CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Using Truvada can be costly. Only those who can pay for the drug for the rest of their lives can start using it. And AIDS experts say its approval does not end the need for safe sex practices, like men using condoms.
Yet not all AIDS activists believe people should take Truvada. Michael Weinstein is head of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. He says the drug can cause damage to a person’s kidneys and could cause bone loss. The FDA says serious bone or kidney problems in the Truvada studies were “uncommon.”
Michael Weinstein says people taking Truvada may stop using condoms, which he notes is a proven safe way of preventing infection. But he warns that if people do not take the drug every day, “they are going to think they are protected when they are not.”
(MUSIC)
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: People have turned to nature for medicines since ancient times. Modern scientists have searched the world’s rainforests for chemicals to fight disease. But now, they are turning somewhere else -- the world’s oceans.
At least twenty six drugs made from sea creatures are on the market or in development. Scientists are working to make more.
Chemist Mande Holford has an unusual partner in her search -- a marine snail that eats fish. She says the snails’ tongue like proboscides is deadly. They use it to inject the target with a liquid made from poisonous amino acids called peptides.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25