Dupe, sorry please delete

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(sorry, didn't come up with my search)

A U.S.-funded study on an AIDS drug was so poorly conducted that it potentially put the lives of hundreds of mothers and babies in Uganda at risk, a government whistleblower said Tuesday. Dr. Jonathan Fishbein said officials at the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) overlooked problems with the way the study was conducted on the drug, nevirapine, which was being used to protect babies in Africa from HIV (news - web sites) infection during birth.

Fishbein testified before a panel of scientists at the independent Institute of Medicine (news - web sites). NIH, which maintains that the drug is safe in single doses, asked the institute to conduct the review. In his testimony, Fishbein accused NIH of a double standard, saying the project in Uganda would not have passed muster with federal health officials in the United States.

"The actions of the NIH reveal a callous indifference to the fate of Africans," Fishbein said. "African life, it would appear, is not to be valued as highly as American life." NIH's No. 2 infectious disease official, Dr. H. Clifford Lane, acknowledged there were record-keeping problems with the study. Even so, he said, the drug is saving lives in Africa.

"The overall conclusions remain valid that single doses of nevirapine given to the mother during labor and given to the child shortly after birth were safe and could reduce the spread of HIV disease from mother to baby," Lane said in an interview with The Associated Press.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=14&u=/ap/20050104/ap_on_go_ot/aids_drug_whistleblower