Læknaneminn - 01.04.1997, Blaðsíða 107

The drug-AIDS hypothesis *
minority includes HlV-positive hemophiliacs, intra-
venous drug users 87, 91, transfusion recipients and
babies 23,24, 38,183 (see 7.8.). Only a few cases are from
the general population
Even unborn American and French children and
their HlV-positive mothers are now treated with AZT
to prevent perinatal transmission of HIV 45. Although
the risk to such children of picking up HIV from their
mothers is only about 25%, all HlV-positive mothers
are injected with AZT during the second and third
trimesters, as well as their babies for six weeks after
birth to prevent HIV transmission. In other words
75% of developing fetuses of HlV-positive mothers are
treated for 6 months with DNA chain-terminators,
although they will never even piclc up HIV; and their
mothers are treated although they will not transmit
HIV. The procedure has been promoted as a milestone
in the prevention of AIDS 184, ls5. But the teratogenic
risks of AZT do not justify this optimistic pronounce-
ment (see 4.3., 7.8.).
The point that AZT functions like all other
chemotherapies by killing all growing cells unselective-
ly has not been lost to its manufacturer Glaxo
Wellcome. Using the license earned for AIDS therapy,
Glaxo Wellcome has recently also cornered the lucra-
tive chemotherapy market for AZT. The British maga-
zine Continuum describes the situation with some sar-
casm in December 1995:
CLEVER DRUG OR IS IT THE MARKETING?
AZT, commonly described in the annals of the AIDS
literature as an “antiretroviral” that “targets HlV-infect-
ed cells” looks set to carve out a new role for itself-
attacking leukemia and psoriasis. Both conditions
involve abnormal proliferation of cells.
A study published in the New England Journal of
Medicine by researchers from the University of
Southern California reports the use of AZT with inter-
feron-alpha in 19 patients with adult T-cell leukemia-
lymphoma ,86. The condition is said to be caused by
HTLV-I, one of Robert Gallo’s discoveries/inventions,
a claim to be treated with caution therefore. They
reported five remissions and 11 ‘major responses’.
There was no control group. The logic goes that since
AZT kills cells, particularly rapidly growing ones such
as cancerous cells, then it will be effective. AZT was
also used in a study of psoriasis sufferers by Madeleine
Duvic of the University of Texas, Houston. In four out
of 12 sufferers most of the psoriasis was cleared up.
The theory to support the finding is that since AZT
stops cell replication it slows skin proliferation, which
is normally rapid. Other researchers have said there are
better treatments already available for psoriasis (so
don’t rush out and buy shares in Glaxo Wellcome just
yet).
Glaxo Wellcome must be commended for creative
marketing (we don’t think) producing a drug that can
kill any rapidly replicating cells in one lot of patients,
and selectively, so we are told, kill HlV-infected ceils in
another lot of patients. Is it a clever drug or clever mar-
keting? These results will have the additional benefit of
rapidly replicating AZT sales 187.
In other words AZT is now prescribed to cancer and
psoriasis patients to kill growing cells by inhibiting cel-
lular DNA synthesis. But according to Glaxo
Wellcome, it is prescribed to HlV-positives and AIDS
patients as a specific inhibitor of HIV DNA synthesis
because it “interferes with the HIV viral RNA depen-
dant DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase) and thus
inhibits viral replication. ... Chain termination has not
been demonstrated with cellular alpha-DNA poly-
merase to this date” 152. Thus Wellcome and the
HIV/AIDS orthodoxy offer the same drug as inhibitor
of cell DNA synthesis to cancer and psoriasis patients,
and as a specific inhibitor of HIV DNA synthesis to
AIDS patients. Clever marketing that is!
In view of this, one wonders how soon AZT will also
be offered as an abortion pill, like methotrexate anoth-
er chemotherapeutic drug 18S. According to an FDA
official the prescription of AZT as an abortion pill
would not require a new license, because once
approved by the FDA “it can be prescibed for dan-
druff” 1S9.
2) Other anti-HIV/AIDS drugs. The consumption of
AZT and other DNA chain terminators by healthy
HlV-positives at risk for AIDS and AIDS patients is
typically supplemented by a bewildering list of further
prescription and over-the-counter drugs. A list of 23
anti-HIV/AIDS drugs taken by 2801 American HIV-
positives, including 524 AIDS patients, is recorded in
Table 7 41. Nearly all of these HlV-positives were male
homosexuals (83%) or intravenous drug users (12%)
who took those drugs because they wanted to prevent
or cure AIDS.
A study entitled “Polypharmacy Among Patients
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