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AIDS activists willing to risk their lives for chance at cure
September 22, 1997
Web posted at: 9:50 p.m. EDT (2150 GMT)(CNN) -- There are times when science must take risks, says Dr. Charles Farthing. And if mainstream science will not take risks in the search for an AIDS cure, he says, then he will.
Even if it means his life.
Farthing, the medical director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is among several dozen people who have volunteered to be injected with a live, weakened form of the HIV virus.
Jeff Flock talks to people who voluteered to be injected with a live aids vaccine
The injections would be part of a research effort into finding a protective vaccine against AIDS. It follows experiments at Harvard Medical School using live vaccines on monkeys.
"I was so frustrated that this very likely safe and effective vaccine -- at least in my opinion -- has been stalled in research and hasn't gone forward," Farthing said.
He said scientists had incorrectly believed that no one would volunteer for the potentially lethal experiments. So he began his own search for volunteers to be injected with the experimental vaccine.
There is a risk," Farthing says. "But the reason for doing the study is really to prove that it's very small."
612K/28 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Farthing and the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care issued a challenge on the group's Web site last month asking for volunteers.
Among the more than 50 doctors, nurses and health policy activists who answered Farthing's call is Joe Zuniga, a former soldier in the U.S. Army.
A L S O : Dozens volunteer for live HIV injections
Zuniga was a controversial figure in the 1993 furor over homosexuals in the military, when he revealed that he was gay. Despite having received a Soldier of the Year award from the 6th Army, Zuniga was discharged.
Now deputy director of IAPAC, he says that risking his own life in the fight against the deadly epidemic is a small price for a potential cure.
"Considering that there are 8,000 new infections of HIV per day, we think that bold steps should be taken while observing good science," says Zuniga.
706K/32 sec. AIFF or WAV sound He is also convinced that the weakened, genetically altered HIV virus that the group intends to use will not sicken the experiment's subjects.
"We are not calling for a trial tomorrow, or even the next day," he said. "We want there to be enough safety protocols in place for this not to harm anybody."
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