Hypericin: Antiviral from St. John's Wort

St. John's wort, a common plant which grows throughout the
world, contains a chemical called hypericin, which may have
broad-spectrum antiviral activity -- against HIV,
cytomegalovirus, human papillomavirus, influenza, hepatitis
B, and perhaps other viruses. St. John's wort has long been
used in herbal medicine; however, the plant contains very
little hypericin, and attempts to use crude extracts of it as
an HIV treatment have had little success. It is relatively
easy to chemically extract pure hypericin from the herb; but,
because of commercial motivations and government regulations,
this has seldom been done. There are reports that some people
have had unusually good results with concentrated chemical
extracts obtained through the AIDS treatment underground, but
we have been unable to confirm these reports.

Instead, the commercial effort to develop hypericin has used
a chemically synthesized version of the drug, not a plant
extract; several years have been lost in testing this
potential treatment, because of the time required to develop
an efficient synthesis procedure, and for other reasons.
Clinical trials are now being done at New York University, in
New York City. In order to get good scientific data, these
trials have given hypericin by intravenous injection -- even
though everyone expects that this drug will be used orally.
Recently the dose had to be reduced, because a side effect
was found; some people receiving the injections reported
discomfort in their hands and face, probably due to
phototoxicity (abnormal sensitivity to sunlight or other
strong light), which has been seen in animal tests of
hypericin. The trial is now proceeding with the reduced dose.
As of early July, no data is yet available about the possible
effectiveness of the drug as an HIV treatment. (Note: oral
use may cause less toxicity than intravenous use. Also, there
are reasons to believe that the purified plant extract may
work better than the synthetic now being tested.)

What is most needed now is for research groups to extract
concentrated hypericin from St. John's wort, and try it
orally as a treatment for AIDS or for the other viral
diseases listed above, outside of the constraints which
inhibit such research in the United States. A chemist,
perhaps at a university, working together with a physician,
could be the core of such a group.

For More Information

At least 30 articles have been published in scientific and
medical journals about hypericin's anti-HIV activity, and its
success in treating retroviral diseases in animals. (The
first of these articles appeared in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, USA, July 1988.) We do not have
space for a full bibliography here. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS
published reports on hypericin, including recent
bibliographies, in issue #125, April 19, 1991, and issue
#146, March 6, 1992; we will send these reports on request.