Subject: Trial of AIDS Drug Used by Africans Is Planned in U. S.
Date: Published: 10/27/92 (54 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Health:
    Trial of AIDS Drug
    Used by Africans
    Is Planned in U. S. 
    ----
    By Hilary Stout
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    WASHINGTON -- The National Institutes of Health agreed to set up
 a clinical trial of low-dose oral alpha interferon to test its
 effectiveness as a treatment for people with the AIDS virus.
    African researchers have found the drug to be highly effective in
 treating symptoms of people with the human immunodeficiency virus,
 or HIV, and delaying the onset of acquired immune deficiency
 syndrome.  But such results have been largely dismissed by the U. S. 
 medical establishment, leading to charges of racism by some black
 doctors because the researcher who pioneered studies of the drug is
 Kenyan.
    Yesterday, after an all-day closed-door meeting with members of
 the National Medical Association, the largest group of black
 physicians in the U. S., a top AIDS researcher at the NIH said there
 was enough encouraging data to warrant a clinical trial, which will
 test the drug on humans.
    "We agree with the recommendation" of the medical association,
 said the researcher, Jack Killen, deputy director of the AIDS
 division at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
 Diseases, at a news conference after the meeting.  "We are anxious to
 move ahead in trying to design a study."
    Alpha interferon has been approved by the Food and Drug
 Administration for treatment of several illnesses, including
 Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer that affects many AIDS patients.  It is
 marketed by Schering-Plough Corp. of Madison, N. J., and Hoffmann-La
 Roche & Co. of Switzerland.
    But that form of alpha interferon is taken by injection, and the
 dosage is some 10,000 times stronger than the low-dose oral alpha
 interferon that will be tested in the new clinical trial.
    This spring the NIH, after reviewing 13 studies of the drug,
 issued a report concluding:  "the current information does not
 suggest that low-dose oral alfa interferon is an effective therapy
 for HIV infection" and said it "cannot recommend ...its use in
 AIDS patients at this time."
    Dr. Killen said yesterday that those studies didn't look
 specifically at whether the drug improved HIV symptoms.  "Any trial
 has to address first and foremost the claims about symptoms," he
 said.
    He added:  "We have an open mind about this drug now."

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