Vancouver Sun: Drugs Produced Dramatic Change in HIV Patient

Drugs produced dramatic change in HIV patient
Tiko Kerr was at death's door in January 2006 when a new treatment was begun

Darah Hansen
Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

CREDIT: Ian Lindsay/Vancouver Sun
Tiko Kerr

The human immunodeficiency virus could have killed Vancouver artist Tiko Kerr 20 years ago, just as it claimed so many other promising lives.

Instead, his successful battle to live is now propelling him on a whirlwind world tour, talking to drug researchers, doctors and scientists about his story of survival and the two controversial AIDS drugs that helped him beat the odds.

"I've really come to the conclusion that the worse you have to go through, the greater the reward," Kerr says of his dramatic change in fortune.

The tour began in December, when Kerr, just shy of the one-year anniversary of his initial treatment with TMC114 and TMC125 as part of a small clinical trial at St. Paul's Hospital, travelled to New Jersey where he was invited to speak at the corporate headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, and its subsidiary, Tibotec, which developed the two drugs.

Colouring his talk with a mini-retrospective of his paintings over 25 years, Kerr related his own sometimes desperate struggle with the virus since his diagnosis in the mid-1980s.

"You kind of lived your life in gulps," he said of his mindset at the time he was told he was HIV-positive.

He also told of his life-and-death fight with his own government in order to gain access to the drugs.

IMMUNITY TO TREATMENT DEVELOPED

In 2005, clinical research on TMC114 and TMC125 had caught the attention of Kerr's doctor, noted HIV researcher Julio Montaner. The drugs appeared to be successful at suppressing HIV in long-term patients, such as Kerr, who had developed an immunity to other treatment options.

Montaner applied to Health Canada for limited access to the drugs on compassionate grounds on behalf of Kerr and a handful of other dying HIV-positive men in Vancouver.

At the time, Kerr was very ill. The HIV in his body had risen to alarming levels as more conventional drug therapies used to keep the virus in check failed. Doctors feared he would be dead within a year without new treatment.

For months, Health Canada refused to grant the necessary access. Officials finally relented in January 2006, after significant public pressure. By then, one of the Vancouver men waiting for the treatment had died.

NEW THERAPY BEGUN

TMC114, now called Prezista, has since been licensed in Canada, while access to TMC125 remains restricted.

Kerr began treatment with the new therapy in January, 2006. Within five days, Kerr's viral load fell a dramatic 90 per cent. Today, Kerr's HIV levels remain virtually undetectable. Other patients involved in the study have shown similar results.

The presentation, which wrapped up with Kerr's remarkable return to health within days of beginning treatment, brought the house down.

"They were moved to tears," Kerr said of the audience, which was made up mainly of Johnson & Johnson staff scientists eager to hear how effective the drugs can be.

"I had no idea . . . that the research and development staff had never even seen a pill they had designed. They are just so far ahead of the process," Kerr said.

This January, he was invited again to speak, this time to staff in Orange County, Calif. In March, he travelled to Dresden, Germany to mark the widespread availability of Prezista in Europe.

This month, he's off to Paris. Then it's on to Madrid, Milan and a destination yet to be scheduled somewhere in Africa.

A hectic schedule, to be sure, but Kerr is thrilled to share his story.

It has also given him a whole new perspective on his work as an artist.

"I was astonished to realize how the virus had such a profound effect on my work," he said. "When I was feeling strong, I painted in a vital and dynamic way . . . and when I was feeling weaker, my work was more timid, the subjects more cautious and desperate.

"There were these peaks and bumps that I could immediately see and I had no idea," he said.

Today, life couldn't get much better for Kerr. He's happier and healthier than ever -- "scary healthy," he said. His paintings, which fetch between $5,000 and $27,000, are more in demand than ever. And he and longtime partner, Craig Shervey, exchanged vows in a low-key wedding ceremony at the couple's West End home in February.

Shervey wrote his own vows, while Kerr recited the Elizabethan poem My true love hath my heart and I have his.

It's a long way from December, 2005, when Kerr, then still awaiting access to the TMC drugs, had grimly painted a piece he entitled My government is trying to kill me.

FACE FASCINATION DEVELOPED

These days, Kerr has developed a kind of fascination for his own face.

He likes the changes he sees among the grooves and the lines: the plumpness of his cheeks, the ruddiness of his skin, a renewed vitality in his eyes.

"I'm starting to look like a man my age instead of one of these freaks you get turned into by the virus," he said.

dahansen@png.canwest.com