Zagury’s Vaccine [International Conference on AIDS (7th: 1991: Florence, Italy)]

VII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AIDS
fiorece, Aue 16 - 2/ 1991
News Release
ZAGURY'S VACCINE
Florence, June 17 -- Daniel Zagury, the enf ant terrible of
vaccine research, does not stop surprising us. He announced today at
the VII International Conference on AIDS that he developed an
effective vaccine to slow down the progression of HIV disease. But
some aspects of his achievement that compel scientists to be very
cautious about Zagury's results may have been overlooked in the chaos
created by journalists and photographers who besieged the French
researcher during his presentation.
Let us look at the facts first. Zagury became persuaded in the
course of his studies that the immunosuppression caused by HIV is
determined, at least in part, by cells and substances produced by the
patient's body. These agents, maintains Zagury, hinder the correct
functioning of the immune system. An original, although slightly
confused, hypothesis that Daniel Zagury has called 'cytostatic
network' -- an evocative name. He then made a bold decision:
assembling an 'anti-network' vaccine, even if the network is part of
the body itself.
The results presented by Daniel Zagury in Florence today seem
to confirm his original intuition. In the six patients who have been
receiving the anti-network vaccine every two-three months for one
year, impressive effects have been observed. A clinical improvement
characterized for example by weight gain was accompanied by the
normalization of indicators of the capacity of the immune system in
patients who had been severely immunosuppressed.
Why are Zagury's results met with such caution? The mix of
cells and substances that he assembled to suppress the network
resembles a the dubious concoctions of a witch. The French scientist
has not made any attempts at evaluating the effects produced by every
single ingredient. All we know is that the mix seems to work.
Another, and more serious, reason for perplexity is the trial wasconducted by Zagury without any controls: he never followed any of __
clinica im rveme t ae actu ll bproduced by e therapyeand tintsb
spontaneous or casual fluctuations. -
gone verynear violatingnathe esabiserule s of bothnoscientifia -
method and professional ethics. An example of this is offered by the __
trial on Zairian volunteers of the first vaccine he developed -- a ___'

trial conducted without any authorization. More recently, he came
under f ire when two of his patients died due to the unexpectedeffects of another attempted vaccine.
More rigorous research -- confirmed by other scientists -- can
tell whether Zagury's boldness hit the target this time.