Miami Herald - Sunday, November, 03 1985
Brendan Murphy

Three doctors of the Laennec Hospital in Paris told a hastily called news conference on Tuesday that the drug Cyclosporine-A inhibits the growth of AIDS and enables the immune system to rebuild itself.

Most of the criticism that followed the announcement focused on the claim of "spectacular" results based on tests of the drug on only six patients over a period of just five days.

The doctors acknowledged that they had cut short the usual lengthy process of experimentation and discussion among medical researchers before any results are announced. But they said that their motive was humanitarian -- getting the word out as quickly and widely as possible, to enable doctors around the world to try the drug and alleviate the suffering of AIDS victims.

Competing countries

Dr. Philippe Even, chief of the respiratory diseases service of Laennec Hospital, injected a note of international competition into his preliminary remarks, however. He referred to the conflicting claims by French and American AIDS researchers as to who first isolated and correctly identified the virus that causes AIDS.

Researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris identified the virus in 1983, naming it LAV. An American team at the National Institutes of Health later published similar results -- but disagreed over the nature of the virus and tagged it HTLV-III. The two groups are now involved in a patent dispute.

Addressing the American television crews present Tuesday, Even declared that the Pasteur team's "lead on the American team is indisputable . . . consistently, the French team, very small, has proven itself to be on the cutting edge of research."

The announcement of the Laennec group's findings had a political dimension that did not come across in the news conference but has been widely commented on in France.

Before going public, the three physicians -- Even and Drs. Jean-Marie Andrieu and Alain Venet -- had met early Tuesday with officials at the French Ministry of Social Affairs, which immediately issued a communique citing "spectacular" results and "reasonable hope" in the battle against AIDS.

'France label'

The leading daily newspaper Le Monde said that the ministry wanted to lose no time in putting the "France label" on the possible medical breakthrough. Also at work, according to Le Monde, was "the fear of seeing other teams -- foreign -- apply pressure to delay publication of the French results."

The newspaper Liberation also criticized the Laennec Hospital group and the government agency. It derided the communique issued by Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix as cocorico, French slang for nationalistic boasting, derived from the crowing of the rooster -- a French national symbol.

"It was bloody hasty," said Simon Wain-Hobson, a British scientist working on AIDS research at the Pasteur Institute, widely recognized as a leader in developing experimental treatments for this as-yet incurable disease. "It lacks all scientific method."

Like other AIDS researchers in Paris, Wain-Hobson conceded that the Cyclosporine-A tests are "interesting experiments that should be done." He said, however: "There's never any excuse for sloppy science. It doesn't do French medicine or science any good."

Equally critical

American researchers were equally critical, brushing aside the Laennec doctors' assertion that they were ethically obliged to publicize their findings immediately.

"If you want to talk about ethics," said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, "you want to make sure something works before you announce it."

The Laennec doctors said that the drug -- now used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs -- re-establishes the body's immune system in AIDS victims by temporarily suppressing that system.

CAPTION: PHOTO Philippe Even (AIDS)

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