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July 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda SATURDAY, July 21 (HealthDay News) — Babies born to HIV-positive
women taking antiretroviral drugs to fight the disease may become exposed
to the drugs in the womb and during breast-feeding, new research
shows.
Hair and blood samples taken from the 3-month-old infants of women with
HIV found evidence that two medications pass from mother to baby in the
womb, while a third medication is passed both in utero and by breast
milk.
The study by researchers from the University of California, San
Francisco and Makerere University in Uganda included more than 100
HIV-positive mothers who were breast-feeding their infants and taking
either lopinavir and ritonavir, or efavirenz.
HIV-positive women take antiretroviral drugs to help prevent them from
spreading HIV to their fetus, but HIV-positive women are told not to
breast-feed because HIV can be transmitted through breast milk, experts
say. But in some developing nations, formula-feeding isn’t an option.
The researchers analyzed hair and blood samples taken from the
HIV-positive women and their 3-month-old HIV-negative infants.
Blood tests detect recent exposure to a drug, while hair samples show
exposure over the course of a month. By sampling both the blood and hair
of the infants, researchers said they were able to determine when the
drugs were passed from the women to their babies.
“Since fetuses start growing hair in the womb, hair sampling gives us
an opportunity to examine exposures to drug before birth,” senior study
author Dr. Monica Gandhi, associate professor of medicine at the UCSF
Division of HIV/AIDS at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center,
said in a university news release.
The infants’ hair samples revealed they had significant exposure to the
antiretroviral drugs.
Based on the level of drug in the hair and in the blood, the
researchers concluded that lopinavir and ritonavir exposure occurs in the
womb but not during breast-feeding. Efavirenz appears to be transmitted in
utero and during breast-feeding.
The findings could lead to the development of new ways to protect
infants from HIV transmission and shed light on toxicities and resistance
to anti-HIV drugs, the study authors noted.
“Our findings, as we verify them, will have important implications.
One, being able to measure drug exposures of fetuses in the womb and
during breast-feeding can help us understand how to better protect infants
from HIV transmission from HIV-positive mothers during pregnancy, birth
and after birth,” said Gandhi. “Second, the development of resistance to
antiretroviral medications in infants is an important issue,” she
added.
After low levels of exposure, HIV can develop resistance to the class
of medications to which efavirenz belongs, she explained.
The study was expected to be presented on Saturday at the 4th
International Workshop on HIV Pediatrics in Washington, D.C., ahead of a
presentation at the 19th International AIDS Conference. The data and
conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as
preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about mother-to-child HIV Transmission and Prevention.
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