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AIDS: a fake drug banned at last

Thanks to the vigilance of patients' groups, Viralgic° has at last been banned by the French drug regulatory body. Since 2001, this plant-based product had been sold as a drug against the AIDS virus, without a marketing authorisation for this purpose.

Since 2001, Act Up Paris, an association defending HIV positive patients, has been lobbying the French drug regulatory body (AFSSAPS) over a plant-based product promoted under the name of Viralgic° and described by the manufacturer "as an alternative to anti-retroviral therapy " for AIDS patients. Sold from Spain by Pharma-Concept, this product was presented as a drug, but the manufacturer did not have the requisite marketing authorisation. After a tentative step in 2001 that proved ineffective, it was not until April 2005 that AFSSAPS decided to halt the production, sale, advertising and prescription of Viralgic° until such time as it is granted a marketing authorisation based on evaluation data. AFSSAPS’s decision is welcome, but long overdue, when even it recognised that Viralgic° was "likely to present a serious danger to human health". With drug regulatory bodies so slow to react, the vigilance of patient groups is all the more necessary.

©Prescrire July 2005

Source: "Viralgic° : un faux antirétroviral enfin suspendu" Rev Prescrire 2005 ; 25 (263) : 500.

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