Expectations of ‘Miracle’ AIDS Drug Decline After 2 Studies
A form of a highly touted “miracle” treatment for AIDS that made its way from Kenya to underground drug networks in Los Angeles, New York and other U.S. cities is not as promising as had been hoped, two Los Angeles studies have found.
The drug, administered experimentally in Africa last winter under the name Kemron, appears to have “no profound effect” on patients infected with the AIDS virus, according to an unpublished study of 167 patients released last week by Search Alliance, a community-based research group here.
Complicating those findings are slightly more encouraging results observed in 37 of 40 patients by Dr. Wilbert C. Jordan, a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on AIDS and a prominent infectious disease specialist at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.
The two Los Angeles studies on the drug, known in the United States as oral alpha interferon, are in stark contrast to claims made in February by scientists and government officials in Kenya. They claimed that a powdered form of oral alpha interferon not only depressed AIDS symptoms in some patients, but removed all signs of infection in as many as eight of the 101 men and women who began the study. Details of the study were published in July in the East African Medical Journal.
The announcement of what was proclaimed to be the most effective treatment for AIDS was met with skepticism by U.S. doctors and researchers who complained that the study was poorly constructed and involved patients who may or may not have had AIDS-related symptoms. A subsequent study by the World Health Organization also found the drug to be relatively ineffective against AIDS.
Alpha interferon, a manufactured form of a natural body chemical, has long been touted as a cure for AIDS. An injectable form of the drug has been used successfully to treat genital warts and Kaposi’s sarcoma, a form of cancer associated with AIDS.
The drug is also being tested, along with other drugs, to treat and prevent a variety of AIDS-related ailments. In virtually all of these cases, alpha interferon is given by injection and in doses thousands of times larger than those used by the Kenya researchers.
Angered by what they say is an elitist and racial bias on the part of the U.S. and European medical establishments, many AIDS patients in the United States began traveling to Africa for treatment or sought a liquid form of alpha interferon from underground sources last winter.
“It became the ‘drug of the month,’ ” especially in New York and to some extent in California, said Dr. Paul Rothman, physician and president of Search Alliance, which organized a study in June among local physicians.
In its study in Los Angeles between June and October, Search Alliance concluded that there was no evidence to show that the drug was harmful, but there was also little, if any, evidence to show it helped.
“While (the) data (do) not suggest that oral interferon alpha has any profound effect on immune function . . . it cannot definitely be said that oral interferon alpha has no beneficial effect in these patients without more careful study for longer periods of time and at different doses,” the study stated.
Jordan’s results seem slightly more encouraging. In his review of 40 patients at an AIDS clinic at King hospital and in his private practice, Jordan has seen improvement in most patients who have been taking oral alpha interferon.
They have gained weight, reported feeling better and shown some improvement in their bodies’ abilities to fight infections, although the improvements have not been nearly as great as those reported by the Kenya researchers.
Jordan has observed at least one difference among patients, which may or may not be a factor in his results. Those patients in Los Angeles who have not been on AZT, the only antiviral AIDS drug licensed in Western countries, have done somewhat better than those who have taken AZT. It is quite plausible, Jordan said, that the African patients who received oral alpha interferon did not have access to AZT or other drugs used commonly by U.S. AIDS patients.
The Kenyan product, which was manufactured in Japan, comes in a powdered form, whereas the U.S. form is manufactured in this country and is liquid. Jordan and others wonder if there might be other differences in the drug that might account for the different reported reactions.
Although it has been difficult for U.S. AIDS patients and their doctors to obtain Kemron, Jordan said he has a reliable supply coming into Los Angeles and will be giving Kemron to 40 more patients as well as keeping many of his first 40 patients on the treatment they began earlier this year.
WHO experts say that well-designed, carefully controlled studies are needed, in which patients who receive low doses of oral alpha interferon are compared to those who receive placeboes or dummy pills. Also, WHO scientists said, all relevant variables must be monitored, such as the degree of illness of the patients and the use of AZT, before any conclusion can be reached about the drug.
