victims, these four drugs seem to be the best that medical science has to offer to date.
Medical science, in its search for an AIDS cure, is constantly losing ground against the virus. Many of the successes that researchers have had on computer screens, in test tubes, and in monkeys have proved difficult to repeat in humans. There was great hope for AZT when it was first developed, but test results released in Europe in 1993 indicated that it may not make a significant difference--though among scientists this remains a controversial point (Sullivan, 1994, p. 59).
For example, this European test compared the long-term prognosis of patients with AIDS treated and not treated with Zidovudine. The objective was to determine the association between elapsed time since starting zidovudine and survival in patients with AIDS. The results among patients who did not receive zidovudine showed that their death rate was approximately constant for the first five years after AIDS diagnosis. For patients treated with AZT, the death rate within the first year since starting AZT was markedly lower than for untreated patients who had developed AIDS at the same time. For longer times since starting zidovudine, the association with reduced mortality rate
was diminished, and, for patients surviving more than two years since starting zidovudine, the death rate was greater than for untreated patients who had developed AIDS at the same time. Adjustment for other prognostic factors failed to substantially affect this observation. Therefore, the study concluded that, when initiated after the time of AIDS diagnosis, zidovudine was associated with improved prognosis but for no more than two years after starting therapy (Lundgren & et al., 1994, pp. 1068-1092).
Other researchers have questioned the routine early use of AZT for HIV-infected people who have not yet become sick. These researchers believe that the benefits of AZT may be outweighed ...