Safety Halts Tests

According to the New York Times article "Tests of Drug to Block H.I.V. Infection are Halted Over Safety", published on February 1, 2007, drug testing has halted because of safety reasons. In India and Africa, trials have gone on to prevent HIV with the chemicals, cellulose sulfate or Ushercell and nonoxynol-9. Unfortunately both trials and chemicals failed and actually ended up increasing the risk of HIV infection for women who used them.

Researchers of AIDS at the World Health Organization, the United Nations AIDS program and other groups said that they hope that perhaps one of the three other microbicides are undergoing full-scale testing and may prove to help in the fight agaisnt the spread of the HIV virus.

The participants in the experiments were among the poorer and people with closer risks of infection in the poorer parts of Africa and India.

I think that maybe these experiments should be tested out a bit more before given to the people of the developing countries because it although the search for a cure is a desperate one, these people should not suffer through the side effects and failures of these trials.