HIV Vaccine Ready For Clinical Trials 385
amigoro writes with the happy news that a possible vaccine against HIV is nearing readiness for clinical trials. The compound could provide a 'double whammy' by not only inoculating the patient against future infection, but destroying an HIV infection in progress. "The vaccine is an artificial virus-like particle whose outer casing consists of the TBI (T- and B cell epitopes containing immunogen) protein constructed by the researchers combined with the polyglucin protein. This protein contains nine components stimulating different cells of the immune system: both the ones that produce antibodies and the ones that devour the newcomer."
hmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
Sad.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What are the odds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Not only" is wrong way round (Score:4, Insightful)
An HIV vaccine would, depending on price and risks, most likely be distributed to those who do not yet have the disease but may be at high risk. Since some of the highest risk patients (people who engage in unprotected sex and IV drug users) are less likely to go tell their doc they need it, let's hope it gets cheap and safe enough to make it a mandatory childhood shot!
Re:He who gets AIDS deserves to get AIDS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not going to happen. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
what?
Re:Yes, please tell them to wake me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But what if youv got the AIDS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it's entirely possible that the code is indeed useless, but that would seem to go against the tendency of evolution to be frugal.
Re:Are you joking? (Score:3, Insightful)
- more tissue trauma in receptive anal sex
- more promiscuity in gay community in general
HIV has recently become more transmissible during vaginal intercourse too (possibly through its fairly rapid evolution) though so it may catch up, but until the straight community becomes as promiscuous as the gay one, the transmission rate will remain lower.
Re:Sad.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Coupled with:
- not being born to an HIV positive mother
- not sharing needles when injecting drugs
- not receiving tainted blood product transfusions
- not being bitten, scratched or otherwise suffering an infectious injury from a carrier
- not sustaining a needlestick injury if you are a healthcare worker from an HIV carrier
- not partaking in lower (but still not zero-) risk sexual activities (e.g. oral sex)
- not being exposed via other means (e.g. blood injuries in sports)
there are probably a few others I haven't thought of, but stop being so sanctimonious. There are a lot of people out there who contracted HIV through no fault of their own - one of the largest groups were haemophiliacs before the disease was even known about.
Re:He who gets AIDS deserves to get AIDS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, indeed, to someone who got AIDS from having some fun and sleeping around. WTF is wrong with that?
Re:But what if youv got the AIDS? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think not.
Not everyone who gets AIDS can afford drug therapy. The vast majority of new infections in 3rd world countries will most certainly not engage in treatment. Drug companies are only making money off "daily regiments" by bleeding dry a very small minority of AIDS sufferers.
Now think about a vaccine. If a viable vaccine is released, *EVERYONE* gets immunized. Get the picture? Not just rich HIV+ westerners Even those who are poor, even those who *DON'T HAVE THE DISEASE* will likely get immunized via global public campaigns of the type that eradicated smallpox. After having identified AIDS as a major factor in geo-political instability, you can bet that the UN (among others) is going to make a very good effort to pump money into any viable efforts to halt/reverse the spread of this disease.
No money to be made? only a fool would walk away from this.
I hear the cynics say this type of thing an awful lot and it just makes no sense. Has there been any actual real life case of pharmaceutical intentionally siting on a cure due to profit motives? Seriously, I genuinely want to learn about historic examples that justify this kind of fear.
Re:He who gets AIDS deserves to get AIDS... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people... (Score:1, Insightful)
Neither act deserves HIV, of course. Well, with the possible exception of people who are careless with other people's hearts... and almost none even among them. Unless they're also child molesting neo... oh, er... that wouldn't be good for the kids, since you don't want the molesters to have HIV. Maybe we hit them with baseball bats?
nothing wrong with sleeping around... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're one of those people who 'sleep around', do so cleanly, do so safely, keep track of who you sleep with, get tested regularly; and if you do get tested positive for any STD, tell those who you slept with since the previous test (+ some time, due to incubation times) to get tested as well, as it is likely that 1. you got it from one of them* and 2. you gave it to some of them.
