Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Wednesday September 29, 1999
They found the two drugs, both members of a class known as protease inhibitors, caused abnormal eye development in baby rats.
Kai Riecke and colleagues at Freie Universitat Berlin gave the two drugs, Merck's indinavir, known as Crixivan, and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT - news)' Norvir, or ritonavir, to pregnant rats.
They had to stop the ritonavir after a week because it made the rats sick. The rats stayed on the indinavir for the full terms of their pregnancies.
Seven of the 236 baby rats exposed to indinavir in the womb were born missing one eye, and two of the 113 baby rats exposed to ritonavir had a missing eye, Riecke's team reported.
Fur and teeth also developed later than normal in some of them, they said. "These findings suggest that the treatment of pregnant women with these drugs should not be encouraged," they told a meeting of infectious disease experts at the American Society of Microbiology.
Other studies have shown that giving pregnant women another class of HIV drugs, the reverse transcriptase inhibitors, is safe and can help to prevent the mother from infecting her baby.
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