Group Formed to Test AIDS Drugs
In a bid to speed AIDS research and ease patient access to experimental therapies, 30 primary-care physicians from Southern California and Nevada have formed a consortium to conduct clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of promising drugs.
The newly formed Southwest Community-Based AIDS Treatment Group on Thursday was awarded a $100,000 start-up grant from the American Foundation for AIDS Research, part of the $1.4 million in funding the foundation announced for 16 such groups throughout the country.
The group includes doctors from Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Palm Springs and Las Vegas, said Dr. Dennis M. Causey, the principal investigator and an assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at USC.
The new group will conduct research on gay men, HIV-infected adolescents, drug abusers, hemophiliacs and others. The federal government is also providing $6 million in funding for community-based AIDS research this year.
Causey said the community-based research group is expected to complement the more technical research programs in progress at major academic medical centers, such as USC, UCLA and UC San Diego.
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