ACTG Highlights

ACT UP DEMANDS
New ACTG sites must be established in underserviced areas such as Brooklyn, Newark, and Texas.
THE FACTS
The ACTG was established to conduct AIDS clinical trials; it is not meant to be a health care delivery
system for the entire country. Nonetheless, NIAID is providing access to AIDS studies to a broad spectrum
of HIV-infected populations located in various geographic areas. NIAID funds ACTG units or Community
Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS, a new clinical research initiative, that are accessible to HIVinfected people in all the major epicenters, including Brooklyn, N.Y., and Newark, N.J. A pediatric unit is
located in Houston, Texas.
ACT UP DEMANDS
The ACTG must conduct research on new approaches to anti-HIV therapy such as protease inhibitors, TIBO
derivatives, and ribozymes.
THE FACTS
None of these agents is yet ready for clinical trials. NIAID is actively supporting or is collaborating with
investigators who are working on these and a number of other promising agents. This preclinical research is
being conducted by NIAID's 28 National Cooperative Drug Discovery Groups-AIDS and by other institutions.
NIAID will evaluate clinically those agents showing adequate promise.
ACT UP DEMANDS
The ACTG must conduct clinical trials on 30 new drugs each year.
THE FACTS
Setting an arbitrary quota for drugs to be studied, rather than making such decisions on the basis of relative
merit, is scientifically indefensible as well as highly wasteful of resources. The ACTG has completed, is now
conducting, or has protocols in preparation for'virtually every promising AIDS or AIDS-related therapy.
These include studies of 70 drugs or drug combinations.
ACT UP DEMANDS
Open enrollment treatment trials for all AIDS complications must be available to all who, because of
exclusion criteria, cannot enroll in an ACTG trial.
THE FACTS
NIAID recognizes the need to provide therapy options for patients who cannot participate in clinical trials,
and has supported a proposed "parallel track" system for expanded availability of experimental drugs.
NIAID's efforts have made it possible for several experimental drugs to be available to various HIV-infected
populations, prior to FDA approval, through the Treatment IND mechanism. Thousands of HIV-infected
persons have benefitted from distribution of AZT (for adults in 1986, for children in early 1990), ddl,
aerosolized pentamidine, ganciclovir, and trimetrexate through a Treatment IND.
ACT UP DEMANDS
The ACTG must actively encourage enrollment of underrepresented groups.
THE FACTS
Substantial efforts have been made by NIAID to enroll more minorities, women, LYDUs, and children in
clinical trials. Between 1987 and 1989, the percentage of minorities (Hispanics and blacks) increased from 18