Uganda

Kihura Nkuba,

A Transcript of a talk given by Kihura Nkuba (Nov 2002)

Update: Letter from Kihura Nkuba October 20th, 2003.

AIDS

See: Anthony Brink AZT Viramune (nevirapine)

[HIVNET 012] [Media March 2006] Out of Control AIDS and the corruption of medical scienceBy Celia Farber

HIVNET 012 was a randomized clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of two short course antiretroviral drug regimens for prevention of HIV transmission from infected mothers to their babies. The overall goal of the study was to identify a safe, effective means of preventing mother-to-infant HIV transmission that would be applicable and affordable in resource-limited settings. Enrollment in the study began in 1997 and was completed in 1999. Early results were released in 1999. Follow-up continued through July 2004. This landmark study found that a short intrapartum/neonatal regimen of Nevirapine given to the mother at the onset of labor and to the infant within 72 hours of life reduced the risk of perinatal HIV transmission among breastfeeding women in Uganda by 47% at 14-16 weeks and by 41% at 18 months compared to a short intrapartum/neonatal regimen of AZT. This simple, safe regimen has been adopted as the standard of care in resource-limited countries worldwide and has been endorsed by UNAIDS and many other international health organizations. http://www.hptn.org/research_studies/hivnet012.asp

placebo-controlled, double-blind, Phase III trial of 1,500 mother/infant pairs, it wound up being a no-placebo, neither double- nor even single-blind Phase II trial of 626 mother/infant pairs. Virtually all of the parameters outlined for HIVNET 012 were eventually shifted, amended, or done away with altogether, beginning with perhaps the most important—the placebo controls. By a “Letter of Amendment” dated March 9, 1998, the placebo-control arms of HIVNET were eliminated. The study as reconstituted thus amounted to a simple comparison of AZT and nevirapine. On September 4, 1999, The Lancet published HIVNET’s preliminary results, reporting that “Nevirapine lowered the risk of HIV-I transmission during the first 14‒16 weeks of life by nearly 50 percent.” The report concluded that “the two regimens were well-tolerated and adverse events were similar in the two groups.” The article also reported that thirty-eight babies had died, sixteen in the nevirapine group and twenty-two in the AZT group. [Media March 2006] Out of Control AIDS and the corruption of medical scienceBy Celia Farber

Why so many orphaned children in Uganda? Because this was the principle site of the African hepatitis B vaccine trials in 1974-1975. Uganda was the home of the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) that collaborated with Litton Bionetics, the U.S. Army's sixth top biological weapons contracting lab during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bionetics was the organization that, at this time, developed numerous AIDS-like viruses under the direction of Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), who more than a decade later received credit for "discovering" the AIDS virus HTLV-III (HIV-1).CIA oversees "war" on AIDS by Dr. Len Horowitz