Ethical Issues Over AIDS Drug Trials

Act Up Paris is stalling trials of tenofovir in two African countries. Agencies including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are funding studies by more than a dozen research teams in seven countries to examine whether tenofovir, a drug already used by some people living with HIV to prevent the virus from spreading to uninfected cells, can be taken orally once daily to prevent people from contracting HIV.The trials involve HIV-negative people from various high-risk populations, including gay men in the U.S., injection drug users in Thailand and prostitutes in Cambodia. Proponents of the drug say that, if successful, tenofovir taken as a preventative drug could empower and protect women in developing nations who find it difficult to negotiate condom use with their male sex partners.But according to Washington Blade, protests in two countries shut down the trials, largely due to the efforts of Act Up Paris, an AIDS advocacy group that Pilorge helps lead as coordinator of treatment advocacy.Read more here