The War on Aids inflicts  'collateral damage' on babies

Is Glaxo killing HIV Babies?

Fintan Dunne - Research Kathy Mc Mahon / eionews.com 13dec00

 Recent evidence indicates that Glaxo Wellcome's anti-HIV drug AZT, may cause, rather than prevent Aids in babies. But this is not being disclosed to HIV+ mothers considering taking AZT in pregnancy.

Earlier this year a study of over 400 infants born to HIV+ mothers in Miami-Dade, Florida, USA concluded that rapid progression to 'full-blown' Aids was "three times more likely to occur in infants born to [AZT] treated mothers -compared with findings in untreated mothers."

In fact, Figure 1 of the paper clearly shows a dose response curve. The earlier the mother began AZT treatment while pregnant, the sooner her HIV positive child got sick and died -compared with the HIV positive children born to HIV positive mothers who did not take AZT during pregnancy.

Latest international research shows Glaxo Wellcome's anti-HIV drug AZT Zidovudine (AZT,  azidothymidine) may worsen Aids, can produce birth defects such as webbed hands and may cause infants to develop cancers later in life. Glaxo Wellcome sponsored a recent Dublin conference on HIV infection in pregnancy. Glaxo's AZT is commonly included in combination drug therapy for HIV. The company staunchly defends it's effectiveness.

Glaxo's defence of AZT should be viewed in this context: another Glaxo drug, the bowel medication Lotronex was forced of the US market by the Food & Drugs Administration (FDA) recently, after eight women died of intestinal failure and more had portions of intestine removed due to side-effects. Despite this, Glaxo responded by expressing regret at the decision, describing their irritable bowel drug as "effective" and claiming that "its side effects are manageable."

Side Effects

In September, 1998, Principal researcher on a transmission study, Dr. Ellen Cooper, told US Mothering magazine "We don't know what the long term effects of AZT use during pregnancy might be, but so far we have seen no adverse effects in the short term...Not one single tumor. Not one... I mean [the children] have cancers, lymphomas, and other problems like that... but there is no reason to link those cancers to AZT."

Another keen HIV warrior, Nurse-practitioner Mary Caffrey, University of San Diego Medical Center, seemed equally unaware of the import of her words when she admitted late last year to Zenger's magazine that there had been birth defects among AZT-treated infants: "I know we have seen some webbed fingers....but these birth defects are cosmetic and don't interfere with life."

But not all the birth defects are as obvious as are webbed fingers. AZT mimics thymidine -one of the four building blocks of DNA, and interferes with DNA replication. This can destroy the effectiveness of gut bacteria and also the primitive mitochondria inside human cells that harness our food energy. One study found eight HIV-negative infants treated with AZT had extremely rare mitochondrial toxicity, which led to the death of two and severe abnormalities in three more.

Many practitioners discount these worrying findings about AZT, and the newer anti-HIV medications with which it is used in combination. The alternative to aggressive therapy, they say, is to allow HIV a foothold in the child that will lead to eventual death. The Irish aim is to decrease transmission rates to only 1%, based on post-natal HIV testing of infants. But is a 1% transmission rate to be achieved regardless of clinical outcome over the course of a child's entire life?

Drug Dependent Babies?

Because if AZT is, as now claimed, only partially metabolized, its toxic effects slow DNA replication in the infant's immune system. A lowered immune system would not trigger the HIV test -despite the presence of the virus. This could explain the low observed rate of HIV positivity in treated infants. Why then do the infants immune compromised by AZT not get sick? The partially metabolised AZT also acts as a toxic antibiotic that inhibits the replication of any pathogen trying to take advantage of the lowered immune function.

In summary, AZT may be more an anti-biotic than anti-HIV. It may work after a fashion, but ordains for the child an impossible-to-sustain lifetime dependency on medication to hold infection at bay.

Why so impossible to sustain? Pay special attention to the caveat that Dr. Karina Butler, a leading Irish consultant in paediatric infectious diseases placed on record in an interview with the Irish Times about her work. She warned that the "honeymoon period," could end if the HI virus adapts to the drugs which are used to combat it's spread. This misleads us by implying this outcome is only a possibility.

In fact, in the USA, where these drugs have been pioneered, they are already failing in clinical practice. Doctors are reporting a recent surge in 'full-blown' Aids among those on long term treatment, due to a phenomenon they dub "viral rebound." Even if the drugs were not failing, heart disease, liver failure and other serious side-effects are anyhow forcing patients to abandon Aids medications. The honeymoon is already over, despite any coyness in admitting it. The new concern is that we have all-the-while merely accelerated Aids progression by attacking sickness instead of boosting health.

Ireland is now ready to apply this type of treatment to any Irish mother who tests HIV positive. Yet the accuracy of the HIV test falls dramatically when applied to general populations rather than to just those in known Aids risk groups. But once tested positive, mothers who are aware of these issues and are reluctant to follow current medical advice could find a court mandating medication for their baby. Legal  precedent is already established by a court-ordered blood transfusion for a child in an Irish Jehovah's Witness congregation. 

