WASHINGTON, Oct 6, Reuter: Pledging to speed up approval of new anti-aids drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner said on Thursday more American men will die from AIDS in 1991 than died in the Vietnam War.
Frank Young said the commission, which must approve any new drug before it goes to market, ‘was struggling to speed up the amount of time it takes for new treatments to reach AIDS patients.
“Life is ‘short,” he told the annual assembly of the International Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations. “Do we wait five years before approval? I don’t think so.
“In 1991, more young men will die of AIDS than in the entire Vietnam War,” In which the United States lost 58,000 men. Nearly 70,000 Americans have been diagnosed with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and the number is climbing.
Luc Montagnier, credited with co-discovering the AIDS virus, offered a bleak outlook to the assembly on finding a cure or vaccine to prevent spread of the disease.
“It is clear that it will take a much longer time than we thought,” said the researcher from the Pasteur institute in Paris.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 14, 1988
