Approved treatments are the ones the Canadian government says can legally be prescribed by your doctor and sold in drug stores.
This usually means that they’ve been tested according to government regulations. The tests are called clinical trials. Their purpose is to see how well the treatments work and whether they have any harmful effects (”side effects”). Clinical trials don’t always provide accurate information about the treatments being tested. Sometimes new information is learned about a treatment after it’s been tested. If a treatment meets the government’s standards, it’s approved. Because this process takes a long time and costs a lot, usually only large drug companies can put new treatments on the market. In USA and Canada right now, AZT, ddI, ddC, 3TC, and saquinavir are the only treatments that have been approved to treat HIV Experimental treatments are drugs or therapies that have not yet been approved but are being tested.
This includes many anti-HIV and related treatments being tested in USA and CANADA and elsewhere.