E-drug: Microbicide toxicity
---------------------------------------------
Dr Van Damme confirms Nonoxynol is inefficient and toxic.
At Durban, World AIDS Conference, during the 2000-07-12 plenary
session, Dr Van Damme displayed the results of all the
UNAIDS/Columbia Laboratories trials led in Africa and in Thailand on
Nonoxynol 9 (N9) in its virucide role in prevention of HIV
transmission.
All those trials confirm that Nonoxynol 9 is inefficient and toxic.
One of the most recent trials has just been stopped 9 months earlier
than foreseen (June 2000 instead of January 2001). Indeed, on the 700
female African sex workers who have taken part in the trial, as many
have been contaminated in the N9 arm as in the placebo arm. Besides,
more numerous lesions of the mucous membrane have been observed in
the N9 arm than in the placebo arm, which increases the risks of HIV
transmission.
In spite of those catastrophic results, trials on Nonoxynol 9 go on
all over the world, looking for illusory optimal right proportions. A
trial called Conceptrol with a N9 concentration twice higher, that is
more dangerous for the mucous membrane, is still in course.
At the same plenary session, research on other microbicide candidates
(PCP =96 515, Pro 2000, Dextrin Sulfate, Cellulose Sulfate and
Buffergel) were announced. Buffergel, for instance, is known for
its toxic effects observed in Thailand among female sex workers. As
for microbocides, no pre-clinical study has been led with enough
rigor before Phase I and II.
At Microbicide 2000 conference in Washington in March, Peter Piot
said : "With what science can bring today, we will probably find a
microbicide before any vaccine. " The interest of discovering an
efficient microbicide and the hope for it mustn't lead to the
abandonment of the most elementary ethical principles and scientific
rigor. It must be said loudly : at the moment there is no microbicide
efficient against HIV.
This is why Act Up-Paris demands :
1. that UNAIDS announce clearly, and advertise at a maximum, the
failure of the trials on Nonoxynol 9, so that all the trials on that
molecule should be stopped.
2. that the objectives of science concerning microbicides be
redefined clearly and that clear scientific and clinical
experimentation scope be guaranteed, equivalent to the one of medical
research in Northern countries.
Contact:
Sylvain Coudret
Commission Nord/Sud
Act Up-Paris
BP287 - 75525 Paris Cedex 11
tel : 33 1 49 29 44 75
fax : 33 1 48 06 16 74
e mail : planetafrica@asso.globenet.org
--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.