X-Message-Number: 8860
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 10:48:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: AIDS patient describes Virodene experience
Here's the text from the South African newspaper.
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23 November 1997
Police called in as banned drug poisons Aids patients
Medicines Control Council calls for criminal charges against
researchers and doctors who peddle Virodene
The Medicines Control Council has asked police to investigate criminal
charges against researchers and doctors who have been illegally
administering the banned drug Virodene to Aids patients. Shocking
reports emerged this week of patients reacting adversely to the
treatment.
This weekend an Aids patient, who has been given a few months to live,
spoke of his deep anger after suffering debilitating side-effects from
Virodene, which he obtained illicitly from a doctor in Pretoria about
three weeks ago.
"I feel completely betrayed," he told The Sunday Independent
yesterday. He said he was referred to the doctor after meeting one of
the Virodene researchers, Olga Visser, at her home in Pretoria a month
ago. Despite being warned against taking the drug by his own doctor,
he bought a Virodene plaster patch from the doctor for R200, which he
administered to himself three weeks ago. Within 10 hours, his throat
started to swell, he suffered shortness of breath, diarrhoea and an
extreme burning sensation.
"The side-effects are not what she said they would be and there has
been no change to my condition. I think she should be charged," he
said. "She knows that people are desperate and she is abusing this."
Virodene was banned by the Medicines Control Council (MCC) in February
after tests revealed that the main component of the drug was
dimethylformamide, a highly toxic industrial solvent and human poison.
The chairman of the MCC, Professor Peter Folb, said it had received
reliable reports of widespread administration of Virodene to patients
with HIV and Aids, most of whom had severe toxic reactions.
Visser and researchers Professor Dirk du Plessis and Dr Callie
Landauer presented their findings on Virodene to the cabinet in
January, claiming the drug was cheaper and better than any other
anti-Aids drug on the market.
Virodene was touted as a cheap and effective cure and the researchers
asked for government funding to continue their research.
When the news became public, there was an outcry from the medical
fraternity. Folb told The Sunday Independent yesterday that the MCC
had unanimously rejected three separate requests from the Pretoria
University researchers to conduct human trials of the drug.
"We were given no reasonable information that this drug would benefit
patients with HIV and Aids," said Folb. "Disregard of an MCC decision
is a criminal offence." Tests carried out on the drug revealed its
quality to be "seriously" deficient. "We concluded that the
researchers had little insight into what they were doing."
Folb confirmed that the MCC was completing an affidavit to be
submitted to the police that recommends criminal charges be
investigated against all those concerned.
"If it is found that any professional people such as doctors or
pharmacists are involved, then the matter would be handed over to
their respective councils for action. The action of the people
concerned is irresponsible, unethical and very misleading to
patients," said Folb.
The patient told The Sunday Independent that he was infected with the
HIV virus 11 years ago, at the age of 19. He developed fullblown Aids
in June this year and his sister started to make inquiries about
Virodene soon after.
The patient met Visser at her house in Pretoria, accompanied by his
brother and sister, and asked her about the drug.
"I asked to meet other patients, but she refused and said if I decided
to take the drug it was at my own risk. She said the drug was being
tested successfully in France and she accused other doctors of making
quick money by prescribing more expensive drugs".
The patient claims he was directed to the doctor by Visser and was
told not to ask for Virodene, but to say he wanted plasters.
A spokesman for health minister Nkosazana Zuma, Vincent Hlongwane,
said she welcomed any research into Aids, but insisted that medical
procedure must be followed. "The minister's attitude is that if the
law has been broken, then the law must take its course," he said.
Acting on a complaint from the Aids Law Project (ALP), the MCC
conducted an authorised inspection on Visser's home on Thursday in
terms of the Medicines and Related Substances act.
Folb said information obtained in the inspection was used in preparing
the affidavit for police. He added that if any patients were to be
maimed, made seriously ill, or to die as a result of the toxic effects
of Virodene, or because they had been misled by the health
professionals, all persons concerned were likely to be held
responsible and criminally negligent.
The ALP's probe revealed the principal researcher was directly
connected to the doctor who is dispensing Virodene. An ALP lawyer,
Fatima Hassan, said people living with Aids should be protected from
abuse and exploitation. The ALP said Zuma should investigate
suggestions by Visser that Virodene could be coming from other African
countries.
Network Radio News on Friday reported that Cryopreservation
Technologies, the firm with the patent right to make Virodene, intends
taking legal action against the MCC. Spokesman Zigi Visser said the
MCC was trying to "bury" Virodene before the Medicines Control
Amendment Bill was passed.
By Prakash Naidoo
23 November 1997
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