Still the Clinton News Network

Media Monitor ^ | 1/8/2007 | Cliff Kincaid

[Pharmboy]

There are more than a dozen agents in 4 major classes that are used to treat HIV...all have side effects like other drugs, some worse then others. This guy is just misinformed.

[Mike Bates]

Does that mean none of the drugs could fairly be termed "of dubious value?"

Thanks, Pharmboy.

[Pharmboy]

Well, it depends where you are in the world and what the patterns of resistance are. The earliest drugs were produced in the late 1980s and have been superceded in this country and in the rest of the industrialized world by better agents ("better" means one of three things in the HIV market: fewer pills/day, less side effects/toxicity and better activity against resistant strains; sometimes the newer agents combine all three attributes).

Drugs that still work well in Africa may be essentially worthless in San Francisco or London. Also, any drug of "dubious" value is quickly replaced by a better one. So again, I do not know what he is referring to. The treatment of HIV/AIDS with antiviral agents is a complex story, but great advances in its treatment have been made by the pharma industry, an imperfect industry to be sure, and one in which I play a small role.

[Mike Bates]

Millee, Happy New Year! You're not snowed in, are you?

Bill may not know how to stop STDs, but he may collect them. You know, sorta like stamps.