Global Health Ethics and Cross-Cultural Considerations in Bioethics  

Oleh:

Benatar, Solomon R.

Jenis: Article from Books - E-Book
Dalam koleksi: The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics, page 341-349.
Topik: Global Health Ethics; Cross-Cultural Considerations; Bioethics
Fulltext: Global Health Ethics and Cross-Cultural Considerations in Bioethics.pdf (305.18KB)

Isi artikel

The AIDS Clinical Trials Group Study 076 (ACTG 076) made an important contribution to prevention of HIV infection when it established that mother-to-child transmission of HIV (MTCT) in the USA and France could be signi?cantly reduced by giving antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women orally for 8 weeks or more prior to childbirth (median 14 weeks) and intravenously during labor, as well as to the newborn child for 6 weeks in the absence of breast feeding (Connor et al., 1994). A major controversy developed when in subsequent studies of MTCT in developing countries shorter courses of treatment were compared with placebo. Although there is no reason to believe that the ACTG 076 regimen would not work in developing countries if it could be applied, placebo studies were undertaken instead. The rationale was that use of the ACTG 076 regimen was precluded in developing countries, not only by its extremely high cost but, more relevantly, because women do not present early enough in pregnancy to receive this prolonged and intensive regimen. In addition they are anemic and malnourished, unable to stop breast feeding, and have dif?culty providing treatment to a child for a six-week period (Varmus and Satcher, 1997). Consequently, cheaper and more easily applied preventive methods needed to be studied to enable rapid application of this preventive method to save many lives in developing countries.

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