I wanted to add that there is a subset of HIV+ people who also have either Hepatitis B or C virus which also damages the liver. The researcher who presented those findings at the AIDS conference concerning elevated ALT and AST has also done a lot of research with veterans who have HIV and other diseases/addictions. Having prior liver damage will increase your risk of antiretrovirals doing damage which MDs are aware of. For those without addictions or hepatitis virus, I don't know how big an impact antiretrovirals would have on them. Her data was suggestive but not the final word.

As for the woman in the story, truly if that HIV specialist failed to retest her and didn't get her consent for the trial, he should be investigated for malpractice and her family should be angry.

why is everyone so naive?! seriously you don't think that the BIGGEST money spinner next to war wouldn't effectively use an innoncent woman to test drugs?! the leading pharmaceautical drugs company spent something like $90,000,000 on an advertising campaign can you imagine how much they were earning off that product? the money they would lose in lawsuits every year would seem like pennies, necessary pennies that went to good research.

and i've heard it before that HIV tests have sometimes been wrong, it's a slim chance but it can happen, plus it seems more likely that the test was falsified for the obvious reason: they wanted to use her as a genea pig.

Why are you so paranoid? :crazy:

You forget the media. Lawsuits are pennies compared to the crushing you can get by the media.

No, you forget that it's, pardon my Les McQueen quote, a shit business. Drug companies stop making drugs, we're screwed, we need them, and that's why they can pull off anything they want to.

Their time is coming, and fairly soon. They are getting a lot of unfavorable press about some newer drugs that can cost $18,000 per year for one person. No insurance will cover that, medicare certainly won't, and they'll be forced to sell it at a lower price to sell it at all. Also, it's one of the least regulated and most profitable sectors of commerce. Maybe the drugs themselves are regulated, but the company practices are not. They may soon be under investigation for monopoly practices, if they aren't already. They're cracking down on the Docs who take their freebies, including vacations, and get paid $2000/hour for essentially being able to use their names for recommendations, and bullshit consults.

I like you for trying to raise "my hopes". Knowing my odds for contracting cancer are pretty high makes me think about this kind of things ;)

why are you so ignorant? :shifty:

Ooh, a game! A game! :D Word association, is it?

Why are you so patronising?

Will you be my girlfriend?

:crazy: *distressed!*

Sure? Maybe? ... What's the catch?

You must travel with me and my circus all over Engla-

No catch really.

My wife would like to use your toilet!

Works every time eh? :P

:crazy: *fidget!* ...I thought I... heard... something...

...wait, did I just hear 'England'?
:D
OMGWTF! :9~
Can we pass Manchester?
*bats eyelashes cutely*

Just thought i would add this point:

people are not forced to participate in drug trials, it is a choice. Often it is a way for people to get some hope of a possible cure for those who cannot afford the existing medication for their disease. If the drug is having unwanted side effects and the participant continues to take them, then the participant is partly to blame also.

Point being? These people have a disease that will ultimately kill them, you'd expect the drugs being used wouldn't... kill by themselves, don't you agree? Plus you're dying, you'll be pretty desperate for anything you can get your hands on.

Oh and Manchester, maybe, maybe.

My point being, they are not being forced to take them, as you say, they are doing so out of depseration. If their health starts to fail dramatically as soon as they are taking the medication, and they were previously fine, they could stop taking the medication. therefore their choice to continue the medication makes them partly to blame.... its not like the people making the medication are trying to kill them, they are hoping it will help the people with the disease just as much as the people taking it. Drug trials cannot always have positive results, but we still need them regardless, or else we wouldnt have progression in medicine.

...only maybe? *weeps and cries a river!* :\

doesn't this point defeat itself? your saying that the person who is to die is desperate to live thus out of desperation takes a drug which they think might just keep them alive. and this makes it her fault that she died from the drug even though it was thought she never had the disease in the first place? WHAT?!

just because she was ill after she took the drug doesn't mean she thought it was doing her body injustice. the only injustice was the fact that an innocent woman was killed for the sake of experimentation, and if they cared at all then her and the other lab rats would have been well regulated by the so-called professionals to see how her body coped with the drug.

There's an issue that none of you are dealing with - she was pregnant! She wanted to save her baby as well - a pregnant woman will do most anything to protect her baby - even be sick as a dog, thinking that it would pass and the baby would be okay. Now tell me again just how voluntary this was for her.

Lynsie

Hey Catbert, you could always go to Hadfield, the real-life location of Royston Vasey - that's in the Greater Manchester area!

For the confused.