What Doctors Don't Tell YouSquabbling among drug companies is preventing proper research into AIDS therapy from taking place, a leading AIDS researcher has complained. Dr Joep Lange, from the AIDS therapy evaluation centre in Amsterdam, described the in fighting as “wrong and
Rather than participating in cooperative trials, drug companies are insisting that their treatment alone be tested.
The problem is worsened by regulatory requirements that often require data to be gathered on single treatments, even though such an approach is known to produce drug resistance.
Dr Lange also criticised the design of the clinical trials. They were often testing drugs that were no longer at the leading edge of therapy. A single drug approach was now obsolete, he explained (BMJ, 1997; 314: 1224).
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD
