HIV/AIDS Vaccine To Begin Phase I Human Trials 329
An anonymous reader writes "An HIV/AIDS vaccine developed in Ontario has applied for Phase 1 human trials. Safety and immunogenicity studies of the vaccine, dubbed SAV001-H, have already been completed on animals. Phase 1 human trials will check the safety of the vaccine on HIV positive volunteers. Phase 2 will then test immunogenicity."
Re:Cue objections from the religious right: (Score:5, Interesting)
No Optimism on HIV (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now, we in America -- of all places -- have a silent crisis: an HIV epidemic. Read the shocking article [washingtonpost.com] published recently by "The Washington Post". About 3% of the residents of the District of Columbia is infected with HIV. That percentage is roughly the percentage in Uganda and parts of Kenya.
The only way to eradicate this virus is either (1) universal mandatory testing for all Americans and visitors to America (followed by tough enforcement of laws prohibiting unsafe behavior by those who are infected) or (2) a gene therapy that transfers the natural immunity enjoyed by a few Europeans to the American population. As for point #1, mandatory testing is taboo and would never be implemented. As for point #2, a small percentage of Europeans have a cellular mutation that prevents HIV infection.
No Cure? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It's just phase I testing (Score:4, Interesting)
Amen. The vaccine has showed animal immunogenicity, which is not a bad thing, but since the animals in question don't get AIDS from HIV, their immune systems don't react the same way that human ones do. Which means you need to proceed to human testing, and that takes a long time.
Phase I trials are important, and announcing them is not a bad thing. And nobody particularly expects cures in the HIV-positive population, although circulating HIV may be interesting (if the virus can cause a practical immune response in subjects with HIV but who have fairly normal T4 counts and you can show reduced circulating viral load, you have an interesting data point for efficacy).
My biggest problem with this kind of press release is that they don't include the details. I'd be interested in knowing why this vaccine is likely to work better than the last two hundred that have been tried, what the actual animal studies showed, and so on. Oh well. I'm not going to be waiting up this weekend to hear more. It will be a couple of years before we know whether this one works.
Re:Cue objections from the religious right: (Score:2, Interesting)
"Not all of us conservative Christians are superstitious like you illustrate...."
Actually, I think you'll find that the definition of your religion REQUIRES superstitious belief.
Re:Cue objections from the religious right: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:how do you test it? (Score:5, Interesting)
We would have the answer so much quicker and in the end, if the vaccine turns out to be effective, we'll save so many more (important - yes, I said it) lives. Is it really moral to trade the lives of a few dozen creeps over hundreds of thousands of African lives to preserve OUR sense of humanity? Yeah... I guess so... I guess.
Re:Test on (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:how do you test it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Which is It? (Score:2, Interesting)
Since when are personal attacks, based on unconfirmed accusations by a convicted fraud, attacks on people who just died, moderated as Funny? Mod this post into oblivion, if you are still human beings.
Re:Which is It? (Score:2, Interesting)
There is no "magic serum" that cures AIDS.
Typical medical doctor behavior. In reality, you should say:
I do not KNOW of a serum that cures AIDS YET.
You know, you aren't god, despite you possibly thinking so. ^^
You can not predict that it will never happen. You can not say if it's just you being uninformed.
You can not know if humanity as a whole just does not know enough yet.
And most likely, you are wrong with all three assumptions.
Re:Is this it? (Score:3, Interesting)