Subject: Baboon bust...can you say "spin control"?
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 08:24:39 -0500

Well, the results are finally in and the much touted xenographic transplant
procedure has been deemed a complete failure in curing AIDS.

Project Inform, ACT UP Golden Gate, Ron Baker of SFAF and the rest of San
Francisco's pathetic AIDS establishment who wasted time and money fueling the
media sensationalism surrounding this experiment in futility must be stopped.
We're dying while they play expensive Dr. Frankenstein games.

Of course, even in the face of failure, Getty and his cronies in the AIDS
industry refuse to give up. Now they are saying that high doses of radiation
therapy kills HIV and, therefore, points to a potential new direction in
research. The logic is simple: destroy the patient's immune system and the
virus can't survive. Of course, neither can the patient.

Murderers like Volberding, who advocate that people with compromised immune
system undergo therapies that further suppress cellular immunity, need to be
exposed as profiteering quacks whose advice circumvents any kind of
scientific logic.

This whole sick, twisted baboon joke might be funny if millions weren't dying
tragic deaths from AIDS every day. When will this horror story end?

=======================================================

Transplant Fails, Patient Thrives
Preparation, not baboon marrow, may be reason

By Sabin Russell
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Reprinted with permission.

San Francisco -- Baboon bone-marrow transplant recipient Jeff Getty is
feeling better than he has in months, but the AIDS activist and his
physicians now believe the controversial operation failed.

Researchers revealed yesterday that sophisticated tests were unable to detect
any clear signs of the baboon bone marrow infused into his system on December
14 Presumably the foreign cells were destroyed by Getty's own defenses or
died without multiplying in his own bone marrow.

But the Oakland man's unexpected rebound has intrigued and excited the San
Francisco General Hospital doctors who have been carefully watching his
progress. For reasons not fully understood, the blast of radiation Getty
endured prior to the transplant may have somehow knocked down his HIV
infection.

And Getty's experience suggests a new line of research into treating the
disease.

"He's looking better than he did before the procedure," said Getty's
physician, Dr. Steven Deeks.

Getty has gained weight, a number of AIDS-related skin conditions have
improved, and asthma that has bothered him for years has virtually
disappeared.

"My immune system is doing wonderfully," Getty told the Associated Press. "My
immune cell numbers are back to where they were in 1992, and I actually feel
better than I did when I went into the hospital."

Getty's good health has driven aside disappointment that the baboon bone
marrow apparently didn't take.

"This study has thus far been far more successful that we could normally
expect in a small, first step like this," said Brenda Lein, director of
Project Inform's advocacy program.

The 38 year-old Getty battled the Food and Drug Administration and critics in
the medical research community for more than a year to win clearance for the
bone marrow transplant. His doctors hoped to replace part of his AIDS ravaged
immune system with that of a baboon, a primate that for unknown reasons
appears to be able to fight off the AIDS virus.

If Getty's body could accept the co-existence of a baboon immune system, the
theory went, the foreign cells might confer that same protection against AIDS
to his own system. Critics had objected to the transplant because they feared
that a baboon disease could be transmitted to humans-but doctors say there is
no evidence yet that Getty has been infected by any harmful viruses.

While the initial tests suggest that the baboon cells are gone, doctors hold
out hope that some may have evaded the test.

"It's a little bit like planting a seed in a garden" said San Francisco AIDS
physician Dr. Paul Volberding, part of Getty's medical team. "It is
definitely possible that there are some cells growing in the marrow, but
there is no evidence of anything there now."

Doctors said that even if there are a small number of engrafted baboon cells
still hiding out in Getty's body, they could not account for his improved
health.

"It's intriguing that there may be unexpected benefits from the process. He's
given us a number of interesting avenues to explore,' said Volberding.

When doctors weakened Getty's immune system before the transplant-a necessary
and dangerous medical step needed to avoid an allergic reaction to the baboon
marrow-they may have at least temporarily tripped up his HIV infection.

Doctors have speculated for years that AIDS may be a kind of autoimmune
disease, like arthritis and diabetes, where the body is fooled into attacking
itself. Many autoimmune diseases are treated with drugs, such as steroids,
that suppress the immune system and relieve the symptoms.

Researchers in France have used steroids on AIDS patients with some modest
success, but other tests using immune-suppressant drugs have not worked.

Another thought-provoking possibility, said Volberding, is that the AIDS
virus itself feeds on the immune system, and that a sudden destruction of
immune cells by radiation deprives the virus of its host. Getty's experience
suggests a new strategy of starving the virus, and then suppressing its
return with anti-viral drugs.

Months before the transplant Getty began taking a combination of antiviral
drugs-including an experimental protease inhibitor-that have shown promise in
recently released test results. The combination of radiation therapy and the
three drug cocktail may be keeping Getty's infection in check.

Getty may also be benefiting from a kind of placebo effect, the
well-documented phenomenon in which subjects in drug trials show a temporary
improvement whether they take the active experimental drug or an inactive
sugar pill, known as a placebo.

"Fighting for this procedure, fighting this disease, has clearly energized
Jeff," said Deeks, "but I think there is more to it than that."

Information mined from Getty's case will be used to perform another baboon
bone-marrow transplant, Deeks said. But it won't take place for a while, and
it won't involve Getty.

"Once exposed to baboon cells, he is more likely to reject them in the
future," said Deeks.