There’s been a new drug that has made it into a clinical trial called AZT. It was originally designed to treat a form of cancer, but they believe it could fight against this virus as well. The only problem with it is that there is not much to go around. People are growing more and more restless with the FDAs inability to release the drug or even speed up testing for other medicines which show promise. They say that they have gotten approval to speed up the timeline by 3 years, but I feel as if that is not good enough. I try to understand why it may be taking so long. I Understand that when releasing a drug to the public you have to take caution. However, I can’t help but think of Andrew and grow irritable as well. If this drug was readily available at the time he was diagnosed maybe he could’ve had a better chance.
These people are dying, and it seems as if the FDA is under the impression that telling the population to wear a condom is sufficient enough to buy them time to wide release it. Meanwhile, Reagan and Chirac are treating their country’s research like it’s the space race. The more I discuss this topic the angrier I grow. I recently joined a group called ACT UP which is a political group, fighting to help bring an end to this AIDS epidemic. We recently held a protest on wall street, asking the FDA to speed up their release of their newfound drug. I have to admit, I have never felt more alive than I did walking down wall street. There will definitely be more of this in my future.
