Question
Is this herbal study from IAS in Rome a cure?
24 July 2011. Related: All topics, Cure, Supplements and herbs.
Hi simon, hope you’re fine.
I followed the IAS deliberations in rome closely. However i just want to know if there was any from our reliable source [i-base] was there.
The reason is that there is a man forwarding mails that his medicine was proved to cure hiv and aids. The poster at Rome is at:
http://pag.ias2011.org/Abstracts.aspx?AID=2092
I’ll wait for your answer.
Answer
Hi Bernhard
Thanks for forwarding this. We were lucky enough to be in Rome for this conference and our reports will come out shortly. I’ve taken out the website you reference because I don’t want to publicise unsubstantiated claims. I’ve include the weblink to the IAS poster because that is still open access, unless IAS chose to remove it in the future.
Although I didn’t see this poster at the meeting – which make me think that perhaps it was not presented – I’d heard something about a herbal treatment in Zambia a few months ago and asked for more detail then but heard nothing back.
There is so little to go on in the poster that it is difficult to comment.
There is no real info on these people, if they exist, in terms of even their basic CD4 and VL histories, ages, duration of HIV infection etc at baseline and so nothing to compare it too afterwards. There is nothing.
Someone claiming that viral load is reduced needs to say what it was beforehand. These could all be HIV-negative people in the first place.
The neat test tube picture is nonsense to me. There is no single test where the results show antiviral activity and toxicity in one go.
There is no information on dose, when and what was given, pills, powder, injection, dilution etc.
On safety, you know from randomised studies that people get side effects from every placebo. If you gave 20 people a glass of water that they thought was a treatment, a few would report headaches, diarrhoea or nausea. To say there is no side effects is rubbish.
More seriously, the mechanism for a treatment and a cure are very different.
There is no science in this paper. Without this, it is just gossip and hearsay.
I can’t prove that the claims are not true, because there is nothing here to talk about. I am not saying this is lies or is being made up, just that the people presenting the work haven’t shown any evidence to support their claims.
Something as important as an HIV cure, would have been worth including a few facts.
I am concerned that it passed a review process to be submitted to the IAS meeting but unfortunately I have seen other things in the past.
This is damaging because it raises peoples hopes for something that is so unsupported by even the slightest evidence. It diverts people from focussing on real medicines that can prove their benefits in proper careful studies.
Unfortunately, if something seems to good to be true, it usually is too good to be true. It is not true.
I’m sorry not to be more positive but there is nothing here to go on.
i-Base reports form IAS will be coming out in the next few weeks – there was lots of news there, especially on how ARV treatment reduces the risk of transmission, but also new drugs, and real research into a cure.
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