AIDS TREATMENT NEWS No. 065 - September 23, 1988
John S. James
(1) Positive Action HealthCare in San Francisco obtained a price of $168.40 from Roche Biomedical Laboratories for a panel including T-and B-cells with subsets (including T-helper cells of course), beta 2 microglobulin, P-24 antigen, sedimentation rate, CBC (complete blood count), a SMAC chemistry panel with about 20 different measurements, the RPR syphilis serology, and urinalysis.
(2) Keith Barton, M. D., in Berkeley (see article on Chinese herbs above) obtained a similar package which in addition included an HIV culture, from another company for under $200. (Most laboratories may not offer so low a price for an HIV culture; this company is developing its own tests, and may have subsidized the price to obtain blood samples in order to compare its tests with the standard ones.)
Prices can be kept even lower by minimizing expensive tests. Even some of the research trials funded by major corporations use only two or three T-cell subset tests, and avoid HIV cultures entirely. The other tests are much less expensive.
Low prices on testing will facilitate community-based trials. Such trials can be integrated into the medical care the patient is receiving anyway, so they can cost very little in addition, and the cost of the tests can usually be paid by insurance. (The drugs likely to be tested in this way are seldom very expensive.)
In other words, much community-based AIDS treatment research can be done with no external funding -- largely eliminating the institutional delays which have made most existing research ineffectual. Community organizing, bringing together the knowledge and talents of persons with AIDS, physicians, and scientists, is the only limiting factor in how much can be accomplished.
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