AIDS Resistant to Medications

CITIZENLINK - January 4, 2001
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/A0019120.html
AIDS Now Resistant to Some Medications
By Mark Cowan

SUMMARY: More than 75% of AIDS patients in the United States now have a form of the disease that is resistant to some medications.

The statistics are shocking. Researchers in California, who have studied the effectiveness of drugs used to treat the symptoms of HIV and AIDS, have found that 78% of those tested were resistant to at least one of the common drugs used in HIV-treatment cocktails. Half were resistant to more than one drug. Viruses often mutate but infectious disease consultant Dr. Jeff Douglas says the complexity of the treatment regime can speed the process.

"Most of the patients that I see that are resistant - my feeling is they're most often resistant because they never take their drugs very consistently," Douglas said. "So, the virus gets exposed to the drug for a few days then doesn't get exposed to the drug for several days."

Dr. Curtis Stine, with the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, fears the long-term consequences of such changes.

"It may happen eventually that, given the adaptability of the HIV organism, we run out of effective treatments for HIV," Stine said.

Michael Johnston, a former homosexual and founder of Kerusso Ministries, said overconfidence in HIV treatments is again helping to spread the disease.

"Older homosexuals have returned to their risky behavior and, unfortunately, young homosexual men who were not part of the devastation in the 80s are now believing they don't even need to worry about the disease," Johnston said.

Pro-family advocates said they doubt news of the increasingly resistant virus will change homosexual behavior or the stance of health officials to promote what they call "safe sex."

One segment of society that's expected to suffer the most from the mutating virus is the poor. Those with little income don't have the resources to purchase the expensive medications needed to determine if they have a resistant form of HIV.