HIV Vaccine 848
The Sexecutioner writes "WebMD is reporting on a new vaccine which has had an incredible effect in clinical trials. The vaccine, composed of human dendrites holding dead HIV viruses, has dropped test patients' viral load by up to 90% in one year. Could this be it?"
Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
I got a feeling that only those wealthy people can afford to get fixed up, but most of them caught HIV due to their irresponsible action. Yet innocent victims who caught the disease, for instance by birth, may never see the light.
It seems like most medical findings are "open-source", that you can read about them in journals, but the actual cost to produce a medicine is usually very prohibitive.
FDA approval? (Score:3, Insightful)
reducing viral load is a far cry from a cure folks (Score:4, Insightful)
This one sounds even more expensive. (Score:3, Insightful)
But it requires 2 items from the patient's body.
#1. Dendritic cells
#2. Dead virus
This doesn't sound like something that can be mass produced which means that the price will be high for most of the world.
Welcome to capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments that want to make a new life-saving drug available to all, not just those who can afford it, are free to subsidize it. Citizens and governments in wealthy countries who want to make the drugs available to citizens of poor countries can likewise fund it.
It's easy to paint a company as horrible because it wants to charge a lot of money for a life-saving new treatment. But in many cases that treatment wouldn't exist if the company couldn't make money from it.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from that, when you RTFA you'll see that this isn't a regular drug, it's more of a therapy -- as I understand it, you use cells from the patient's own body and basically train them to combat the HIV virus. Unless you can create a generic version that would work across populations, it's not as simple as just shipping a bunch of shots off to the third world like we were able to do with polio.
As for "open source" drugs: You should realize it isn't that simple. It costs a lot of money to find, test and approve new drugs. While I'd agree that our current system enriches the drug companies at the expense of the little people (among a myriad of other problems), it's really important not to assume you can think of the industry like you do computing.
Take that, Darwin (Score:1, Insightful)
But yeah, on a much smaller scale this is awesome, I don't think there is a person here who isn't connected to someone with HIV.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
That is to say, the lower prices in Canada are due to exactly what most opponents of socialized medicine claim to support: a working market with multiple, informed customers.
Re:I Hope not. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I Hope not. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
The dependence on the private sector is the real problem here. Of course, pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money on R&D and expect to make it back with the lucrative successes. However, this is not necessarily the best solution for society as a whole. Particularly in countries with a national health service funded by general taxation, paying lots of money to drugs companies is not an efficient use of resources. Directing the same money to universities to perform the research would ensure development of the same life-saving drugs while also ensuring that the drugs can be made available to all who need them.
Practical Explanation? (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, we can claim that the West created a virus designed to kill Africans, but yet still somehow manages to kill millions in North America/Europe; not particularly effective from a genocide point of view.
Another, perhaps more practical point of view, is that sex education and safe-sex practices are far less common in Africa. The lack of knowledge about STD's and the absence of the rule of law in many parts of Africa would make a far more effective explanation.
If we take Ms. Maathai's explanation, then food must obviously also be a genetically engineered weapon, since millions more in Africa die from starvation than those in the West.
Re:Wait, a vaccine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget about it (Score:5, Insightful)
It is NOT a vaccine. It is NOT a cure. It's a temporary (at best) treatment. The title is highly misleading. And its far from practical. You need to isolate dendritic cells from an (infected) patient, which is costly, require specific equipment and isn't trivial (forget developing countries, which can't even afford AZT). Then you pulse these cells with killed HIV, which I assume should come from the patient (else soon the treatment will go ineffective due to mutations acquired by the virus) and you reinject the cells, which will go 'alert' the immune system that something is wrong. So mass scale treatment is out of question. Basically, you're only boosting the (ineffective) immune system against HIV-1. After a year, their treatment reduced viral load by 90% in 8 of 18 patients. 90% isn't a lot (anti-retroviral do a lot better than that), and they aren't even achieving 50% success after a year. I would imagine that after 2 or 3 years, the success rate is even lower. And the CD4 count is stable, not increasing to normal levels.
So no, its not 'it'. Don't hold your breath either.
you'll know when its it. (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll know when its it. To quote the late great Bill Hicks, when there's a one shot cure for AIDs they'll be fucking in the streets.
Think long term (Score:3, Insightful)
The important thing is to get the initial process or idea out there in the first place. Then you can get people to work on it and refine it. But you need the right balance of: reward the inventors vs allow others to mass produce it.
If you don't reward the inventors, then you take away the incentive to think this stuff up. But on the other hand you can't let them keep a monopoly on it forever.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
So you don't class babies born to HIV+ mothers as innocent?
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hold on there (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. And I might add, hasty. to all who jumped on my several mistakes here...I deserved and other readers value the corrections.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
News from the future: incidence of all other STDs skyrockets.
Sigh.
this is from brazil & france, NOT USA pharmco (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, by the way, France has nationalized healthcare--anyone walks right in and gets healtcare without paying. Real good system. Oh, yeah, that's right. We Americans are subsidizing their healthcare by paying for all this research.
Hmm. So that's why this vaccine to beat AIDS is coming out of France and Brazil.....
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
Patent laws in Canada and the United States are different, and as such the length of time the patent is valid may mean that a drug currently covered by a patent in the US would not be covered in Canada.
But that has absolutely NOTHING to do with why drugs are cheaper in Canada. Name Brand drugs are cheaper in Canada. In many cases by as much as 80%.
The Canadian government negotiates the rates for a number of drugs. They make a commitment to purchase a large quantity and the drug company agrees to the price.
By the way, you might want to check out drug prices around the world. Nowhere in the world does anyone pay the kind of prices that exist in the United States.
Counterfeit drugs, according to the FDA, is any drug supplied from any source which does not have EXACTLY the same packaging and EXACTLY the same markings on the drug as have been registered with the FDA. This is Regardless of whether the drug is from the same production line, but put into a different style of packaging by the same manufacturer.
A company can simply provide the Canadian government with different style packaging and then, when imported back into the United States it will be considered a counterfeit drug.
You may not like the socialist aspect to Canadian healthcare, but quality of the drugs is not an issue.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:3, Insightful)
"I got a feeling that only those wealthy people can afford to get fixed up"
Well, think of the wealthy as gamers who want the latest rig. They have the money, and are willing to shell out for the cure when it is new and relatively rare. When R&D costs are paid off, or manufacturing costs drop (they begin mass producing the cure), then the masses will join them.
"but most of them caught HIV due to their irresponsible action."
Possibly, but then this holds true for most people {rich, poor, middle class). Most HIV infections are caused by people being irresponsible. But I think you'll find that in terms of percentage by class that are infected with HIV, the rich and poor share a similar proportion.
"Yet innocent victims who caught the disease, for instance by birth, may never see the light."
Nobody's innocent, but that's my cynasism showing. And I'm sure a number of the rich have caught HIV via birth or blood transfusions.
You do realize that unlike many things in life, diseases do not discrimate by class.
But the great thing about having a number of the rich (or very rich) sharing a similar plight is that you can bet your house that they are paying someone to find a cure. You have a job, you go to work, you deal with the disease as it fits in your schedule. The rich do not: which frees up time for them to really crack the whip over the researchers heads. Imagine Bill Gates coming down with HIV. No matter how you view him personally, you know he would move (literally) mountains to find a cure. I can just see it now, Bill Gates sitting at his desk, calling a medical research team (and buying them), then simply telling them to "Find a cure NOW".
Something sad would be if only the poor caught a disease, not the rich. No one would bother to find a cure (no money to research, no money to be made).
"It seems like most medical findings are "open-source", that you can read about them in journals, but the actual cost to produce a medicine is usually very prohibitive."
It is very prohibitive. We are talking about a bunch of proteins being injected directly into your blood stream. Now, if we include the fact that the human body is incredibly complex (impurities in a vaccine can kil you), and that a gene sequencing machine probably costs a ton (of gold bricks), you realize why it costs so much.
And medical journals serve two purposes: 1.) to alert medical professionals that there is a new treatment out there, and 2.) to show data backing up these claims.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Begging your pardon, sir, but I have HIV and I didn't get it through irresponsible action. I received the virus through an unfaithful wife, with whom I believed I was in a monogamous, long-term (10+ years) relationship.
I realize that your sheltered existence makes it easy for you to dismiss the majority of the millions who suffer from HIV as irresponsible, but I'm here to tell you, it's not always so, nor do I find that most cases (at least that I know of through the support groups) are caused by irresponsibility.
Just think about this before you dismiss "most" of HIV sufferers. I did not engage in dangerous activities. I was not an intravenous drug user. I did not engage in homosexual sex. I didn't apply medical care to an HIV patient without appropriate protection.
I had sex with my long-term partner. And now I'm left to die, knowing that I never stepped beyond what was "safe".
HIV is a terrible disease, and it can affect anyone. Chalking a majority of infections to irresponsibility is facile and dangerous. Nobody is safe from this terrible, terrible disease.
Re:I Hope not. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right! Let's start with you.
It's always easy to make such comments until you're the one affected.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:2, Insightful)
Not quite. (Score:4, Insightful)
Vaccines do not have to be made from live or dead specimens of the pathogen - they can also be made of specimens of a similar pathogen (smallpox vaccine is made from cowpox, for example), or anything that mimics a critical part of the pathogen closely enough to trigger an immune/cellular response.
People tend to think the difference is that vaccines PREVENT disease and treatments treat disease only because most people get vaccines before they have a chance to be exposed to a disease. If you somehow ended up with Polio or Smallpox or whatever, they'd still give you a vaccination to get your body to take care of it (and that's what they did back when they first created the vaccines).
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
The stupidity of the market (Score:3, Insightful)
The logical thing is to lower the price on critical core medications, so that they're in the reach of most or all people. This keeps the customers alive, and therefore increases the amount they can buy from you. Furthermore, people tend to shop with people they like. They're likely to like you, if you've just saved their neck.
Cheap life-saving drugs would create a bigger, more loyal, market which is likely to create repeat demand. THAT is where the real money lies.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mmmm! (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you attack Merck with pitchforks and torches in hand, you ought to realise that this company has an unprecedented history of philanthropy, and it saddens me to know that somebody at that company with their eyes in profit instead of the Right Thing screwed up so royally with the debacle we know today as Vioxx.
Whatever happens with that company, I hope that at least some of their positive ideological foundations are continuted.
--sean
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, bad news title? (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't stop HIV infections, but it prevents them into evolving into full-blown AIDS and reduces the risk of infection. Which sounds pretty good too, of course.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a FUD piece supporting drug patents. I liked this quote...
Patent pirates, however, want to steal even more of a drug company's property. Their justification is the need for "humanitarian" aid. They offer the notion that it is unethical for companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Pfizer to put their patents and profits above the suffering of those in Africa and other needy places who are afflicted with HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and other treatable diseases.
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Patients shouldn't be asking doctors for specific drugs, IMO. Drug advertising should be regulated/restricted in the same way that liquor ads are. After VIOXX, I don't trust any of them, not that I was rushing to the doctor's office seeking these "life-enhancing" medicines before.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone talks about Canada's "socialized medicine" being so different in principle than the United States', but really, when you think about it, that's exactly what an insurance company is supposed to be! It's a socialist concept from the beginning. Few can pay the actual cost of significant health care, so everyone pays into the kitty, and those in need take out. Not so different, in principle. The problem is the people in charge of that kitty. Note that both the middlemen and the health care providers in this country are profiteers, and that applies as much to state-run programs such as Medicare and Medicaid as it does to private organizations. The drug companies are one of the most public examples of medical profiteering, but there are many, many more. Actual health care is no longer the primary focus of the United States medical system. Like so much else in this country, the prime function of the medical system is to transfer wealth from one group to another (much smaller) group. Which is great, I suppose, if you're part of the latter group. I'm not, so I don't like it.
You would think that insurance companies would try to find ways to keep costs down by putting pressure on medical suppliers. But they don't. They don't have to. They simply keep their rates as high as the market will bear (and beyond) and then do their level best to disqualify anyone they can from actually receiving any care. And that was before HMOs came on the scene. The result has been yet another group of murderous corporations that are so flush with money, and complicit in the deaths of so many people, that they almost make the tobacco companies look angelic.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
The generics in Canada are only produced after the patent expires, ie, 20 years. I don't know where you got the ridiculous idea that Canada doesn't respect US patents, but it's utterly ridiculous and ignorant. Next you'll be claiming Canadian drugs are unclean and manufactured with lacking production controls. Another myth perpetuated by the US pharmaceutical companies who see Canada undercutting their costs and stealing their mojo.
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:3, Insightful)
Jaysyn
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
That rather silly cliche is way off the mark -- universities generally contain the very brightest people within the population. If academia isn't producing the specific targetted research that society requires, that is because society isn't funding it to do so. If the billions that were spent on buying cheap-to-produce drugs were spent on university research, it would be possible to fund both basic and applied research properly.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:2, Insightful)
I bet monogamy would go a long way in someplace where other preventative measures don't reach.
Why do people always talk about responsible behavior as though it's a lost cause?
You can be responsible and have multiple partners, but many people aren't, and that's only partially due to education and availability of preventative measures. The other reason is that some people are just irresponsible no matter what options are available.
Education is definitely not stressed enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is getting the third world (where the epidemic is most serious) to accept western medicine. Westerners think African-witch-doctor medicine is a bunch of bunk--well Africans have the same opinion of much of western medicine. Even if this vaccine WAS a cure, getting poor, illiterate Africans to accept treatment would require a lot of education and convincing (not to mention money that most of these victims do not have).
The most perverse myth in some African cultures is that STDs (including AIDS) can be cured in men by having unprotected sex with a virgin girl. I shudder when I think about how many HIV+ men there are in Africa who think they are cured because they have done this, but in fact may have infected some young woman and the child she might have conceived as a result--then in the mistaken belief that they are cure go on to infect other sexual partners. Somehow putting that myth to rest would do more to combat AIDS than the most expensive drugs currently available.
There is even a problem in the "educated" west too--it is that we are perhaps TOO educated (but in the wrong way). All this emphasis on advanced treatments for AIDS is making some people perceive the disease as no longer a death sentance but rather a chronic disease. The attitude when engaging in risky behaviour is becoming "Uh oh...I might have exposed myself to HIV...oh well, nowadays HIV is treatable like hepatitis and herpes--it would be a pain in the ass to have to treat it but I'll live alright anyways".
The homosexual communities of large metropolitan areas are already having to combat this attitude (having previosuly become the most educated/aware segment of society concerning AIDS) and if we aren't careful the rest of the public will start believing this too. In actual fact, even if a person could live a normal lifespan with HIV, delivering a vaccine cusomised for each recipient and treating symptoms with an expensive regimen of drugs would be another big burden on the healthcare system, not to mention that the quality of life would be permanently reduced even with todays treatments.
Yes, this is an important development, but without education and empasis on personal responsibility AIDS won't go the way of smallpox any time soon.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:3, Insightful)
Marketing and adminstrative cost 3,186.0 Million USD.
In other words, you're absolutely right. Other companies would probably show the same result.
Source [lilly.com]
Re:this is from brazil & france, NOT USA pharm (Score:4, Insightful)
In any case, dendritic cells were discovered in the US, HIV was discovered in the US, etc., so it can't be argued that the giant money machine of US science didn't contribute. It also can't be argued that the US does not lead the world in biomedical science. This is because we spend so much money on it that the best scientists from all over the world are concentrated here. However, I agree with you that this is not the same as the idiotic statement that we are subsidizing other nations' healthcare.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that medical insurance became widespread when companies started offering health plans in lieu of pay.
Everyone has some basic levels of medical costs: vaccinations, pediatrician visits for their children, eye care, dental care, occasional medical situations (perhaps a broken bone or infection), etc. If you buy insurance against something that everyone knows will happen to you, then the only result is that the insurance company wins big time, just like Las Vegas: they know the numbers and they know that they will win.
What you buy insurance against are the high costs that you probably won't suffer, but would create a hardship if you did. These include tragic accidents that are rare but require hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix, or bizarre diseases or something.
What we have is a situation where basic medical needs are being covered by insurance, which means the customer is always losing (just like if you spend enough time at the blackjack table).
The only thing that makes sense is to drop the insurance policy that you lose out on, and get a cheaper policy that only covers the big stuff. Then pay the little stuff yourself.
Then you also benefit because your premiums aren't covering the costs of high-risk lifestyles of other people. The insurance companies can't discriminate and charge those people more, sometimes because the law won't let them (i.e. they can't charge more to gay people) and sometimes because they don't know (druggies or something).
Re:Mmmm! (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Evan
Re:Mixed feeling-USA/Canada not comparable darnit (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, dude, but Canada's system also has some serious problems. What it comes down to is that, if you want to stay healthy
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:0, Insightful)
Men here: This probably happens alot, women today are feminist whores for the most part, their husbands are just money bags that they do not care about.
Also murdering or maiming (bobbit etc) husbands and boyfriends is defacto-legal for women as they get very small to no jail time for such crimes.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:1, Insightful)
You can smell the americanski.
Perspective is needed.......prevention it is not (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
This approach requires that you already have the HIV infection. This does not protect you from infection. This is not a cure. This is a treatment. It isn't clear that this will prevent you from spreading the infection either. This MIGHT prolong your life expectancy or even improve the quality of your life.
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the advertising spending is dead weight, but not all of it. Advertising does have the effect of making potential customers aware that there are drugs that treat their conditions. How much benefit does a drug do if nobody knows about it? Before you say the doctors will tell their patients, remember that drug companies telling doctors about their drugs is still advertising, and remember that not everyone goes to a doctor over every ailment, especially if they mistakenly think there is no treatment.
1/3 of the drugs being marketted by the major manufacturers were discovered by universities or small biotech firms
Then I take it 2/3 of drugs being marketed by the major manufacturers were developed internally. And how did the manufacturers get the IP rights from the small biotech firms? If they bought the rights or pay royalties, then they are paying for the research that went into the drug plus the firm's profit. I doubt all small biotech firms are as dumb as the NIH was with Taxol.
Most drugs that the drug industry itself develops are what she calls "me-too" drugs
"Me-too" drugs limit the ability to abuse the limited monopoly by acting as competitors. That's a Good Thing. Or should everyone still be using Mosaic because all other browsers developed are "me-too" software?
They need not be more effective than current formulations in order to be able to be sold - just more effective than a placebo.
If a drug doesn't provide benefits in effeciveness, side effects, interactions, or price, most doctors won't prescribe it. Doctors do have easy access to reference material on all these factors, and part of what they're paid for is to know how to evaluate which drug is best for which patients.
The top 10 pharmaceutical companies make more money than the rest of the Fortune 500 combined.
Good. How much is a few more years of life worth to you? Or not being impotent? Or relief from chronic pain? And if it's not worth to you what people are paying, switch to an insurance plan that doesn't cover prescription drugs and opt out of the whole affair.
And not only are they granted a limited monopoly, but they often cheat.
This part is genuinely lame. IP law need fixing to limit these kinds of abuses.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of wiggly lovebunnies are still in denial about this for some reason. Sorry, guys.
Perhaps the 'old morality' had a bit of a point. Parts of it, anyhow. If you can't deal with the old moraility whole-cloth, let's forge a new morality that makes sense.
Re:Welcome to capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
I know plenty of people whose quality of life (an capability of staying alive) depends on the fact that, for instance, there are several different kinds of dopamine antagonists (prochlorperazine, metoclopramide, domperidone) used in gastroparesis, since they all have different effectiveness and different side effects in different people. I know people who might not be alive today if, for instance, a decision was made not to produce domperidone, but they just stuck with metoclopramide.
I myself have very different side effects when taking Prilosec versus Prevacid. I prefer Prilosec, others prefer Prevacid.
On advertising, if the drug companies didn't advertise, I might not even know there is an option between Prilosec and Prevacid.
Plus I hope they sell a lot through advertising because these companies make the drugs that keep people I love alive, and often that is with drugs that are not incredibly profitable, but depend on drugs like Viagra to keep the cash flowing in to continue to produce new drugs.
Re:"Could this be it?" NO. (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of "enforcing" monogamy is a pretty chilly concept. Much of the AIDS epidemic in the developed world has it's roots in this societal stigma of it being the sexual deviant's disease. A virus kills indiscriminantly. As a culture we should choose to continue developing our responsible sexual civil liberties. It's only with openess and education that we will control this disease in the present. State enforcement of behaviour is socially retroactive and inconsequential. The choice to make love with whom we please is not a crime. It's a modern responsibiliy that we choose to take.
Re:Mixed feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
If you assume that all heterosexual contact infections were 'responsible', and then add in blood transfusions, coagulation disorders and other 'responsible' actions, then you still end up accounting for under 20% of infections in the US. [avert.org]
HIV/AIDS is terrible, and I certianly don't want to discount the lives that are affected by it.
However, claiming that the majority of infections, at least in the US, are not preventable is far more dangerous than saying that "Chalking a majority of infections to irresponsibility is facile and dangerous."
The caveat 'at least in the US' applies because in other countries, especially the African nations, the culture of male dominance actually speeds the infection. A large percentage of those infected perhaps did not have the opportunity to act responsibly.
I understand how to protect my computer from virus and other attacks, and therefore I have not had an infection on any of my computers for over a decade.
I understand how to protect myself from sexually and body fluid transmitted diseases, and therefore I am not HIV/AIDS positive.
I don't claim that I am immune - far from it - but my chances are greatly reduced. Perhaps equal to your chances prior to your infection.
I claim that if everyone chose to avoid placing themselves in risky situations, whether it be visiting a warez site and catching a virus, or getting drunk at a party and sleeping with a stranger, then the incidence would be drastically reduced. If this was the case, then efforts could go into protecting 'innocent' sufferers of the disease who got it not by risky behavior, but through other's risky behavior.
What the parent is pointing out is that you are not only a minority being part of the 2% of Americans suffering with this disease, you are also a minority within the disease, being one of the few who got it without engaging in risky behavior.
I hope for a simple, cheap treatment and eventual cure for this virus and the disease that generally follows. Until then, I hope that people act responsibly - that is our current best, and only, effective defense.
I cannot possibly understand what you are going through, but I wish you the best of luck.
-Adam
Color me cruel but... (Score:3, Insightful)
unworkably expensive as yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about what that means. No mass production. A blood sample from each patient must be taken, processed, and the finished vaccine returned to that patient, without error. There is no generic serum.
Forget the patent flame-war for a minute. The production costs of this thing are prohibitive. The costs of this thing will look more like the costs of in virto fertilization procedures than they will look like a vaccine.
I'm sorry to say that this announcement is, as yet, a nice bit of research and nothing more.