Subject: Abbott Labs Is Target Of AIDS Protesters At Pacific Exchange
Date: Published: 7/9/92 (47 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology:
    Abbott Labs Is Target
    Of AIDS Protesters
    At Pacific Exchange

    SAN FRANCISCO -- AIDS activists demonstrated at the
 Pacific Stock Exchange in a protest against Abbott
 Laboratories for its delay of a study aimed at blocking the
 transmission of the AIDS virus from pregnant women to their
 babies.
    The controversy was spawned by a new level of corporate
 concern about product liability.  Activists charged the
 company is trying to obtain an unprecedented government
 shield against product-liability risks in medical
 experimentation.
    Members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power picketed
 the exchange here yesterday.  A day earlier, activists briefly
 took to the trading floor, and launched a banner urging
 investors to sell Abbott stock, before being ejected by
 exchange officials.
    At issue is a delay by the North Chicago, Ill., drug
 company of a test originally scheduled to start three months
 ago.  Federal researchers want to test an Abbott blood product
 called HIVIG, derived from the blood of people infected with
 the AIDS virus, and hence rich in antibodies specifically
 targeted against the disease.  The test seeks to compare HIVIG
 with a standard antibody preparation called immune globulin.
    However, the company is withholding approval of the test
 until the National Institutes of Health promises 100%
 indemnification against all product liability.  Activists and
 federal officials said the quest was unprecedented.  Though it
 is designed to be free of infectious particles, HIVIG's
 patient-consent forms carry a standard warning that
 HIVIG-like any other experimental drug-could worsen AIDS
 infection instead of improving it.  But as a practical matter,
 federal officials said they knew of no product-liability
 lawsuits filed by volunteers in AIDS drug experiments.
    An Abbott spokeswoman said the company is talking with NIH
 in hopes that it can supply the product for the test.

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