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An Erroneous Press Report |
| By John S. James AIDS Treatment News
The report said that STI does not work, and quoted Dr. Bruce D. Walker of Harvard as saying it had shown poor results. We were at the meeting reported -- a two-day clinical discussion organized by the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care -- and in fact the information on STI was mostly positive, although the physicians agreed that it should be done in careful research studies and is not ready for widespread use until more is known. Dr. Walker issued the following correction, which was widely distributed on email lists:
"At Massachusetts General Hospital we have a trial that is ongoing looking at therapeutic vaccination and STI in chronic infection, and others are soon to open. For now I recommend that persons not try STI on their own but that these approaches be supervised in a research setting to enhance safety and to ensure that we learn the most we can in the most expeditious fashion. We and others have clearly shown that the immune response to HIV can be boosted after a person becomes infected, and we have to believe that we can be smart enough to induce even better responses that will lead to persistent clinical benefit." Another physician's name was misspelled in the article (making the erroneous report easy to find through computer searches -- look for "Steerer"). Comment The reason for concern is that patients may change treatment decisions or drop out of clinical trials, based on wrong information. What happened here is that this story was not written by Reuters Health, the unit which usually writes medical stories for the wire service, but by a reporter from another Reuters unit who had never covered an AIDS meeting before. And this event was hard to report because it was not intended for media (although not closed to the press either). IAPAC brought together some of the leading HIV physicians and clinical researchers in the country to discuss difficult issues in antiretroviral treatment, so that guidelines for physicians can be prepared. The two-day meeting itself was excellent, and we look forward to the guidelines, which should be published in a few weeks. This incident illustrates that news reports on medical subjects too often include serious errors. Media stories -- in treatment newsletters as well as the general press -- can be used as leads for further investigation, but should never be the main reason for changing treatment decisions. AIDS Treatment News Published twice monthly Subscription and Editorial Office: 1233 Locust St., 5th floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 800/TREAT-1-2 toll-free email: aidsnews@critpath.org useful links: http://www.aidsnews.org/ Editor and Publisher: John S. James Associate Editor: Tadd T. Tobias Statement of Purpose: AIDS Treatment News reports on experimental and standard treatments, especially those available now. We interview physicians, scientists, other health professionals, and persons with AIDS or HIV; we also collect information from meetings and conferences, medical journals, and computer databases. Long-term survivors have usually tried many different treatments, and found combinations that work for them. AIDS Treatment News does not recommend particular therapies, but seeks to increase the options available. AIDS Treatment News is published 24 times per year, on the first and third Friday of every month, and print copies are sent by first class mail. Email is available (see below). Back issues are available at http://www.aidsnews.org/ To subscribe, you can call 800-TREAT-1-2 or 415-255-0588: |
On July 20 an erroneous Reuters report on structured
treatment interruption (STI -- also called structured
intermittent therapy, or SIT), titled "Experts Caution
Against an AIDS Therapy," appeared in several newspapers,
including the Web site of The New York Times.
© 1997-2002 BEI