DURBAN, 19/07/2000

At Durban,World AIDS Conference, during the 2000-07-12 plenary session, Dr Van Damme displayed the results of all the UNAIDS/Columbia Laboratories trials led in Africa and in Thailand on Nonoxynol 9 (N9) in its virucide role in prevention of HIV transmission.

All those trials confirm that Nonoxynol 9 is inefficient and toxic.

One of the most recent trials has just been stopped 9 months earlier than foreseen (June 2000 instead of January 2001). Indeed, on the 700 female African sex workers who have taken part in the trial, as many have been contaminated in the N9 arm as in the placebo arm. Besides, more numerous lesions of the mucous membrane have been observed in the N9 arm than in the placebo arm, which increases the risks of HIV transmission.

In spite of those catastrophic results, trials on Nonoxynol 9 go on all over the world, looking for illusory optimal right proportions. A trial called Conceptrol with a N9 concentration twice higher, that is more dangerous for the mucous membrane, is still in course.

At the same plenary session, reserach on other microbicide candidates (PCP96 515, Pro 2000, Dextrin Sulfate, Cellulose Sulfate and Buffergel) were announced. Buffergel, for instance, is however known for its toxic effects observed in Thailand among female sex workers. As for microbocides, no pre-clinical study has been led with enough rigor before Phase I and II.

There is a Nonoxynol 9 scandal. This scandal will reoccur with other microbicides : national or international agencies support research in mono-therapy on molecules whose HIV strategy is univocal and doesn=92t cover the whole spectrum of common STD.

At Microbicide 2000 conference in Washington in March, Peter Piot said : "With what science can bring today,, we will probably find a microbicide before any vaccine. " The interest of discovering an efficient microbicide and the hope for it mustn=92t lead to the abandon of the most elementary ethical principles and scientific rigor. It must be said loudly : at the moment there is no microbicide efficient against HIV.

This is why Act Up-Paris demands :

1.. that UNAIDS announce clearly, and advertise at a maximum, the failure of the trials on Nonoxynol 9, so that all the trials on that molecule should be stopped.

2.. that the objectives of science concerning microbicides be redefined clearly and that clear scientific and clinical experimentation scope be guaranteed, equivalent to the one of medical research in Northern countries.

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