12
University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Friday, Jan. 24, 1986
Serums bad Clinic needlessly exposed patients to AIDS
United Press International
CHICAGO — Thousands of cancer patients treated at a Bahamian clinic, including former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox, were exposed needlessly to hepatitis and AIDS when they were injected with contaminated blood products, researchers said yesterday.
The therapy, intended to bolster the patients' immune systems, consisted of numerous injections, 6,000 in Maddox's case, of four types of blood serums. The serums were derived, in part, from blood drawn from other patients at the clinic, including AIDS patients.
This immunoagmentative therapy poses a serious international health hazard, and its continued use in the Bahamas should be an embarrassment to that country, according to Dr. Gregory Curt of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.
More than 3,000 patients received
treatment for cancer and acquired immune deficiency syndrome at the Immunology Researching Center in Freeport between 1977 and 1985. Among them was Maddox, who was treated from May 1983 to June 1985 for prostate cancer.
"The disheartening thing is even though the Bahamian government ordered the clinic closed, we've received information that the clinic is still treating patients," Curt said. "We've received treatment materials from a patient who said he was there in December."
Curt and his colleagues, reporting in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed several samples of the serums and found them to be routinely contaminated with bacteria, the hepatitis B virus, and antibodies to HTLV-III, the AIDS virus. At least two cases of hepatitis have been attributed to the treatment, the researchers said.
More than half of the 73 samples tested showed HTLV-III antibodies, the researchers said. A live AIDS virus was cultured out of some of the samples.
"One of the easiest ways to give someone AIDS is to take the virus and inject it into someone's blood," Curt said. "And that's exactly what they were doing."
Bruce Brown, spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration, said that the FDA considered the treatment was an unapproved new drug lacking evidence of safety or effectiveness.
In August, Maddox, fearful he had received AIDS-contaminated blood, underwent testing that indicated he had not been exposed to the virus. In a telephone interview earlier this week, he said he was glad he had taken the treatment.
I can't prove that it worked, and I can't prove that it did not," Maddox said. "I took over 6,000 injections and
nothing ever did go wrong with me."
Maddox also said the treatment was at least a partial success because his cancer did not spread while he was being treated.
Lawrence Burton, a zoologist and well-known advocate of alternative cancer therapy, opened the clinic in 1977 after the FDA refused to allow clinical studies to be conducted in the United States.
The Bahamian government allowed it to remain open until last July when it was ordered closed after the first reports of serums contaminated by AIDS and hepatitis.
The Bahamian Ministry of Health said the clinic could reopen if it agreed to follow certain guidelines.
Maddox, who had been at the clinic up until June, underwent tests for the AIDS virus, which proved to be negative. But in the heat of moment, he called Burton "no better than a murderer" for failing to ensure the purity of his treatments.
AIDS cases in Europe jump by 150 percent
United Press International
ATLANTA — West Germany and France led a 150 percent jump in AIDS cases in Europe over the past year, a much higher increase than in the United States, federal health officials said yesterday.
The national Centers for Disease Control, in a report based on information from the World Health Organization, said that as of Sept. 30, 1985, there were 1,573 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome reported by 21 European countries.
The new cases represent an average increase of 27 cases per week. Of the 1,573 patients, 792 are reported to have died, for a case-fatality rate of 50 percent, the CDC said.
Dr. James Curran, head of the CDC's AIDS task force, said that whereas AIDS cases in the United
States were doubling each year, in Europe over the past year the increase had been 150 percent from 1984 to 1985.
"The doubling time is shorter (in Europe)." Curran said.
The greatest increase in European AIDS cases were observed in West Germany, 75, or five to six new cases each week; France, 74 new cases, also five to six a week; the United Kingdom, 49 cases or three to four a week, and Italy, 40 cases or three a week.
But Curran said the incidence of AIDS in Europe was far lower than it was in this country.
Whereas an average of 27 new cases of the disease are reported each week in Europe, during the week ending Jan. 18, a total of 155 new cases were listed in the United States. The weekly U.S. average has been running well over 100 cases.
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