Pregnant women, infants, and children are much more vulnerable to the toxic effects of antiretroviral drugs.

The following scientific facts support the assertion that "pregnant women and children are much more vulnerable to the toxic effects of antiretroviral drugs":

10.1. For decades, medical science has known that growing cells are much more vulnerable to the toxic effects of many different agents (324.325). This has been the very basis for the effort to avoid exposing as much as possible, pregnant women and their fetuses to any potential toxic agent (326,327).

It is also important to keep in mind that the immune system of a child only attains its own maturity after the age of ten (299,300).

10.2. However, in the era of AIDS, AIDS researchers are changing all the rules. Currently, toxic medications are recommended and prescribed worldwide to pregnant women and children (328,329). As of 1993, even HIV-free babies are taking AZT: this is because HIV-positive pregnant women are prescribed AZT for the last two trimesters in the hope of preventing HIV transmission from mothers to babies (115).

Babies who test "HIV-negative" but who are born to HIV-positive mothers, are prescribed AZT anyway for six weeks after birth (115,328,330).

10.3. Many HIV-positive healthy newborns, infants, and young children are placed on combinations of potentially immunotoxic medications such as antiretrovirals, antifungals, antivirals, and antibiotics. All are currently prescribed indefinitely as prophylactic drugs (31,331).

It is as if they have forgotten the vulnerability of newborns and young children to toxic substances (332).

10.4. The toxicity of antiretroviral drugs for embryos and fetuses has been documented both in humans and animals, as well as In Vitro:

AZT is a potent cytotoxic DNA chain-terminator (81,82) and "it has been well known for many years that the compounds which can alter DNA metabolism often exhibit pronounced prenatal toxicity" (298).

The use of AZT for pregnant women can induce abortion, congenital malformation such as cavities in the chest, abnormal indentations at the base of the spine, misplaced ears, triangular faces, heart defects, extra digits and albinism (271). In some instances intrauterine growth retardation has been documented (333). The hemoglobin at birth in infants exposed to AZT was found to be significantly lower than in the placebo group (115,334,335).

The American National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is well aware of the toxicity of AZT (273). AZT has been shown to impede normal child growth and development (273).

The toxicity of AZT in animal embryos has been recognized; if used before the implantation of the embryos, the effects seem to be even worse (272).

When administered to pregnant mice, AZT reduced the number of fetuses by 60%, altered the liver of newborns, and caused a significant reduction of hematocrit in the pregnant animals (336). A similar experiment with pregnant mice also showed a significant reduction in the number of fetuses (337). These effects are worse if mice embryos are preimplanted (338).

There are also In Vitro data documenting the toxicity of AZT: it induces reduction in the number of thymocytes in cultured thymic lobes from rat fetuses (339). It inhibited the erytroid colony formation of liver cells from mouse fetuses (320). Also, exposure of two-cell mice embryos to zidovudine was consistently associated with significant inhibition of blastocyst formation (340).

10.5. A recent comprehensive review of this issue concluded: "Sufficient data regarding the safety of zidovudine in human pregnancy are not available" (298).

In spite of the scientific evidence about the toxicity of AZT for pregnant women, a review of the issue by the National Center for Toxicological Research of the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] states that, "Initial human studies suggest that maternal use of AZT during pregnancy is very well tolerated by both mother and child and provides a promising degree of protection from vertical HIV transmission to the infant". And that, "Although in vitro and in vivo laboratory animal studies suggest the potential for toxicity with preimplantation exposure, the risk for teratogenic events after postimplantational exposures appears to be low at therapeutically effective concentrations of these dideoxynucleosides" (341).

It is unethical, to say the least, to insist on prescribing AZT and other antiretrovirals to prevent AIDS in healthy HIV-positive pregnant women, in infants, and in children. The potential cytotoxic, mutagenic, theratogenic, immunotoxic, carcinogenic properties of these chemicals have been scientifically documented (82,137,329,342).

Before the AIDS epidemic, antimicrobials were only prescribed prophylactically for the prevention of a relapse of rheumatic fever (343). There were no other exceptions. Besides, antimicrobial, especially antibiotics were only prescribed for short periods of time, like a few days for the treatment of an infectious disease. Why are they changing the rules now? Where is the scientific justification that researchers have for changing the rules now?