August 30, 2002 BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A private charity said Friday it was fooled into distributing a purported AIDS cure to thousands of patients that its own research later showed to be useless.
"We found that we were fooled by the company producing the pill. We have stopped distributing it," said Dr. Sek Aksaranukroh, a doctor working as a volunteer for the charity, the Salang Bunnag Foundation.
The admission came a year after Thailand's Public Health Ministry had reached a similar conclusion and banned the distribution of the V-1 Immunitor pill as a medicine. The government, however, had allowed the foundation to distribute it as a food supplement.
The foundation created a massive stir in Thailand last year when it started holding weekly camps to give away the pills free, attracting thousands of hopeful patients, many of them on the verge of death.
The Salang Bunnag Foundation, comprising researchers and doctors, was set up three years ago by Salang Bunnag, a former police general.
The foundation backed the V-1 pill's inventor, Vichai Jirathitikal, a pharmacologist who claimed the pill fought the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus in the digestive tract rather than in the bloodstream, on which other drugs focus.
But after nine months of research, the Salang Bunnag Foundation found that the pill only makes AIDS patients feel stronger and fresh but doesn't cure the disease, said Sek.
He said he and other doctors working for the foundation initially supported the product because they saw signs of improvement in 31 HIV patients. But further observation of 71 other patients found that there was no improvement and some even died, Sek said.
He said the foundation severed ties with Vichai three months ago after he refused to disclose the pill's ingredients for analysis. Calls to Vichai's home and clinic on Friday went unanswered.
A number of HIV-AIDS activists have been severely critical of V-1, saying it threatens to harm the heath of AIDS victims by giving them false hope while they could be getting legitimate treatments to ease their symptoms.
It was not immediately known if the Public Health Ministry will take action against the Salang Bunnag Foundation or Vichai, who had sued the deputy health minister for saying his pill was useless. A court has dismissed the complaint.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
