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HIV Vaccine Ready For Clinical Trials
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."
http://vrc.nih.gov/clintrials/clinstudies.htm These are ongoing safety trials at the National Institutes of Health.
This isn't a cowpox vaccine -- it does not contain any living or dead viral material. Read the article, please. You won't get HIV or AIDS from a synthetic protein.
How about we begin by naming a effective vaccine that was killed by the drug companies? How about in reporting on an AIDS we link to something more persuasive than a blog? National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Ongoing HIV vaccine trials
I have a subscription:
http://pastebin.com/f406eb7f9
Being gay doesn't increase your chances of AIDS... And there are still other STDs, so your out of luck for bringing back the "glory days"...
According to Wikipedia, there are 17 candidates in phase I trials, four in phase I/II, and one in phase III.
That same article mentions that there is a great degree of diversity in HIV, meaning one HIV vaccine won't protect against all strains.
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As someone who has actually worked on an HIV vaccine (a plasmid-based DNA vaccine), I have to caution that the field is a graveyard of failed attempts, ranging from traditional vaccine methods a century old, to exotic cutting-edge variants. There is considerable skepticism that an HIV vaccine (even given a very elastic definition of "vaccine") is even possible, in part based on the apparently complete absence of any "natural" sterilizing immunity. At best, there exists a small population of non-progressors who are able to hold the virus at stalemate due to genetic variations in certain receptors, a mechanism that seems unhelpful as far as vaccines goes (although relevant to drugs, specifically entry-inhibitors).
While VLPs (virus-like particles) are certainly a promising vaccine technology (the cervical cancer vaccine that's been in the news recently is VLP-based), I really am pessimistic that it is the solution to the substantial problems that any working HIV vaccine would have to overcome. At this point, I don't think anything will work short of somehow granting a patient's immune system innate resistance to HIV through some kind of gene therapy approach (there actually are people working on this sort of approach, but gene therapy as a whole has a long way to go).
The page itself is pretty obviously not a high traffic news site; i almost mistook it for a genric squatter site. This is all goooogle turned up http://www.citeulike.org/article/1423027 (that's not a squatter page either). The link from TFA is pretty legit, http://www.springerlink.com/content/h0u280742k2530 6p/. Clearly a paper was written in some obscure Russian science journal and reprinted in english, and then this article surfaces out of the blue about said paper. There wouldn't be any quotes because the only source is the paper itself. Since the paper itself costs money to look at, and I don't know anything about the source journal, or how thorough its peer reviews are (not could I find anything out except from that one link from TFA), it's at least within the realm of possibility that the paper is exaggerated or even totally bogus. But jeez, look at all those names.
"Civilization is all about beating the environment into forms that suit us better." - John Carmack
Mumble mumble making a vaccine for a polymorphic virus mumble - wish I hadn't bought that company's stock...
The technique for the prevention of AIDs is already well known and well proven. It's got a 100% effective prevention rate.
... so what? Should we tell heart attack victims, "Tough shit, pal, you shouldn't have eaten so much McDonald's"? Should we tell people not to drive since that will be (almost) 100% effective in preventing death by motor vehicle accident?
It's called abstinence.
This is not true; does the name Kimberly Bergalis ring a bell?
It is also true, of course, that the majority of infections are directly traceable to either sexual activity or IV drug use. Leaving aside the fact that a lot of people may be infected by partners to whom they're faithful and who they simply don't know are engaging in risky activity on the side
Or maybe we should accept the fact that people will eat crappy food and drink and smoke and not exercise, they will drive cars and climb mountains and walk through bad neighborhoods, and they will have sex whether anyone approves of it or not. And then deal with the results on that basis.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
i really hate that bullshit fucking myth. i don't know who started it, but their a stupid douche bag.
are you seriously suggesting drug companys are going to run out of sick people, or illnesses to treat? To prove my point, i will use the example of small pox. small pox is a lethal infection that has been wiped out in the world population through vaccinations. by your logic, drug companys would not have manufactured the vaccine to protect their profit margins.
in other words, if we wipe out HIV, there's still 1000's of incurable illnesses for them to work on not to mention new ones that will popup.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
"Claims made about the effectiveness of colloidal silver products for numerous diseases are unsupported scientifically."
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/alerts/silver/index.ht m
The fact that HIV results in full blown AIDS has been known for 20+ years. it's a testable fact.
I infact whole heartedly invite you and any other pricks proclaiming that treating HIV is a waste of time to take a trip to africa and fuck a few hookers and see if colloidal silver treatments go well.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I can't speak about the specifics of this vaccine, but one of my initial concerns would be that it would destroy the usefulness of the antibody-based HIV test--the one that is most commonly used to screen for HIV.
This has been one of the controversies with tuberculosis for quite awhile (where antibody-based tests are also the most efficient), where being vaccinated with a partially effective vaccine you essentially destroy the ability to easily see if you are infected or not (I believe more sensitive tests, like PCR-based tests, are required).
If this is going to be another TB vaccine, you can leave me out. I'd rather know easily if I had HIV.
That is false. I think that you mean that the first cases detected were with gay's. The first cases were shown to come from Africa and traveled around via hetro sexuals. It was seen first in the gays, because of the liberal attitudes in bath houses of the 70's and our attitudes of gays back then (most were married).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I recall an article recently that showed that nearly 80% of the "junk" DNA is actually involved in feedback loops controlling the activation of other DNA and such. There's probably very little junk, we just don't see what everything does yet.
Not a sentence!
Just a question, what do you think AIDS means? AIDS is not plural of AID, and thus calling it AIDs is wrong. AIDS expands to Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome, so either capitalize every letter or capitalize nothing.
- Mutation.
- Survival of the fittest.
Mutation can be caused by a number of processes, including transcription errors in mitosis, radiation, retroviral infection, etc. After mutation you have a member of a species with slightly different abilities to the others. If this difference confers a survival advantage (or, more accurately, a mating advantage), then it will be passed on a lot, and result in the majority of the species possessing the advantage.I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Then they'll have their own native factories churn out a generic at dirt cheap prices while paying the patent holder a fraction of the original asking price.
This is 100% legal under international laws/treaties.
Clinton was the one who signed TRIPS into law.
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/tripf
Brazil, South Africa, India and Thailand are all countries that have relatively recently done this... much to the USA's dissappointment.
Brazil is the 12th largest economy, but they insisted on a 60% price cut from Merck for an HIV drug (to match the price given to Thailand). Merck offered a 30% discount and Brazil forced a compulsory license the same week.
Developing countries will never become 'first world' if commercial exploitation drains them dry.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
AIDS is a condition defined by a T cell count below 200 or a CD4 perentage of 14% or less. AIDS is not a different condition, its just the name they call the state the immune system gets in after getting depleted by HIV. In fact "AIDS" isn't tied to HIV necessarily, it is possible to be considered as having "AIDS" without having HIV. Some people who fall under the category of "chornic fatigue syndrome" fit this. So the question you really are asking is: Can a treatment that gets rid of HIV reverse the immune system damage caused by chronic HIV infection. Then you want to ask, at that point can one realistically treat all of the other chronic infections the person picked up which having HIV (EBV, HHV6, CMV, toxoplasmosis, etc...) to get a person back to health.
Apparently vows do break much more often than condoms.