nusratt's Journal: AIDS Experiments On Prostitutes Condemned

[story submitted to slashdot editors 2004-07-24 09:15 UTC] Biotechnology writer Paul Elias reports: 'Researchers in Africa and Cambodia are experimenting with Gilead Sciences Inc.'s popular drug Viread to see if it can be used as a sort of AIDS "prevention pill." At least some of the prostitutes involved will take pills with no medicinal value to see if they contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, more readily than prostitutes who take the drug.' Activists accuse Gilead of 'exploiting the women and giving them poor AIDS-prevention education to further its research, because it needs infection data to analyze Viread's potential to protect against the virus'.