HIV Vaccine

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?"

Comments

Mixed feeling

[fembots]

While I am glad that we may have found the cure to HIV that kills millions every year, I wonder if the vaccine will be affordable to those unfortunate ones?

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.

Re:Mixed feeling

[Anonymous Coward]

most of them caught HIV due to their irresponsible action

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:Mixed feeling

[cindy]

The article you link to doesn't even mention Canada, Canadian laws, or the Canadian drug market. How exactly does this support your argument?

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:Mixed feeling

[jadavis]

I think our philosophies are very different, but your observation is very true. Insurance companies ARE very similar to socialism.

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).

Practical Explanation?

[katharsis83]

Let's apply Occam's Razor here.

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?

[grunt547]

Seriously, curing HIV is just dealing with a symptom of a problem. If the groups that promote AIDS and STD education in Africa could get just a tiny portion of the funding that goes into HIV medical research, the spread of AIDS would run into a wall. In South Africa, they have billboards that say things like "You can catch AIDS by having sex with an infected woman." Americans think, well, no kidding, but very few people have bothered to tell the South Africans that. AIDS is a problem that has to be attacked on all fronts.

Re:Mmmm!

[Combuchan]

Erm. The same company that devloped Vioxx also devloped Ivermectin (Mectizan), a highly effective treatment plan (once every 12 months) for River blindness, a dehabilitating disease that affects people who can't afford modern medicine. Despite Merck dumping about $290 million into developing the treatment, they give it away for free.

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