UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday. April 6.1995
7A
Study says HIV is even trickier than previously thought
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The AIDS virus becomes resistant to many members of a promising class of drugs if it is exposed to just one of them, according to a study that offers new evidence of just how slippery a foe HIV is.
The study involved protease inhibitors, which are experimental drugs designed to stop the virus from reproducing by disabling a crucial enzyme.
Researchers said the finding suggests that treating a patient with one protease inhibitor may make using another one later less effective, and that using several protease inhibitors at once may not avoid resistance, either.
Other experts said it's too soon to draw conclusions about what the findings mean for therapy.
The work is reported in today's issue of the journal Nature by Jon Condra and colleagues at the Merck
Research Laboratories of West Point, Pa, and scientists elsewhere.
The work involved a Merck drug called MK-639, and Condra stressed in a telephone interview that the results do not question the usefulness of that drug or of other protease inhibitors.
Patients appear to be benefiting from MK-639 despite the development of resistance, and Merck is developing the drug very aggressively, he said.
The results do suggest that if researchers want to test combinations of protease inhibitors, they should keep in mind that one drug in the mix might create resistance to the others, he said.
The study found that in four AIDS patients receiving MK-639, the AIDS virus spawned variants that showed varying degrees of resistance to MK-639 and all five other protease inhibitors tested. Resistance was measured in test tubes by noting
how much drug was needed to suppress virus reproduction.
In one patient, resistant variants appeared after 24 weeks of therapy. Other patients showed them at 44 and 52 weeks.
Condra said the results do not mean that the variants would show resistance to all protease inhibitors. He also said nobody knows what percentage of patients treated with MK-639 develop resistance to multiple drugs.
Amnesty asks international community for assistance in Central Africa
LONDON — Rwanda and Burundi are doomed to recurring cycles of slaughter and reprisal killings unless the outside world intervenes to help develop impartial courts there. Amnesty International said.
Strong legal systems — shattered in Rwanda and dangerously one-sided in neighboring Burundi — are essential to building trust between the countries' rival Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups, the human rights
Extremists in both Central African countries are killing with impunity, Amnesty said. In Rwanda, more than 30,000 accused Hutus are imprisoned by the victorious Tutsied government without hope of speedy trials — a situation that could eventually lead to fresh bloodshed, it said.
"One year after the massacres in Rwanda (in which at least 500,000
group said in reports released Wednesday.
people were killed) ... the victims and their relatives are still waiting for those responsible to be held to account. "Amnesty said in its report 'Rwanda: Crying Out for Justice."
Assistance from Western and African countries "is needed to bring the perpetrators of mass murder, mutilation and rape to justice," it said. "But the international community is failing to mobilize the resources and expertise which were pledged when Rwanda was in the headlines and which are
urgently needed."
"In Rwanda, the long wait for justice means evidence is being destroyed and offenders may escape prosecution," said Gill
The U.N. Security Council approved plans in November for an International Tribunal for Rwanda to try those accused of directing the mass slayings. Its team of investigators began collecting evidence in January, but has yet to hear a single case.
The Associated Press
Nevins, Amnesty's director of research in Africa. "Lengthy delay also means people take justice into their own hands and kill or 'disappear' those suspected of genocide."
In Burundi, funding and legal expertise are needed to establish courts capable of prosecuting Tutsi soldiers for the slaying of Hutu civilians, Amnesty said. The Hutu majority in Burundi has elected a government powerless to control its Tutsi army and courts.
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The Class of '95 Graduate Gatherings April 11,12 and 13 Adams Alumni Center
4:30-6:30 p.m.
April 11 Liberal Arts and Sciences
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7:30-9:30 p.m.
Journalism/Social Welfare
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Health/Pharmacy
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Call 864-4760 for details. All gatherings sponsored by the Student Alumni Association.