AIDS Treatment News #162, November 6, 1992
John S. James
The AP story for newspapers reported that the drug was made in Switzerland and had been tested in 70 people with AIDS at Bamrasnaradura Hospital near Bangkok, by a German researcher, Dr. Friedrich-Wilhelm Kuehne, described as recognized in wound healing. It said that the drug had been administered since 1991, and quoted Dr. Kuehne saying that the drug had been given to 500 patients without serious side effects. Neither of the stories we have seen has included any information about what the drug is, how it is supposed to work, or how it is used.
An AIDS TREATMENT NEWS computer search of AIDSLINE, a database produced by the U. S. National Library of Medicine which includes citations to AIDS-related articles published in over 3,000 different journals, found no reference to WF 10 or to Dr. Kuehne. A search of the last 25 years of MEDLINE, which contains citations and often abstracts for millions of journal articles in all fields of medicine, was similarly fruitless. (AIDSLINE contains the AIDS-related entries of MEDLINE, plus additional entries for AIDS conference presentations which do not appear in MEDLINE itself.)
We also searched the last 17 years of EMBASE, a European database comparable to Medline. EMBASE is often better than MEDLINE for researching the newest and most experimental drug trials, because it indexes hundreds of European and other journals which are not covered by Medline and seldom seen by U. S. scientists and physicians. EMBASE had two references to articles co-authored by FW Kuehne, published in 1977 and 1978; both concerned wound healing.
This is all we know so far. If anyone has more information about WF 10, we would appreciate hearing from them.
Comment
The new-drug stories which flash onto the media and then disappear create unwanted stresses for patients subjected to repeated cycles of excitement and disappointment. This is why researchers are expected to present their results first to a professional forum where their work can be evaluated. There may still be newspaper publicity, but then other professionals can at least respond intelligently, helping to balance the story.
But we cannot be too quick to condemn, because it is also true that physicians or other researchers without connections seldom have any viable opportunity to obtain a fair evaluation of a treatment they believe in. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS gets requests from persons, especially in developing countries, wondering where they can go next with what they think might be a useful AIDS treatment. We have not yet found advice to give them that we can be happy with. Even in the U. S., dozens if not hundreds of promising leads generated by recognized scientists in major research centers get published in journals and then sit unused, because there is no mechanism to research them further; university scientists can seldom afford to move a drug into clinical development, and usually no company chooses to do so. What is needed is an unbiased professional team which can quickly scan all these leads and make sure that the most promising ones get further attention.
We believe that major AIDS treatment improvements are still as likely to come from unexpected discoveries as from rational drug development. Unless the system is open to chance discoveries and unanticipated observations -- and it is seldom open today -- the best opportunities may be lost. This is why we avoid dismissing new-drug stories too quickly, even when the early information is less than convincing.
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