If you can't bring yourself to act responsibly, then I'm sorry - I can't bring up much sympathy for you when you do get an STD.
* assuming you didn't get the STD through blood contact/kissing**
** yes, the virus involved with a cold sore ( herpes labialis / HSV-1 ) will happily live in those other mucous warm areas, albeit extremely rare for it to travel southward. Similarly, genital herpes ( herpes genitalis / HSV-2 ) will happily nestle in the mouth.
Re:But what if youv got the AIDS? (Score:3, Insightful)
This does not require the rationale that large pharmaceutical companies have a conscience. It would still apply even if the company in question was run by a total sociopath.
Re:Sad.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But what if youv got the AIDS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the extent to which pharmas withhold treatment from dying people, (backed by WTO threats, patent manipulation, WIPO lobbyists, etc) I'd say it's quite obvious they could be classified as total sociopaths.
And really, a vaccine, or a cure, for AIDS would be a short-lived media bonus; when was the last time you heard anything about whatever companies created various vaccines (apart from allegations of causing things like autism, or for needlessly encouraging tax-financed and uncessary vaccinations)?
The thing is, if you analyze it, the entire economy of patent incentives is based on the ability to _deny_ everyone the right to produce a certain substance. The worse the consequences, the higher the price can go. Patents dont generate a lot of money for curing or preventing disease; they generate the maximum level of revenue when they set the price so high that they _deny_ a certain subset of customers access, and deny that subset of customers the right to buy the medicine from anyone else. (And please, dont give me the 'but they need the money to research' crap; the money is largely wasted on marketing, administration and inefficient production; we'd get five times the research for what we're paying today if we outright just paid for it and scrapped medical patents).
The very foundation of the system is so ethically corrupt that it's no wonder the pharmas are the way they are.
Personally I dont doubt for a second that they'd simply bury any substance (reorganize, change strategic direction) that appeared to actually have a chance at curing something they were selling a symptom treater for.
Re:Never ceases to amaze me.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He who gets AIDS deserves to get AIDS... (Score:1, Insightful)
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
Re:Sad.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's find a cure and get it to as many people as possible, but let's not forget that prevention is better than any cure, and that only you are responsible for your own actions.
Re:hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. selling an exorbitantly expensive treatment which does not cure the disease for 5-10 years
2. selling a single shot
Re:He who gets AIDS deserves to get AIDS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pro: The classic argument for survival of the fittest religion is Circumcision for the early Hebrews. Other area religions sacrificed their first born sons to the various Bels (Baals in the OT spelling) and Tiamat types. The Jews made it a symbolic sacrifice, their populations grew faster, and they won a series of wars by it, or so the argument goes.
Con: A sexually transmitted disease is a half-assed infectious disease that can't spread by any better means. Sex will transmit even very sensitive germs, easily destroyed by a few seconds exposure to the rest of the environment. Germs that will die from a little cool air or a few seconds exposure to solar UV will manage to pass through intercourse. The real professional infectious diseases have developed methods such as surviving long term in dirty drinking water, exploiting fast multiplying insect species as intermediate hosts, or even the aerosol spread of some plagues, that make them literally billions of times more efficient than STDs at surviving and multiplying. So if a religion tended to survive by discouraging the spread of STDs, One could have done a lot better by discouraging the spread of other diseases.
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness" would have really caught on. The movement by the dark ages Europeans to reduce bathing (supposedly started to conserve increasingly scarce firewood) would have faltered quickly and not lasted for over 500 years. Similarly, bad beliefs, such as believing that black cats are unlucky and so hunting down animals that slowed the spread of plagues by killing rats, would have died off swiftly as people who believed otherwise tended to survive. If the selection pressure from the black plague and a dozen other major epidemics wasn't enough to make the old black cat superstition die out, then the selection pressure from STDs would just about have to be pretty minimal.