PETER LLOYD: We're on the set of a soap opera with a difference.ROBINSON: We're making a show here called Taste of Life. It's a 60 part drama, TV drama, for the Cambodian audience. It's financed by the British Government and the idea mainly is to spread health messages about the dangers of HIV and AIDS.
PETER LLOYD: Cambodia has one of the highest rates of AIDS in Asia, with more than 100 new infections every day, yet discussion of safe sex is taboo. The fictitious stories of Friendship Hospital will break new ground.
ROBINSON: One of our young characters actually contracts AIDS and that takes a long time to resolve itself and then as well from week to week we have smaller HIV stories where people come in with the disease and are treated by the nurses and doctors.
PETER LLOYD: But the reality of AIDS in Cambodia is closer to horror story than soap opera.
PHALLA: In more than 10 years of epidemic, we have people who have already die, we have people who have full blown AIDS and we have people who have no symptom but just carry the virus.
PETER LLOYD: AIDS is an epidemic fuelled by a booming sex industry. Men prowling for cheap sex aren't the only ones who find these high-risk women attractive. Scientists have also come calling. Eight hundred Phnom Penh sex workers are being asked to take this pill, called Tenofovir, to see if it blocks HIV. The University of NSW leads the study.
KALDOR: Tenofovir is one of the drugs: that is now used to treat people with HIV infection. It works by stopping the virus from replicating in a person. The thought is that if this drug is given to a person who doesn't have HIV infection already, it might have the same effect and stop the replication of the virus and thereby stop the person getting infected.
PETER LLOYD: In theory, it's a promising idea, but there's a catch.
KALDOR: It's never been tested widely in people who don't have HIV infection.
PETER LLOYD: Recruitment for the trial is at a standstill, with sex workers claiming they're being treated like human lab rats.
THA: I have heard they only use this pill with monkeys in other countries. So why would they ask prostitutes in Cambodia to take it?
PETER LLOYD: As hazardous and potentially deadly as their working life is, Cambodia's prostitutes collectively don't want to become guinea pigs without clearer assurances. Scientists know that in patients with HIV, Tenofovir's side effects are held to be minimal and generally manifest in digestive complaints, but that's no guide for these women who prefer to take their chances on the streets rather than in strange and uncertain science from the West. They won't participate unless they get a 30 to 40 year guarantee against side effects.
KALDOR: The problem that we perceive with that possibility is several fold. First of all, we have to be very careful that we don't offer something that could be perceived as an inducement to participate in the trial. The second point is a more practical one in the sense that the institutions that would be required to ensure health coverage for a period of several decades are not really in place in Cambodia and the University of New South Wales and other external agencies aren't really in a position to provide that kind of long-term commitment.
PETER LLOYD: The stalemate may derail the trial.
PROSTITUTE: I'm afraid it will affect my health. The medical producers don't make any claims to assure our lives. Therefore I do oppose it and I want to tell sex workers to be careful with this medicine.
PETER LLOYD: What makes sex workers all the more reluctant is they already feel an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. They live on the margins of a brutal society.
This prostitute is holding up the so-called Cambodian condom. Commonly available plastic bags that double as contraceptives because of the shortage of the real thing. Violence and gang rape are also part of the equation. Listen to this chilling but all too common story of how one transaction unfolded.
PROSTITUTE: I asked, "How many men?". He answered only one, but actually there were 15. Most of them were gangsters. I asked them to use condoms but they refused. They used plastic, as many gangsters desire.
PETER LLOYD: It may seem a paradox to withhold support for a potentially life saving drug, but to a group which can scarcely afford to eat, let alone buy Western medicines, the risks simply outweigh the benefits, no matter what assurances are being made.
JOHN KALDOR: Safety is a key component of this trial to measure it in a very early stage of the recruitment and follow up, and it could be a reason for stopping the trial early.
PETER LLOYD: In a life otherwise devoid of the power to choose, Phnom Penh sex workers may say no to Tenofovir simply because they can.
Reporter: PETER LLOYD
PETER LLOYD: Cambodia has one of the highest rates of AIDS in Asia, with more than 100 new infections every day, yet discussion of safe sex is taboo. The fictitious stories of Friendship Hospital will break new ground.
ROBINSON: One of our young characters actually contracts AIDS and that takes a long time to resolve itself and then as well from week to week we have smaller HIV stories where people come in with the disease and are treated by the nurses and doctors.
PETER LLOYD: But the reality of AIDS in Cambodia is closer to horror story than soap opera.
PHALLA: In more than 10 years of epidemic, we have people who have already die, we have people who have full blown AIDS and we have people who have no symptom but just carry the virus.
PETER LLOYD: AIDS is an epidemic fuelled by a booming sex industry. Men prowling for cheap sex aren't the only ones who find these high-risk women attractive. Scientists have also come calling. Eight hundred Phnom Penh sex workers are being asked to take this pill, called Tenofovir, to see if it blocks HIV. The University of NSW leads the study.
KALDOR: Tenofovir is one of the drugs: that is now used to treat people with HIV infection. It works by stopping the virus from replicating in a person. The thought is that if this drug is given to a person who doesn't have HIV infection already, it might have the same effect and stop the replication of the virus and thereby stop the person getting infected.
PETER LLOYD: In theory, it's a promising idea, but there's a catch.
KALDOR: It's never been tested widely in people who don't have HIV infection.
PETER LLOYD: Recruitment for the trial is at a standstill, with sex workers claiming they're being treated like human lab rats.
THA: I have heard they only use this pill with monkeys in other countries. So why would they ask prostitutes in Cambodia to take it?
PETER LLOYD: As hazardous and potentially deadly as their working life is, Cambodia's prostitutes collectively don't want to become guinea pigs without clearer assurances. Scientists know that in patients with HIV, Tenofovir's side effects are held to be minimal and generally manifest in digestive complaints, but that's no guide for these women who prefer to take their chances on the streets rather than in strange and uncertain science from the West. They won't participate unless they get a 30 to 40 year guarantee against side effects.
KALDOR: The problem that we perceive with that possibility is several fold. First of all, we have to be very careful that we don't offer something that could be perceived as an inducement to participate in the trial. The second point is a more practical one in the sense that the institutions that would be required to ensure health coverage for a period of several decades are not really in place in Cambodia and the University of New South Wales and other external agencies aren't really in a position to provide that kind of long-term commitment.
PETER LLOYD: The stalemate may derail the trial.
PROSTITUTE: I'm afraid it will affect my health. The medical producers don't make any claims to assure our lives. Therefore I do oppose it and I want to tell sex workers to be careful with this medicine.
PETER LLOYD: What makes sex workers all the more reluctant is they already feel an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. They live on the margins of a brutal society.
This prostitute is holding up the so-called Cambodian condom. Commonly available plastic bags that double as contraceptives because of the shortage of the real thing. Violence and gang rape are also part of the equation. Listen to this chilling but all too common story of how one transaction unfolded.
PROSTITUTE: I asked, "How many men?". He answered only one, but actually there were 15. Most of them were gangsters. I asked them to use condoms but they refused. They used plastic, as many gangsters desire.
PETER LLOYD: It may seem a paradox to withhold support for a potentially life saving drug, but to a group which can scarcely afford to eat, let alone buy Western medicines, the risks simply outweigh the benefits, no matter what assurances are being made.
JOHN KALDOR: Safety is a key component of this trial to measure it in a very early stage of the recruitment and follow up, and it could be a reason for stopping the trial early.
PETER LLOYD: In a life otherwise devoid of the power to choose, Phnom Penh sex workers may say no to Tenofovir simply because they can.
Reporter: PETER LLOYD