Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Thursday, September 18, 1997 5:52 PM EDT
The studies, detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine, are paid for by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reportedly involve 12,211 women in Thailand, the Dominican Republic and five African countries.
The studies are designed to determine whether the drug AZT, which has been found to cut by two-thirds the risk of transmitting the AIDS virus to babies when taken during pregnancy _ but costs about $1,000 per mother _ can achieve the same result at lower and therefore less costly doses.
Under the study, about half the women have been receiving various levels of AZT and the other half have been given dummy pills. Critics contend the result will mean more than 1,000 infants will contract the AIDS virus.
But McCurry said the World Health Organization estimated that knowledge from the experiments might eventually save some 5 million to 10 million children who might otherwise contract AIDS through parental transmission.
McCurry said the studies "have been reviewed extensively by ethical committees both in Europe, the United States, and in the host countries in which these experiments are being done."
He added: "There's literally no other way to find cost-effective treatment programs for mother-infant transmission of AIDS unless they conduct the kind of clinical trials that they're conducting now."
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