Underground Clinics Selling Homemade AIDS Drugs

Underground clinics in more than 40 U.S. cities are dispensing homemade experimental drugs to desperate AIDS patients fighting for their lives, according to a report published Sunday.

The clinics, operated clandestinely to avoid legal problems and anti-homosexual activists, are run by volunteers through telephone answering machines and the mail, the Chicago Sun-Times said.

The clinics brew inexpensive versions of an experimental compound and distribute recipes for AIDS medications not yet approved by the government, the newspaper said.

Unidentified sources told the Sun-Times that several thousands with AIDS and other related diseases were treating themselves with the drugs, contacting distributors of the mixtures through sympathetic physicians and ads in the homosexual press.

A Chicago contact, who called himself Thomas, told the newspaper that the underground network stretches from Australia to West Germany with centers in cities as diverse as New York, Kansas City, London and Great Falls, Mont.

The first underground clinic was opened by Jim Henry, an AIDS victim, in San Francisco in January, 1986, the newspaper said. Henry mixes dinitrochlorobenzene, or DNCB, a chemical used to develop color film, with alcohol and hand lotion into a substance he says helps to stimulate the body’s immune system, the report said.

Henry maintains that his immune system has been restored, and said he saw a friend make gains after painting DNCB on his skin.

Last month, Henry said, he began passing out a street formula for AL-721, a food preparation under study as an AIDS treatment.