HEROIN CURE MAY HAVE KILLED SIX

A VIETNAMESE herbalist who gained worldwide acclaim for inventing a
"miracle" cure for heroin addiction may have covered up the deaths of up to
six patients in his care.

Health officials in Hanoi have evidence that a clinic run by Tran Khuong
Dan bribed at least one family to bury their son's body without informing
the authorities.

United Nations sources in New York - who have launched costly trials on the
"cure" - told The Independent yesterday that they believe more cases are
being investigated, yet testing on the drug is likely to continue.

Mr Dan sprang to worldwide prominence last November when his secret
formula, called Heantos, attracted the attention of the world's media. A
former construction worker and herbalist, Mr Dan claimed he deliberately
became an opium addict to see whether he could find a natural way to
detoxify himself.

After travelling from village to village in the highlands of Vietnam, he
put together a secret concoction made up of 13 plants which appeared to
help some addicts kick their habit.

Although no formal evaluation had been undertaken, visiting American
politicians brought the treatment to Bill Clinton's attention. Pressure was
brought to bear upon specialists in addiction to investigate and the UN
Development Programme reportedly allocated #240,000 to the project, with a
possible #2.4m to follow.

Now, however, Mr Dan's activities have been branded illegal in Vietnam -
because Heantos is untested and unlicensed - and there is a split within
the UN on whether to proceed with trials.

In an interview with The Youth newspaper in Vietnam, Nguyen Hun Lam,
vice-chairman of the Vietnamese ministry of health's drug control
committee, said stocks of Heantos "illegally" produced by Mr Dan and
several partners had been seized.

More disturbingly, he added: "This illegal operation led to a serious
consequence causing death to [a patient] on 30 July 1997 during treatment
at the Heantos Detoxification Centre.

The centre management negotiated with the victim's family and offered to
provide 15 million Vietnamese dong [approximately #1,500] for the family to
bring the body to the village for burial without reporting the case to the
local administration and relevant authorities."

There is a row between officials at the UN Development Programme (UNDP),
which wants to proceed with tests on Heantos, and the UN Drug Control
Programme, which is sceptical. It is understood the UNDP is refusing to
pass on details of the Heantos formula to the Drug Control Programme.

"We can't say whether this thing works or not because there have been no
formal tests and no follow-up work to see whether the addicts are still off
their drugs," a UN source said. "We are hearing from Vietnam that there
might have been as many as six deaths that had gone unreported."

Some experts suspect Heantos may contain kratom, a plant from Thailand and
Vietnam which, when chewed, acts on the same brain receptors as heroin. "If
that is the case, then this isn't a cure, it's a substitute and it would be
no better than the methadone we give people now," said the source.