Campaigns

Campaigns

Public Citizen criticises US-sponsored HIV trials

Calling the trials "unethical", the US public interest group Public Citizen has carried out a campaign to get US agencies to stop studies which deny HIV-positive pregnant women from receiving the drug AZT. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced results from its study in Thailand showing short courses of AZT were very effective in reducing transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child.

This is something scientists already knew argues Public Citizen. "The tragedy is that precious time and money have been wasted, dozens of infants in the CDC trial alone are now unnecessarily HIV-positive and we still aren't sure if the shorter regimes are as good as the longer ones," said Public Citizen research associate Peter Lurie. The organisation joined with medical ethicists and the New England Journal of Medicine in insisting that all AZT trial participants deserve the best proven therapy in a trial.

Lurie publicly challenged CDC's actions at the 12^th World AIDS Conference held in Geneva during July, emphasising that although a less expensive regime of AZT had been shown to reduce HIV transmission between mother and baby by 51%, new studies now being designed do not plan to provide this treatment.

Last year, Public Citizen recommended that all studies on the drug change from comparing short regimes against a placebo to comparing shorter versus longer term AZT treatments. Former WHO Director General, Hiroshi Nakajima, supported this move and stated the trials using the placebo were "unjustifiable...even in Asia, even in Africa." Public Citizen has called on researchers and funders to redesign any existing HIV-transmission study which does not give all trial participants AZT or an equivalent drug.

(Public Citizen press release, for more information visit Public Citizen's website: http://www.citizen.org )

BUKO talks with industry

How can an NGO start a dialogue with the pharmaceutical industry? And if it does, what should it say? BUKO Pharma-Kampagne has been carrying out discussions with German pharmaceutical firms for many years in order to further its campaigns on rational drug use. Because so many drugs used in developing countries are manufactured in Germany, BUKO believes companies have an obligation to bring their marketing practices there in line with those in place in Western countries. Through the years, BUKO has learned a great deal about industry's manner of reacting to requests for meetings from NGOs that can provide good insights to other NGOs interested in approaching companies directly. To learn more about BUKO's experiences with industry, request a copy of its article "Talking to Industry: The BUKO Experience" from the HAI-Europe office.

Finnish Med-Sense published

As part of a new project raising questions about social and ethical issues facing physicians, the association Physicians for Social Responsibility has published the newest version of Med-Sense. Five thousand copies of the packet have been printed in Finnish for distribution among all medical students in the country and consumers. Distribution will be done with the assistance of consumer groups. This autumn, the group will also sponsor an information-sharing day about the publication's issues and members of the press will be invited.

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