Russian Roulette

I read a story the other day that literally almost made me fall off the toilet.

In the Feb 19th issue of AMNY, an article titled "Anti-Aids gel misses mark" was written by Marilynn Marchione of the AP.

"The first anti-aids vaginal gel to make it through late stage testing failed to stop HIV infection in a study of 6,000 South African women..."

Some of the reasons cited for the failed results include "low use of the gel, women used it less than half the number of times they had sex, and only 10% used it every time as directed".

Here is an additional fact box titled "Volunteers Line Up" provided in the article:

"More than 9000 women, average age 31, volunteered for the anti-aids gel study. About 27% tested positive for aids and were disqualified. In all, 6202 women were given either Carraguard or a placebo gel."

What, in gods name, did they promise these women to participate in this study?

Didn't 50% of the women realize that they were going home with a fake gel and that they were now susceptible to HIV?

How about the fact that 33% of the women that signed up had HIV?

Instead of writing about a failed study, shouldn't Ms. Marchione be writing about what these women were promised or told to participate in this study?

The way I see it: Signing up for this "study" is about as smart as signing up for a new study by Smith & Wesson wanting to test out their new guns. You would think that they could get 9,000 women to line up on a firing range to check the mortality rate of its new gun.