Compiled and edited by Martin Flynn
Thai 'miracle' Aids drug loses its shine
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Thailand may have seen the end of a 'miracle drug' cult
which at its peak filled football stadiums with Aids patients desperate
for a cure.
The charity that was the main distributor of the so-called 'mucosal vaccine'
V-1 pulled out of supporting the product last month. The Salang Bunnag
Foundation said it had concluded that V-1 did not work - a conclusion
reached long ago by most Thai and international researchers.
V-1, which came in tablet form, was nonetheless described as a vaccine.
Its makers, the Immunitor Corporation, usually preferred to attack the
drug companies for suppressing their product rather than reveal what it
contained. But when pressed they said it was derived in some unspecified
way from the pooled blood of people infected with the two strains of HIV
common in Thailand.
Immunitor generated huge amounts of publicity. They bombarded scientific
conferences with 'proof' of V-1's virtues, persuaded reputable journals
to publish studies, and distributed the product for free - on one occasion
in June 2001 filling a football stadium near Bangkok with 4,000 eager
recipients.
The Thai Public Health Ministry was forced to set up an official panel
to investigate V-1. Its conclusion in August 2001 that it was ineffective
ended any chance of official backing for the product. Nonetheless, the
retired police sergeant who set up the Salang Bunnag charity - and named
it after himself - insisted he would continue to distribute it, and the
HIV vaccines meeting at this summer's Barcelona Conference was interrupted
by V-1 advocates demanding scientific endorsement.
Now, however, the days of V-1 as a mass miracle appear to be over, and
loggers-on to the website for the panacea hyped by a policeman are diverted
- to the Thai Police. Gus Cairns
'Black market' in Aids drugs
The Dutch government is investigating a scandal after it was discovered that nearly $18 million of reduced-priced anti-HIV drugs intended for Africa were intercepted by profiteers and illegally sold
in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.
The British drug comany GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said that 28 cut-price shipment
of its
