4 Page 2 - The Michigan Daily -- Wednesday, October 12, 1988 Doctor questions AIDS drug testing BY THE PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO - Peter LaRiviere is upset. LaRiviere is a doctor and a lawyer and he is part of a group medical practice specializing in the care of AIDS patients. He is upset because he says one of the nation's foremost AIDS research projects is misleading and possibly mistreating people who are infected with the deadly AIDS virus. "We had a patient who was in this study and didn't know what he was receiving," LaRiviere explained. By the time the patient arrived at LaRiviere's office, his immune system was severely compromised. ' "We asked him if he had been advised (by the study's directors) of any treatment that might be indicated, and he said that he had not." As far as LaRiviere was concerned, the investigator's fail- ure to counsel the patient about his steadily worsening condition constituted a severe derelic- tion of medical duty. Dr. LaRiviere's complaint cuts to a critical ethical issue that pits the procedures of scientific research against the treatment of individual pa- tients. Dr. LaRiviere's patient is involved in Protocol 19, one of the most extensive AIDS prevention therapy studies ever conducted. The ethical issue is straightforward: should 1,000 of the study's volunteers get a worthless placebo, or dummy treatment, in order that millions of oth- ers might have a chance at long-term survival? The study works like this. Doctors want to know the effect of giving the anti-AIDS drug AZT to people who are infected with the virus but who don't yet show any symptoms. Of 3,200 study participants, a third receive high doses of AZT, another third get low doses, and the final third receive placebos. Medical researchers say that such use of placebos is a standard and neces- sary scientific technique, but AIDS activists like Martin Delaney denounce it as "Murder by Placebo" because the 1000 people getting place- bos will almost certainly get AIDS and die. "The medical establishment has become so accustomed to placebo control, so used to justifying and rationalizing it on the basis of science, that we've simply stopped thinking about the safety of patients," Delaney says. Delaney accepts and supports the objectives of Protocol 19 and other studies like it. But, he and other activists ask, in a global epidemic where death is certain, how much data is necessary to demonstrate that a drug is effective? At the heart of the debate is the basic proce- dure of government drug licensing and the certification that is necessary to induce the insur- ance industry to pay for drugs. Unless a drug has met certain conventional testing standards, the FDA has hesitated to certify it as a prescription. For Delaney and the AIDS activists, that concern for insurance industry standards is the only reason Protocol 19 has required placebo controls. "I don't think that under the current system we'll ever be able to convince the insurance companies to pay for (AZT as a preventive drug). They've got nice little (laws) out here, that until you've met the traditional standard of proof, they'll say you've never proved anything, so I don't have to pay for the bill. That what this study's all about. It's about proving the value of AZT to the extent that the insurance companies will have to accept it." IN BRIEF Compiled from Associated Press and staff reports Serbians demand local party leaders' resignation BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Serbian Communists demanded yesterday that three senior party leaders be fired in Kosovo, an autonomous province whose Slavic residents claim to be victimized by the huge majority of ethnic Albanians. The demand is the latest development in weeks of strikes, public protest, and political maneuvering over ethnic rivalries and economic crisis in Yugoslavia. The nation is $21 billion in debt to the West and has been forced to adopt unpopular austerity measures. Inflation has been more than 200 per cent for the past 12 months, and there are about one million unemployed. Civilians make weapons WASHINGTON - U.S. nuclear weapons are made in an industrial labyrinth spreading over 13 states and occupying 90,000 people in 16 major planets, three laboratories and a test range, spending about $7.6 billion a year. All of the weapons are produced by a civilian agency, the Energy Department, and have always been. No administration or Congress has wanted to give the job to the military. It wasn't until the 1950s, in fact, that the armed forced were even allowed to keep weapons on hand. If they had wanted one, they would have had to get it from the Atomic Energy Commission, one of the department's predecessors. - SWEE~TEST FDA1 is October 15th Tell your Sweetheart with a Daily Personal Ad. The Michiaan Daily Classifieds 764-0557 CLASSIFIED ADS! Call 764-0557 i Mich. plane crash kills " Six Let Them Know How You Fee!l I DAILY PERSONALS 764-0557 OSCODA, Mich. - Six people were killed and 10 others injured yesterday at Wurtsmith Air Force Base when an Air Force tanker plane crashed, authorities said. The Pentagon indicated the plane was carrying only16 people, said Lt. Col. Rick O'Born, a spokeperson in Washington, D.C. A KC-135 stratotanker, a four-engine plane used to refuel other planes, went down at 2:20 p.m. as it was returning to the base from a mission to K .I. Sawyer Airforce Base in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, said Staff Sgt. Donald Lawber, spokesperson at Wurtsmith. The plane's mission was unknown at the time of the crash, Senior Airperson Michael Blair said. A mechanic at a shop near the Air base said the fire had been extinguished at 3:45 p.m. Candidates talk about trade issues in pres. race Michael Dukakis and George Bush sparred at a distance yesterday over trade issues. In a speech in Boston, the Democrat vowed to stand up for American companies and jobs while his rival charged him guilty of "protectionist demagoguery." "My opponent needs an issue and he's willing to scare people to find it," said Bush, campaigning in Seattle. He coupled his attack with a pledge to "throw the book" at inside stock traders and other white-collar criminals. Dukakis replied a few hours later. "I'm for more trade not less trade," he said. "I want to export American products, not American jobs. I want us to begin selling cars and computers and compact discs to the Germans and the Japanese and the Koreans, not arms to the Ayatollah," Dukakis said. The Democratic candidate said that the U.S. might need to protect some firms struggling against foreign competition. EXTRAS Canadian gardener grows gargantuan, 633 lb gourd SAN FRANCISCO - A Nova Scotia gourd grower pounded the competition with a super-heavyweight pumpkin that tipped the scales at a near-record 633 pounds - an international victory he says came without steriods. Keith Chapel gleefully denied a mischievous suggestion that he may have used anabolic steriods on his entry to win Monday's International Pumpkin Association World Weight-Off. "Oh, no!" said Chapel, responding to the allegation. The question came in light of drug scandals that plagued the Summer Olympics at Seoul, including the case of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who was stripped of his gold medal when officials found he'd used the banned drug that bolsters muscle building but has many harmful side ef- fects. Chapel's entry, which competed with plump pumpkins from the United States, England and Japan, won him $2,000 and a trip to San Francisco. England's 317-pound entry, grown by Ron Butcher, was weighed in a pub, where cries of encouragement echoed across the City Hall steps some 5,000 miles away. ~iie II ioiga n Iati1 The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. Subscription rates: For fall and winter (2 semesters) $25.00 in-town and $35.00 out-of-town, for fall only $15.00 in-town and $20.00 out-of-town. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and the National Student News Service. 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