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- DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters)
- Researchers hoping to find a way for women to protect themselves from
AIDS infection were disappointed to report on Wednesday that tests showed
one product worsened the risk.
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- The product, a spermicide called nonoxynol-9, did not
protect women in trials in Benin, Ivory Coast, Thailand and South Africa
from infection with HIV, a team of United Nations-sponsored researchers
said.
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- ``We were dismayed to find out that the group using the
N-9 gel had a higher rate of HIV infection than the group using a placebo,''
Dr Joseph Perriens, who heads the UNAIDS microbicide effort, told the 13th
International AIDS Conference.
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- He said the active group had 59 infections, while a second
group using a dummy gel had 41.
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- ``We were extremely disappointed,'' Lut van Damme, a
researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, told
a news conference.
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- She said researchers may be forced to suspend other trials
involving the product, marketed under the trade name Advantage S by U.S.-based
Columbia Laboratories Inc.
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- ``The long-term safety of nonoxynol-9 as a family planning
method may have to be re-evaluated,'' she said.
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- Howard Levine, director of research at Columbia Laboratories,
said it was wrong to call the product unsafe.
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- ``If we take it one step further and scare women into
thinking nonoxynol-9 is dangerous ... in a single use per day, we are doing
a disservice to women,'' he said.
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- Activists have been clamoring for the development of
a microbicide -- a gel or cream sometimes described as an ''invisible condom''
or a ``safegel'' that women and men could use to protect themselves not
only from HIV, but from other sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis
and gonorrhea.
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- ``A microbicide can allow women to protect themselves
and their partners from infection without necessarily having to secure
male cooperation,'' Awa Coll-Seck, director of policy, strategy and research
for UNAIDS, said.
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- Van Damme said although the trials may spell the end
of nonoxynol-9 as a potential microbicide, they did show that women --
in this case prostitutes at high risk of HIV infection -- would use such
a product.
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- Money From Gates Foundation
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- One possible reason for the findings was that the women
who used the spermicide had more lesions than the women who did not, Van
Damme said.
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- ``If you use nonoxynol-9 (to protect from HIV), you are
probably wasting your money. You may possibly be wasting your life,'' Perriens
said. But, he added: ``There is nothing in this trial to suggest you should
stop using it as a spermicide.''
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- UNAIDS said it was pressing for the development of other
products.
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- ``We know that there are more products to come,'' Perriens
said. ``This shouldn't be the end of the field ... One of the things holding
up development, increasingly, is a lack of private sector interest in this
area.''
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- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it would try
to help with a $25 million grant for microbicide research.
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- The money, part of $90 million in grants the foundation
announced on Wednesday, will go to the CONRAD Consortium for Industrial
Collaboration in Contraceptive Research (CICCR), a program at the Eastern
Virginia Medical School.
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