A drug he discovered for transplant patients is now helping millions fight AIDS.
'Some of the most deadly infections come from fungi in the air we breathe,' says Ken Richardson, a pharmaceutical company researcher. 'When you have a healthy immune system it's not a problem.'
Richardson and his team discovered a lifesaving drug in the early 1980s to treat fungal infections in cancer and transplant patients. When AIDS patients began turning up with fungal infections, they thought their new medicine might help.
'I'll never forget the first time we tried it in an AIDS patient. She was hallucinating from a fungal infection that was damaging her brain. The doctor has applied the drug and the next day the hallucinations were gone. Two weeks later she left the hospital.' Today, the drug Richardson discovered for his company helps millions of people around the world. 'For me a drug saves more than a life. It can save a family.'
Pharmaceutical company researchers have 112 HIV / AIDS drugs in development. For our free booklet on HIV / AIDS call 800-862-5100 or visit us on internet at www.phrmg.org
(Reader's Digest, April 1997, p.03)