. The drugs are also known as NVP, d4T and 3TC or under the brand names Viramune, Zerit and Epivir.

One Triomune pill is taken twice a day, which helps patients take all their medicine and makes it nearly impossible to sell or give away part of a handful of pills - a practice, common in poor countries, that can encourage the virus to mutate drug-resistant strains and kill patients.

Nearly all the patients in Cameroon were in advanced stages of AIDS. By the end of the trial, 80 percent had the amount of virus circulating in their blood driven to very low levels. Most had increases in CD-4 cells, the immune-system cells that the virus attacks.

Most importantly, said Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, director of France's AIDS research agency, the levels of the three drugs in the blood was the same as would be expected from three mainstream drug brands.

A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying group for the brand-name drug industry, said it had no comment on the study.

Only one patient dropped out because of adverse drug reactions.

Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, called the study "extremely good news."

The fund buys generics approved by the World Health Organization, including Triomune, so "this gives strong scientific support for the procurement policies the Global Fund has been pursuing for 18 months," he said.

Dr. Kazatchkine said it would also reassure African countries that had been buying W.H.O.-approved generics because they were the cheapest.

The Bush administration, under the president's emergency plan for AIDS relief, will not yet buy generic AIDS drugs, a stance that has put it in opposition to the rest of the world.

But on May 16, the Bush administration announced that companies that make generic drugs could apply to have their drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration and that the usual $500,000 application fee would be waived.

None have applied yet, but several are expected to soon, said Dr. Mark R. Dybul, the medical adviser to the office of Randall L. Tobias, the administration's global AIDS coordinator.

Several calls and messages to Ambassador Tobias's office asking for comment on the Lancet study were not returned.

Cipla was not involved in the Cameroon study, said Amar Lulla, the company's joint managing director, and he said he had not seen the Lancet article. But "it is not surprising," he said, after reading a copy. An unpublished study of 1,200 patients in India followed for two years "found that our drugs are clinically efficacious," he said.

Similar pills are made by Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., another Indian company. Companies in South Africa, Brazil and elsewhere are expected to follow suit. As of last month, Doctors Without Borders was treating 13,000 patients in poor countries with 3-in-1 pills made by Cipla or Ranbaxy.

"We're getting good results in weight gain, CD-4 rise and viral load," said Daniel Berman, co-director of the medical charity's campaign for access to inexpensive drugs.

The only brand-name antiretroviral in a 3-in-1 pill is GlaxoSmithKline's Trizivir, which the company concedes is not an ideal starting regimen because it consists of three drugs in the same class, instead of a mix of classes.

In the past, brand-name companies said they could not cooperate to combine their drugs into one pill out of fear of prosecution under antitrust laws. But when the Bush administration made its May 16 announcement, which also encouraged the development of 3-in-1 pills, five brand-name companies quickly said they would discuss collaborating.




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