South African Firm Begins Marketing AIDS "Nutritional Supplement"

A South African company is testing a nutritional supplement purported to help combat the effects of AIDS. Officials at Enerkom, a subsidiary of the government's Central Energy Fund, said they are running Phase II trials of Enerkom's supplement Oxihumate at a Tanzanian military hospital but that only a few of the participants are soldiers.

Some scientists frown on the practice of using soldiers to test medicine because of the possibility that soldiers can be coerced to participate. The announcement of the study marks the second time this year that a South African company has reported testing AIDS drugs on soldiers in Tanzania.

Oxihumate, derived from coal, boosts the immune system, fights inflammation and can help reduce the effects of AIDS, said Tony Surridge, acting CEO of Enerkom. The drug has been approved as a nutritional supplement, meaning no medical benefits have been proven and the company is prohibited from making medical claims about it, said Theo van de Venter, director of food control for South Africa's health department. Scientists running the trials emphasized that all 350 HIV-positive people in the Tanzania study gave informed consent, and most of them are civilians being treated at the military hospital.

News reports on Oxihumate have harkened back to South Africa's Virodene scandal, when government officials put pressure on the country's Medicines Control Council to approve a locally developed AIDS drug. The council rejected Virodene, which is made from a toxic industrial solvent. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company that owns Virodene was testing it in a military hospital in Tanzania.

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