HIV mutation rates are high--but that doesn't necessarily mean that
progression is rendered slower or more rapid.

Bully for you! I've heard that story before. Mostly from people who
subsequently developed a series of OIs and died.

        George M. Carter

Not at first, no.

"GMCarter" <fiar@verizon.net> wrote in message

Wrong again, go figure.

  ListingsLocal 6 News Team

Generic Drugs: Just As Good For Less?
Patents Let Drug Developers Get Profits
Steve Sobek, Staff writer

UPDATED: 8:40 am EDT April 17, 2007

Alison Dickman takes seven drugs every day. All but one carries a brand name. But the
28-year-old from Jenkintown, Pa., said that one no-name drug saves her about $15 to $20 per
month.

"I wish all my drugs were generic, because I probably spend hundreds of extra dollars per month
on brand names," said Dickman of the prescriptions she takes for asthma and allergies.

Generic drugs use the chemical names for the active ingredients in brand-name drugs. The active
ingredient in Prozac, for example, is fluoxetine. What makes them different, then?

Names Change, Product Does Not

The names, along with their price, may lead some consumers to believe generics are different or
not as effective as the better-known pills, said Sarah Ray, a retail pharmacist for Aurora
Health Care in Milwaukee, Wis.

"I reassure them and let them know that it is the same medication," Ray said. "I take the same
medications and would refer them for a relative of mine."

Pharmaceuticals are big business in the United States. Consumers shelled out $154.5 billion in
2001 to try and cure what ails them, according to the National Institute for Health Care
Management, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C.

In 2001, generic drugs accounted for about 50 percent of all prescription drug purchases in the
United States, according to the Food and Drug Administration, and the Congressional Budget
Office said their use saves consumers about $8 billion to $10 billion a year at retail
pharmacies.

Just Like Marketed Brands

Just like brand-name drugs, the FDA must approve the generic versions. They are identical to
brand-name drugs in dosage, safety, strength, quality, the way they work and the way they are
taken, according to the FDA.

"It's (just like) the brand name that's advertised," said Jerry Flanagan, health care policy
director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a nonprofit consumer group based
in Santa Monica, Calif. "In order to be approved, they have to have the same chemical makeup."

The original brand-name drug is more expensive because the pharmaceutical company takes on the
research, development and marketing costs of bringing the drug to market and must recover that
investment. Companies that make the generic versions don't have that overhead and are able to
charge much less.

Patents Drive Market

Most patents granted by the FDA for new drugs last for 20 years after the patent's filing.
Frequently, the term seems shorter because patents are obtained before the drugs make it to
market. When the patent expires, other companies can apply to make generic versions.

Before the patent runs out, the initial maker essentially has a monopoly on the profits from
the drug, Flanagan said.

"They want to extend that kind of exclusive market for as long as they can," Flanagan said.
Beginning with the Hatch-Waxman Act, passed by Congress in 1984, companies began getting
extensions of up to five years on their patents to help make up for the time drugs spend under
review by the FDA. Even with an extension, a drug's patent cannot last more than 14 years from
the date of its approval.

The FDA receives more than $300 million of its annual funding through user fees paid by the
companies that submit new drug applications. Because of this, some don't believe the agency can
be impartial when deciding on which drugs to approve.

"We don't have an independent regulator," Flanagan said.

Even for just the time of the patent and the possible extension, the allure of producing the
drugs is great for the big-name pharmaceutical companies, Flanagan said.

"If you can say this is the drug you need to save your life, ... you essentially have a
monopoly control over life-saving drugs," he said.

But Flanagan said the patents are a good ideal on "some level. They allow companies to recoup
investments."

Lower Costs For All

Once a drug's patent does expire, Ray said, the savings benefit consumers, pharmacies and
insurance companies.

"The cost, overall, is less for the insurance plans," she said. "They tend to pass those
savings on to the pharmacists ... The savings are also passed on to the patients."

That's why Ray said she uses generic drugs over brand-name drugs when she can.

"We give generic unless we're told otherwise," Ray said.

Dickman, who said she wishes she could save more with generic medicines, said she understands
why big pharmaceutical companies would deserve patents for a few years to recoup their
investments.

"But I do feel that the consumers really should have more low-cost options," she said. "I am
lucky that I can afford all the brand-name medicines I take, but many Americans cannot."

Finding Generics

One way to find out if a generic drug exists for the brand-name drug you take is to enter the
drug into the Drugs@FDA database. The site also features lists of drug approvals by month and a
downloadable database file of the drugs.

You can also ask your pharmacist or your doctor about the availability of generic drugs.

Study warns of skyrocketing HIV rate
August 19, 2006 at 9:56 PM
by The Advocate

Study warns of skyrocketing HIV rate

Friday, August 18, 2006 / 12:10 PM

HIV prevalence is set to skyrocket among gay men in the Western world as they age, a University
of Pittsburgh researcher said Thursday at the international AIDS conference in Toronto.

The Pittsburgh study, a review of papers published in journals, indicates that the number of
new cases of HIV has been rising by about 1.9 percent each year since 2001, meaning that as gay
men as a group get older, more and more of them will become HIV-positive, Agence-France Presse
reported.

"Ongoing incidence rates at this level will yield very high HIV prevalence rates within each
generation of gay men," University of Pittsburgh researcher Ron Stall told AFP.

Although only one in 12 gay men age 20 was HIV-positive in North America and Europe in 2001,
Stall and other researchers project that the rate could rise to one in four by the time they
turn 30. At age 60, the projections suggest that 58 percent of the men could be infected.

The numbers are more dire for gay men of color. Four percent of them between the ages of 15 and
22 are currently infected, while 15 percent between the ages of 23 and 29 are infected.

At an average 4 percent annual rate of increase in new infections, three-quarters of black gay
men who are now 23-29 will be HIV-positive by the time they are 50.

"It's not a new story; it has been repeated time and again in the literature in the past . . .
an almost unbelievable incidence rate," Stall said to AFP. "African-American men who have sex
with men suffer among the highest HIV prevalence rates of any risk group in the world."

The report's findings only underscore the need for better ways of preventing HIV infection,
instead of just treating its effects.

"HIV is still an incurable disease," Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the National Center
for HIV at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told AFP. "In the United States, 5
percent (of the budget for HIV) is spent on prevention."

He added: "America is more interested on treating this disease than preventing it. We can't
treat our way out of this epidemic, even as a rich country." (The Advocate)