Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - June 24, 2002
Anjira Assavanonda Phaiboon Chongcharoen
It has asked the Communicable Diseases Control Department to investigate.
An Aids patient who contacted the network said friends of hers had responded to a job advertisement placed in a Thai-language newspaper by P.K. Anti-Virus Company.
On May 16, the drug company sought people for 13 positions, including a counsellor, data compiler and nurse.
The advertisement said applicants must be HIV-positive with a CD4 lymphocyte count of higher than 200.
The woman said her friends tried to apply, but the company told them to join the business in a different way, by selling a herbal drug called stree tra dokkoon, said to be effective in treating HIV/Aids.
"The drug is in a pink capsule, and goes for 1,500 baht a packet. Patients are supposed to take two packs a month, which means they have to pay up to 3,000 baht," the woman said.
"The company also told my friends that they would get a commission of 200 baht a customer, and would get one free product if they could sell up to 10 packs,"she said.
The drug was being distributed at Wat Nong Sam Phran in tambon Wangdong, Muang district, Kanchanaburi, which is apparently working with the drug company to treat HIV/Aids patients.
The network says no one knows whether the herbal drug works. It has asked the department to stop funding the temple. Last year the temple received 200,000 baht.
Supatra Nakhapiew, director of the Centre for Aids Rights, said the department should step in to prevent Aids patients from becoming victims of deception.
A Food and Drug Administration source said the substance was registered in March as a traditional medicine for women with menstruation problems.
It contains more than 20 herbs which help blood circulation, but has nothing to do with treating HIV/Aids.
Wat Nong Sam Phran's abbot Phra Khru Panya Kanjanakij said Aids patients had been treated there for nearly eight years.
The temple did not claim the drug could cure Aids, he said. However, patients had come to the temple in a serious condition and left in better health.
"I am not a doctor, and I cannot guarantee that anyone treated here has been cured. What I can say is that 80% of our patients survive, 10% quit the treatment, and 10% have died, but the rate is gradually decreasing," he said.
Treatment was free until last year, when the temple ran into financial strife.
The abbot said the temple would like the state to distribute the drug, which had been carefully examined since 1997 and was now in the trial process.
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