VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE
AIDS DRUG ADVERTISEMENT ON TV SHOWS ONLY HALF THE PICTURE
By Sreelatha Menon
The Indian Express 9 June 2001
New Delhi -- After defying MNCs to go ahead and sell its generic
drugs in South Africa for HIV-positive patients -- is now promoting anti-retroviral
drugs through an advertisement launched on STAR and ZEE last month. Though
the advertisement claims that HIV-positive people need not lose hope because
drugs are available, it is silent on the drugs’ toxic nature.
The advertisement, which apparently refers to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs),
doesn’t say that they don’t cure either HIV or AIDS or they have side effects and
don’t suit everybody. In an e-mail to The Indian Express, Cipla said the drugs are
not a cure and the advertisement nowhere claims that they are a cure.
Cipla’s S. Radhakrishnan justified the advertisement and said it asks patients
to consult a doctor on these drugs.
The advertisement had come days after Union Health Minister C.P. Thakur and
his South African counterpart Tshabalala had appealed to the media not to send
wrong messages on ARVs’ efficiency. Both said the drugs were no solution
and though cheap they were toxic, thus making administration under
observation compulsory.
Radhakrishnan explained: "We have stressed that the line of treatment is not
easy and the patient should necessarily consult their doctor for further details. We
are making available alongside a complete booklet for patients giving
details on the disease, its treatment, side effects."
According to Drug Controller of India Ashwini Kumar, Cipla and its
advertisement can’t be censured under the Cable TV Networks Regulation Act,
1995, because it does not mention the drug by name and so may not trigger
self-medication. Though the argument is true, the mention of Cipla helps advertise
the drug it makes. This is plausible after Cipla’s launch of cheaper generic drugs
in developing countries against MNCs’ resistance.
In fact, clause 5 of the networks
regulation Act says: "No advertisement shall contain references that may lead the
public to infer the product advertised or any of its ingredients has some special or
miraculous or supernatural property or quality difficult to prove."
Radhakrishnan defended the advertisement and said it does not claim ARVs
were a magical remedy, it simply holds out a picture, though incomplete, of hope
to the infected.
A Health Ministry official said the matter will be examined in the light of Thakur’s
call.
***
What science says about ARVs
"Of 172 participants, 169 died on taking AZT, three on placebo.
The results of Concorde don’t encourage early use of zidovudine
in symptom-free HIV-infected adults." -- Concorde Coordinating
Committee Trial of Zidovudine in Symptom-Free HIV Infection,
Lancet, April 9, 1994
"Zidovudine known to produce haemotological toxicity in
vitro and in some patients... bone marrow changes in patients
seem not to be readily reversed when drug is withdrawn...
This has serious implications for drug use in HIV positive
but symptom-free persons." -- Mir N, Costello C., Zidovudine
and Bone Marrow, Lancet, November 19, 1998
A woman of 24 with a two-week history of progressive leg
weakness in January 1998 was found HIV positive. Later, she
developed pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. She was put on zidovudine
and required three blood transfusions for white blood cell
deficiency. Proximal weakness was detected but not wasting
of limbs, tenderness of shoulders and thigh... Her gait was
waddling and she was unable to rise without using her arms.
Seven days after zidovudine withdrawal, her proximal weakness
improved and muscle force became normal two months later.
-- Gorard DA, Henry K, Guilodd RJ, Necrotising
Myopathy and Zidovudine, Lancet, May 7, 1988
VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE