A Counterfeit Treatment

The drug DDC is one of the few hopes on the dark horizon of an AIDS patient. Recent studies, including one reported at last month's International Conference on AIDS in Florence, have shown that DDC, formally known as dideoxycytidine, can reduce the activity of the AIDS virus, especially in combination with the medication AZT. Although Hoffman-La Roche has made the drug available to 4,000 participants in a research program, many people remain ineligible because they are on other anti-AIDS drugs or do not yet have symptoms of the disease. But the major obstacle is that the drug has yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Late last week, however, the FDA bucked its own bureaucratic tradition when one of its advisory committees recommended that a similar drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, called DDI, or dideoxyinosine, be put on the market even though it has not undergone the agency's standard testing. While the decision heartened many AIDS organizations, some desperate patients have resorted to an immediate alternative: black-market DDC. Underground AIDS groups are buying the drug in bulk directly from chemical companies, which manufacture it for use in laboratory experiments. The clandestine suppliers then weigh out and package the counterfeit pills and sell them at cost in what experts say is the first large-scale pirating of a drug developed by a major firm.

AIDS patients feel that their bleak situation justifies the illegal trade. Hoffman-La Roche contends that the counterfeit pills may contain dangerous contaminants or that they may be formulated in incorrect, and possibly toxic, doses. But fear of the disease far outweighs any fear of the drug.