AIDS Survivors: Treatments (Hansard, 21 July 1997)

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley
asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of the uncertainty about the nature of the treatment regimes followed by long-term HIV/AIDS survivors, and the importance of this information, they will fund a long-term study.

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, the Medical Research Council is the main sponsor of medical research in the UK and would obviously consider proposals on their scientific merits in competition with other applications. However, the MRC has already funded research on people who, although they are HIV positive, have not, over a period of some years, gone on to develop AIDS. That research looked at lifestyle and behavioural factors. The noble Earl may be interested to know that it also included the use of complementary therapies, in addition to detailed laboratory studies. I understand that the published results of that research should be available within the next six months.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley
My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness for that reply, perhaps I may also thank her for her detailed response to my letter, following my earlier Question of 19th June, which has only just arrived and which I have not had time to digest. Will the noble Baroness accept that I am not here seeking simply to bang a complementary medicine drum in attempting to follow up information which seems to suggest that patients survive by rejecting conventional treatment and embracing a wide range of alternatives?

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I understand that that is the noble Earl's view, based on a number of learned papers which he was kind enough to send to me. The Department of Health and the Medical Research Council have no evidence of long-term survival among people who have deliberately avoided conventional therapies.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, has any research been carried out into the possible increase in HIV and AIDS among practising male homosexuals if the age of homosexual consent is reduced to 16—a step which the Government apparently support?

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, that has certainly not been the subject of research. As my noble friend will know, there has been an increase in 1195 HIV positive status among young homosexual men. It is a matter for speculation what change would occur if there were a change in the law.

§ Lord Wyatt of Weeford
My Lords, will the noble Baroness explain why it is proposed that people should be sodomised at the age of 16 which will obviously greatly increase the number of people with AIDS? What is the sense in that policy?

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I can respond only as I did to my noble friend Lord Stoddart. Any relationship between a change in the law on homosexual consent and potential HIV infection is at this moment simply a matter of speculation.

The Earl of Clanwilliam
My Lords, does the Minister agree that drug-based approaches have got almost nowhere in the past 10 years, and that the new protease inhibitors have not yet shown any actual survival benefit? In the light of that, are we not at risk of repeating earlier errors with AZT, as shown by the recent Concorde trial? I refer the Minister to col. 628 of the Official Report of 9th July when I asked a similar question about HIV and AIDS. I asked the Minister to write to me. I hope that I shall receive an answer in due course.

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I apologise. I thought I had given the information to the noble Earl. I shall of course pursue that matter with the Department of Health. I believe that the noble Earl is somewhat incorrect in his rather pessimistic analysis of what has happened in respect of these therapies. My understanding is that data from clinical trials such as the multinational Delta trial show a relative reduction of about 30 per cent. when the combination therapies are used. Of course we are still looking at the early data on the combination therapies using three different drugs, the so-called "cocktail" drugs, which have been in use in this country only for some 18 months to two years. At the moment the results are rather optimistic.

§ Earl Russell
My Lords, is it the case that no government in recorded history have ever had a complete statistical base of the number of either heterosexual or homosexual sexual acts, and that therefore the statistical base for the research requested by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, does not exist?

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, as always, I defer to the noble Earl in any matter of historical comparisons.

§ Lord Thurlow
My Lords, your Lordships will have seen in the press this afternoon the assessment that each case of AIDS in London costs £10,000 and that many foreigners come here to receive treatment at our expense whereas complementary medical treatment has negligible costs in many cases. We greatly look forward to the review of the Medical Research Council. If the MRC does not persist in its research in this field will 1196 the department consider funding research directly itself? I understand that the directly funded research budget is something of the order of £30 million.

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that suggestion. It would be sensible for us to await the outcome of the research from the Medical Research Council which, as I said in answer to the original Question, should be within a matter of months. As regards overseas visitors being treated in London, I am glad to say for the record—because I know that there has been press speculation on this matter—that trusts should charge overseas visitors for their treatment. That charge can either be made against the individual concerned or, in the case of those countries which have a reciprocal agreement with the UK, with the bodies specified in that reciprocal agreement.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that patients with AIDS and tuberculosis are becoming resistant to antibiotics? How much research is being done into this dangerous, worldwide condition?

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I am afraid I cannot tell the noble Baroness exactly what is being done on a worldwide basis to look into the relationship between TB and HIV infection. I am aware that it is a matter of concern to clinicians in this country. That may well be a sensible suggestion as regards future research.