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March 2005 Cover
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Taking AIDS drugs exactly as prescribed is the best way to prevent HIV from becoming drug-resistant, researchers recently told an American Medical Association briefing. Since missing even the occasional dose is enough to let HIV adapt and mutate, helping patients adhere to
their regimens will save both lives and money, they said.
Richard Harrigan of the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and colleagues found that of all factors affecting HIV mutations, patient adherence to drug therapy was the most important. Patients who missed less than 5 percent of their medications did not
develop resistance. "Those who took 80 percent of their medication were likely to develop resistance most quickly," said Harrigan, whose study was published in the February issue of
Journal of Infectious Diseases. That could mean HIV was free to replicate and was exposed to enough
of the drugs to evolve in response to them.
Editor's Note: from Reuters
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