"AZT kills any bit of DNA that tries to replicate.
It is a crazy way to attempt to kill the HIV virus because so few Lymphocytes are carrying a copy of HIV (1/10,000) and the viral copy is only about 1/100,000 of the size of the host cell DNA.

.....Yet 200,000 people world-wide receive AZT every day at the cost of $2,300 per year."
- Dr Charles Thomas   

References

Useful links

Miami-Dade Study
Ricardo S. de Souza et al., (2000) Effect of prenatal zidovudine on disease progression in perinatally HIV-1-infected infants, Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 24: 154-161.

March 4, 1998: Glaxo Wellcome
PRECAUTIONS:
Information for Patients: Fifth paragraph, second sentence revised (new text in italics) - "The long-term consequences of in utero and infant exposure to Retrovir are unknown, including the possible risk of cancer.

AZT (SIDE) EFFECTS
Body as a whole: abdominal pain, back pain, body odor, chest pain, chills, edema of the lip, fever, flu syndrome, hyperalgesia. Cardiovascular: syncope, vasodilation. Gastrointestinal: bleeding gums, constipation, diarrhea, dysphagia, edema of the tongue, eructation, flatulence, mouth ulcer, rectal hemorrhage. Hemic and Lymphatic: lymphadenopathy.
Musculoskeletal: arthralgia, muscle spasm, tremor, twitch. Nervous: anxiety, confusion, depression, dizziness, emotional lability, loss of mental acuity, nervousness, paresthesia, somnolence, vertigo.
(partial list)


A Critical Analysis of the Pharmacology of AZT and its Use in AIDS

Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos (1), Valendar F. Turner (2), John M. Papadimitriou (3), David Causer (4), Helman Alphonso (5) and Todd Miller (6)

(1) Corresponding author, Biophysicist, Department of Medical Physics, Royal Perth Hospital, Wellington Street, Perth 6001, Western Australia (2) Consultant Emergency Physician, Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital (3) Professor of Pathology, University of Western Australia (4) Senior Physicist, Department of Medical Physics, Royal Perth Hospital (5) Head, Department of Research, Universidad Metropolitana Barranquilla, Colombia (6) Assistant Scientist,Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, University of Miami School of Medicine, Florida, USA  http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epazt2.htm

• Physician Data on AZT Retrovir  http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/pdrazt.htm
• Modifications to AZT pharmacological datasheet.  http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/fdaaztadd.htm  see also www.debating-azt.co.za

Editorial Comment
EyeIreland Online News.

If we engage in widespread use of drugs like AZT, unacknowledged side-effects may come back to haunt us. They did when the widely-promoted DES anti-miscarriage drug of the 1950's proved carcinogenic.

Our informed consent must be fully informed by both doctors and the media. The goal of treatment must be improved morbidity and mortality in all HIV+ infants and this must not be made subservient to achieving low rates of transmission in some.

Recent international controversy following questions about Aids diagnosis and AZT phosphorylation raised by South African president Thabo Mbeki; the current failure of yet another generation of Aids drugs in the USA, and the news that prescriptioneffects and doctor error are the fourth-leading cause of death in US hospitals, all herald that for the Aids industry too, the honeymoon period is over.

In an unprecedented development, the US television network ABC, will soon air a prime-time 20/20 documentary on Christine Maggiore, who campaigns to save babies from Aids drugs. The half hour segment will feature once HIV positive Christine and her drug-free and disease-free son Charlie, and will interview scientists who for years have questioned all aspects of the current Aids paradigm.

A more questioning journalistic and scientific eye must and will be trained on Aids -one that goes beyond mere jingoistic repetition of the safe sex public health message, and insists on safe and informed medical practices too. .

14 Dec 2000 18:00GMT

AZT was originally developed as a cancer chemotherapy, but never marketed for that purpose prior to it's application in the treatment of Aids and the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV, on it's own or in combination with other anti-HIV drugs. Toxic effects and fatalities associated with AZT have been observed internationally in many studies, but modern practice is to place these concerns secondary to fighting the HIV virus to the point of elimination.

Glaxo is well aware of concerns over AZT that date back years. Another material fact not being disclosed is that the study which secured US FDA approval for AZT, was conducted using a derived metabolized form, AZT-TP (tri-phosphate) and not AZT as medicated. Scientific controversy now surrounds the question of whether mothers and babies can, in practice, phosphorylate AZT to the proper form for anti-HIV effectiveness. Some studies have shown that the drug is instead mostly metabolized to AZT-MP (mono-phosphate). According to a 1999 critical review of AZT by Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., this would mean AZT would interfere with all DNA replication in the body instead of just that of the HI virus. That would cause toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic side-effects --including immune suppression indistinguishable from Aids.

AZT causes dementia (AIDS defining), certain lymphomas (AIDS defining) muscle wasting (AIDS defining), severe immune definciency (AIDS defining), diarhea (AIDS defining), life-threatening anemia, abortions, birth defects and the list goes on.

Indeed, Glaxo's Retrovir (AZT) drug packaging carries this warning: "PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS."