Researchers Warned About AIDS Grants

winksmith writes "The NYTimes (free registration, etc.) is reporting that scientists researching STD's (including AIDS) must be careful in the wording of reports and particularly of grant requests. many have been verbally warned that phrases like: "sex workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex" and "needle exchange," may cause the government to withhold grant money."

In times gone by...

[mlush]

.... a womans ankle refered to the who leg up to the waist and her stomach refered to everything between the waist and the neck.

It certinally caused doctors diagnosis problems when a woman (with breast cancer) presented with pains in her stomach... OTOH considering the state of surgery at the time it may have been just as well

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no. HIV has precisely ONE disease vector: blood-to-blood transfer. And it requires a HUGE viral load to sustain an infection-- on the order of hundreds of thousands of particles.

It's actually very difficult to get HIV.

My wife is a surgeon, and HIV transmission used to be a HUGE concern in the operating room. You're in a tight space with lots of sharp objects; sticks happen all the time. Now we know more about how HIV works, and it's just not a big worry. A concern, sure, but it's a hell of a lot easier to contract Hep C through a needle stick than HIV.

Re:Why the Government Dislikes Those Phrases

[e_pluribus_funk]

'If you have a country like Zimbabwe where a third of the population is infected (according to the WHO) then I don't think that 'avoiding prostitutes' is going to protect your average citizen.'

This is a bit disengenous. One of the primary vectors for transmission in Africa has been prostitution.

Another example

[Bowling Moses]

Another excellent example of this is good old polymerase chain reaction (PCR, natch.). The old enzyme that made it sooo much easier to do (insert DNA manipulation of choice here) came out, according to the dimbulbs who give out Golden Fleece awards, "a $1 million study on algae [sic] in warm water." A second example near and dear to my heart is green fluorescent protein (GFP). This tool vital to modern molecular biology eventually fell out of a study on why jellyfish glow when you poke them.

Re:Good

[sribe]

Actually, no. HIV has precisely ONE disease vector: blood-to-blood transfer. And it requires a HUGE viral load to sustain an infection-- on the order of hundreds of thousands of particles.

Incorrect! There are 9 identified subtypes of the HIV virus and the HIV virus (each subtype) mutates as it spreads through the different systems of the body. The 1 subtype that has come to North America is highly contagious only in the form found in the blood. The forms found in semen, saliva and blood are hardly contagious at all. However, the subtype prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa is highly contagious in the form found in semen, which is a major contributor to the vastly higher rate of infection via heterosexual sex (along with the preference for so-called "dry sex" and the prevalence of other STD infections which involve open sores).