Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - September 12, 1986
Senator Weicker, a Connecticut Republican, made the assertion Wednesday as he argued successfully for Senate passage of legislation that would add $47 million next year for research on the disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which destroys the ability to fight infection.
The legislation, if accepted by the House, would make experimental drugs widely available to as many as 10,000 severely ill patients with AIDS and AIDS-related complex.
Drugs with potential for treating AIDS are available now only to patients enrolled in scientific experiments. Federal officials have argued that this is the fastest way to determine which treatments are safe and effective, but some AIDS victims and their advocates have argued that dying patients should have access even to unproved drugs if they wished. Weicker's Appeal for Funds
Senator Weicker said in proposing the legislation, "At least 10,000 people can live six extra months, and I'm not coming off the floor of the United States Senate until I get the money to see that that happens."
He said the National Cancer Institute had only enough money to provide the drug, azidothymidine, to 1,000 people in the terminal state of the disease. Researchers familiar with the testing of AIDS drugs said, however, that it was not yet known whether the drug the drug, also called AZT, could prolong life in AIDS patients.
"We would hope it would prolong the life of people with the disease," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, coordinator of AIDS research for the National Institutes of Health. "You can't say that, because we don't know." Not a Cure, Researchers Stress
Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, who is one of the discoverers of the AIDS virus, said, "I don't think AZT is any cure, or any great tremendous advance. But I do think it's likely to be among the best things we have now, perhaps the best."
Dr. Martin Hirsch of the Massachusetts General Hospital, who is studying azidothymidine, said: "I think it's a very promising drug. We know that it inhibits the replication or growth of the virus in the laboratory."
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