Document:Young reviews Poison
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1993
"Tens of thousands of people are now taking a deadly drug which was approved by the United States government on the basis of fradulent research...
"AZT's toxicities are so great that about 50% of PWAs cannot tolerate it at all, and must be taken off the drug in order to save their lives. AZT ic cytotoxic, meaning that it kills healthy cells in the body. AZT destroys bone marrow, causing life-threatening anemia. AZT causes severe headaches, nausea, and muscular pain; it causes muscles to waste away; it damages the kidneys, liver, and nerves. AZT blocks DNA synthesis, the very process of life itself – when DNA synthesis is blocked, new cells fail to develop, and the body inevitably begins to deteriorate.
"The cumulative long-term effects of AZT are unknown... AZT is presumed to be a potential carcinogen."
One of the most bitterly contested aspects of the official response to AIDS has involved the drug zidovudine, or AZT. Though AIDS activist groups have tended to limit their criticism to the high cost of the drug, others have questioned its effects and the validity of its prescription for both symptomatic and healthy carriers of HIV antibodies and HIV-negative members of "risk groups." (It is estimated that at least 50,000 people are now taking the drug, including pregnant women and newborn infants.)
AZT was developed as a potential treatment for leukemia, but was rejected as ineffective and dangerously toxic. In 1987, it was approved to treat or prevent AIDS. The drug acts by terminating cell replication; as the retrovirus HIV (claimed to be the cause of AIDS) depends on cell replication to survive, it was hypothesized that AZT would prevent HIV from spreading and thus prevent AIDS.
Poison by Prescription consists of the text of a series of articles originally published in the New York Native, along with some new material. The author, a statistical analyst and chronicler of the gay movement, in examining the original trials that led to the wide release of AZT, found gross flaws and deceptions. The trials were claimed to be "double-blinded" but were not, as subjects analyzed and shared their drugs; "projected" statistics were treated as though they represented actual results; and hundreds of test subjects were ignored and apparently lost.
The author concludes that the tests must be considered invalid, even fraudulent, and that the prescription of AZT is unjustified and highly dangerous, considering the known "side effects" of the drug, many of which approximate AIDS symptoms. He discussed the inadequacies of the FDA in monitoring available drugs, the manipulation of the press and public opinion, and the restrictions placed on debate. The campaign surrounding AZT is considered in the context of the HIV hypothesis from which it derives its justification; the opinions of a number of scientists on both sides of he question are summarized.
By analyzing the available evidence, Lauritsen presents a strong indictment of the use of AZT for AIDS and a powerful argument for skepticism and caution in assessing scientific claims and official reassurances. Balancing careful analysis with perceptive, sometimes acerbic commentary, the author is highly critical of the medical/pharmaceutical establishment and the "gay quislings" who acquiesce in a program he regards as "iatrogenic genocide."
An appendix provides a complete list of the author's original New York Native contributions.
© 1993 by Ian Young
Originally published in The AIDS Dissidents: An Annotated Bibliography
Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ and London, (ISBN 0810826755).
