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From: bywater!arnor!dgreen@uunet.UU.NET
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: KS research
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.171245.17639@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 16:07:20 GMT
References: <1991Jan5.145313.11925@cs.ucla.edu>
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The.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (The "Bird") writes:

|> For those of you who believe we are now in "superhuman research and testing 
|> modes", I have learned that that is pure horseshit. There are a total of 5 
|> AIDS patients at the NIH being tested for various items. My friend is the only 
|> patient currently undergoing this particular phase I trial.

I question your accusation, since I visit the NIH every couple of months
and see many AIDS patients there every time I go.  The NIH is now trying
to localize drug trials, rather than ship everyone to Bethesda.  Perhaps
this is the phenomenon you are observing.  When making such accusations,
it is essential that you be extremely clear about what you mean.  
"5 AIDS patients" being tested for what?  KS drugs?  HIV drugs?  Do you
mean "5 *hospitalized* AIDS patients"?  If so, that comes as no surprise,
because most of NIH's work is going toward those who are infected, but
whose immune systems are not completely destroyed.  I believe this is a
proper approach, to save/extend the maximum number of lives per unit
cost.

However, I am disturbed by the slowness of NIH as well.  The
AIDS vaccine trial which I have been involved with for 2.5 years has 
been extremely slow, ostensibly to avoid risks to its experimental
subjects.  However, having seen several friends die, I would be happy
to add more risk to myself to see fewer people die of AIDS.

It is quite infuriating.  Medical practitioners involved with AIDS seem
to lose their sense of "the big picture" to the individual concerns of
their experimental subjects, or the day-to-day issues of grant pursuit.

____
\  /Dan Greening	IBM T.J.Watson Research Center	 NY (914) 784-7861
 \/ dgreen@cs.ucla.edu	Yorktown Heights, NY 10598-0704	 CA (213) 825-2266