Antiretroviral Drugs and AIDS - The Medical News
by: Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Medical News - November 24, 2003
According to the New York Times both China and South Africa have announced plans to distribute a triple cocktail of life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs free to all who need it. Until recently, South Africa's top officials have resisted these drugs because of a deep belief, shared by others, that antiretroviral drugs are really "poisons." Bowing to enormous international pressure both countries have decided to invest fortunes in drugs that do nothing to cure Aids. Lost, even to the international press, are the lessons from California where the history of fighting this immune disease is oldest. "I have a large population of people who have chosen not to take any antiretrovirals," says Donald Abrams, M.D., director of the AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital. "They've watched all their friends go on the antiviral bandwagon and die." A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1995 showed that one of the things that long-term AIDS survivors had in commo n was that they didn't take antiretroviral drugs.
According to the Times "both countries have now taken a courageous and essential steps." It's comforting to know exactly where the Times sits on this issue but medically a case could be made that "both countries have now taken fearful, costly, and deadly steps that will insure AIDS suffers' will die quicker and in increasing numbers as certain drug companies rack in fortunes. As the market for these drugs have diminished in the US the pharmaceutical companies have to find other markets where the people are vulnerable to marketing campaigns that push these drugs as a "solution."???
Doctors who are proponents of early treatment say the goal of antiretroviral therapy is to reduce the number of infected cells, preserve HIV-1-specific immune responses and possibly lower the viral set point in the long term. What they do not commonly point out is that such treatments serve to dramatically weaken the immune system. Medically it makes sense to address the risks of antiretroviral therapy including drug toxicity, development of resistance, acute retroviral syndrome during viral rebound and super infections that occur during treatment interruptions.
Treatment of HIV infection is at best a complicated balancing act between the benefits of attempted HIV suppression and the risks of drug toxicities. More than half the patients switch therapies within the first few months because of side effects and roughly 20% of all patients refuse to even begin aggressive anti viral medical regimes due to concerns regarding the side effects. Gastrointestinal problems are the most common side effects of almost all antiretroviral drugs - nucleoside analogs, NNRTIs and particularly protease inhibitors. Typical symptoms include abdominal discomfort, loss of appetite, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Heartburn, abdominal pain, meteorism and constipation may also occur. Nausea is a common symptom with zidovudine-containing regimens; diarrhea occurs frequently with zidovudine, didanosine and all PIs, particularly nelfinavir, as well as with saquinavir and lopinavir. In addition to the often-considerable impact on everyday life, gastrointestinal si de effects can lead to dehydration, malnutrition with weight loss and low plasma drug levels and this is especially critical in places like South Africa and certain parts of China where malnutrition is already a main factor in immune system failure. A number of medical people who originally endorsed the cocktail withdrew their support when long-term damage to the liver began showing up and others threw in the towel when the heart and kidneys were being damaged.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Bayati, a pathologist, said, "The medications currently used to treat patients with AIDS, such as AZT, protease inhibitors, and glucocorticoids, are highly toxic. They can even cause AIDS in asymptomatic patients, and make the disease worse in patients with AIDS. These drugs do not have any therapeutic value." The South African governments resistance to these drugs was rational though not an easy one to defend when ganged up on by the international medical community backed to the hilt by the press. These 'triple cocktails' are extremely toxic like chemotherapy is for cancer patients and anyone who reduces the reality of the tremendous risks in taking them, even under ideal conditions, is playing people for fools. Worse they are playing doctor, the kind with no ethics, training or discipline. Perhaps the New York Times should have its medical license taken away from it since it assumes to practice medicine so irresponsibly. It does seem that the?health departme nt at the Times has?become?a marketing department?for drug companies.
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