From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: Letter to SF Sentinel
Note: non-commercial reproduction.
Archive-Number: 5895
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 06:11:21 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.012411.20226@cs.ucla.edu> Billi Goldberg <bigoldberg@igc.apc.org> writes:
>  In a recent CNN Cable News interview, Martin Delaney of Project Inform 
>decries the "boosterism" practiced by those who advocate the use of 
>DNCB, apparently choosing to ignore the medical and anecdotal reports of 
>its efficacy in treating HIV disease. Where does this little man with 
>the compensatory ego get off saying, "that isn't scientific; its 
>boosterism", when, without the slightest hint of embarrassment, he'll 
>take a whopping cash payoff from Burroughs-Wellcome to be a booster for AZT?

Yammer, yammer.  More gay community infighting and with the same
inflammatory, nonsensical rhetoric.  Yawn.

>  Delaney says the advocates of DNCB are operating from a "preconceived 
>premise" they had before ever using it. That, if it were true, isn't 
>scientific, as he so adroitly points out. But the preconceived premise 
>behind AZT and the financial machinery driving it is devoid of any 
>scientific credibility whatever. The only 'preconceived premise' behind 
>AZT is corporate greed. Answer this, Martin: are the backers of DNCB in 
>it for the money?

Let's see, where's the logic here?  The backers for DNCB are in it
because it's a convenient hobbyhorse to let them fulminate at Daddy
(here Corporate Medicine) who never gave them the attention they
deserved as children.  Thanks, but save it for your shrink.

>  If you're so hot for science, you should be able to show at least ONE 
>scientific paper describing an AZT study, carried full term, showing 
>some clearcut benefit from this monster drug. You can't because no such 
>paper exists. To the contrary, AZT studies carried to full term, such as 
>the British-French Lancet study of 1988, show that the initial 
>"benefit", a slight rise in T4 cell levels, is very transitory and is 
>quickly lost, with clinical values falling to baseline and below after 
>six months. Your vaunted science roundly damns AZT on all counts, 

Nonsense.  The evidence that AZT prolongs life in people with AIDS
compared to people with AIDS not given AZT is irrefutable.  No one
(except a crackpot with a pet theory) would make the claim you have
here and still expect to be taken seriously.

>Martin. And the "science" supporting the whole family of nucleoside 
>drugs if equally flawed or non-existent. AZT and its cousins ddI and DDC 
>are hyped to the hilt by corporate boosterism without one shred of 
>scientific backing with their lackey "activist" organizations paid to 
>push their high-priced, toxic junk.

Nucleoside drugs aren't the end-all and be-all.  They do happen to
be the only effective drugs we have right now against the virus.

>  There are numerous lives that have been prolonged, and lives saved, my 
>own included, by non-'officially approved' AIDS treatments.

Yeah, yeah.  I think I'd prefer to get my information from double-
blind studies than "trust me"s from Johnny Appleseeds with a can
of DNCB.

>And they 
>sure as hell didn't come by way of Project Inform. It's high time this 
>pseudo-activist organization purveying MISinformation disbands, and its 
>directors go look for work more suited to their abilities, namely, 
>shoveling chicken manure.

So tell me, do you feel better now?

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer