What is AZT doing?
” How much of its effect is in blocking reverse transcriptase, how much is mediated through stabilizing T-helper counts, and how much of the effect may be in some other area entirely — and if so, what else is this drug doing? Until we have better answers, it is hard to rationally advise patients — for example, should they continue taking AZT after they have started ddI [because the AZT appeared to be no longer working]. How long have we had AZT? It has been approved for five years now — and two years before that, Burroughs-Wellcome was saying they had a drug they thought was going to work. It took two years to get it to market, which is a record time; so it’s been seven years without another major AIDS drug. We have the “son of AZT” in ddI and ddC, based on the same mechanism of action. “But clearly we would like to have something that blocked the virus at some other stage in its life cycle. As in tuberculosis, combination therapy is best if you combine drugs that work at different
