ABC News, July 3, 2008:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3D5301370&pa=
ge=3D1
Democratic Congressional Candidate's Ties to Bizarre AIDS Research;
Dr. Victoria Wulsin Is Under Attack for Her Ties to a Debunked
Research Project Seeking to Cure AIDS with Malaria
by Joseph Rhee
The Democratic congressional candidate in Ohio, Dr. Victoria Wulsin,
is being attacked by her Republican opponent for her work looking into
a widely debunked theory that AIDS can be cured with malaria. The
controversial treatment, known as "malariotherapy", has been denounced
by leading AIDS researchers as dangerous, scientifically unfounded and
unethical.
U.S. Representative Jean Schmidt (R-OH), locked in a tight race with
Wulsin for an Ohio congressional seat, recently sent out a fund-
raising letter sharply denouncing Wulsin for her work on a
malariotherapy project. The letter states that "Wulsin's contempt for
the culture of life has even led her to participate in grotesque
medical experiments. Wulsin was paid for her work in medical "studies"
where victims of AIDS in Africa and China were...injected with the
malaria virus, all in the name of "scientific inquiry."
Dr. Wulsin, an epidemiologist who had worked with AIDS patients in
Africa, was hired in 2004 by the Heimlich Institute in Cincinnati to
conduct research into malariotherapy. The institute is headed by famed
doctor Henry Heimlich, inventor of the life-saving Heimlich maneuver
and as re****ted on ABC News 20/20, a leading proponent of using
malaria to cure AIDS. In the 1990s, Heimlich commissioned a study
where AIDS patients in China were deliberately infected with malaria
and he was recently involved with a research project involving AIDS
patients from Ethiopia who were initially denied available medicines
to treat malaria.
According to Dr. Heimlich, "It gives off substances that strengthen
their immune systems." Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of
Health, however, said there is no evidence that malariotherapy has any
effect on AIDS. "It is scientifically unsound, and I think it would be
ethically questionable. And it does have the fundamental potential of
actually killing you."
Despite the assertions in Rep. Schmidt's letter, Dr. Wulsin told ABC
News that she never directly participated in malariotherapy
experiments and was only hired by Dr. Heimlich to review existing
malariotherapy studies. "He commissioned a literature review and I
demonstrated through that, that it was nowhere near scientific or
ethically relevant or justifiable," said Wulsin.
In December of 2004, Wulsin submitted a draft re****t to Heimlich that
concluded that "the preponderance of evidence indicates that neither
malaria or Immunotherapy will cure HIV/AIDS." Wulsin said the
following day she was fired by Heimlich. "I challenged the science and
ethics of immunotherapy, malaria therapy. I didn't realize how much it
was a challenge to his ethics and his science until he fired me," said
Wulsin.
Wulsin's involvement in malariotherapy research was also an issue
during the 2006 congressional elections, when she was also matched
against Representative Schmidt. Wulsin narrowly lost that race to
Schmidt by a scant 2,800 vote margin in the heavily Republican 2nd
district of Ohio. The latest polls for this year's contest show
Schmidt leading Wulsin 41 to 33 percent.
---
Copyright =A9 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
|
