Thai Charity Says It Was Fooled Into Distributing Fake AIDS Cure

The private Thai charity Salang Bunnag Foundation said Friday that it was fooled into distributing a purported AIDS cure, later shown to be useless, to thousands of patients. "We have stopped distributing it," said Dr. Sek Aksaranukroh, a volunteer working for the foundation. The group's admission came a year after Thailand's Public Health Ministry reached the same conclusion and banned the distribution of the V-1 Immunitor pill as a medicine. The government, however, allowed the foundation to distribute the pill as a food supplement. The foundation backed V-1's inventor, Vichai Jirathitikal, a pharmacologist who claimed the pill fought against HIV in the digestive tract. But after nine months of research, the Salang Bunnag Foundation found that the pill only makes AIDS patients feel stronger and fresh, but does not cure the disease, said Sek. The foundation initially supported V-1, he said, 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.

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