Slashdot Mirror
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."
With the price of a year's treatment for AIDS in America approaching or exceeding $100k, I wonder how long it will be before this vaccine is 1. killed, 2. publicly smeared by pharmacos NOT producing it, or 3. price jacked to infinity. I hope it's none of the above, but....
http://xkcd.com/386/
People are just making crass jokes and whining rather than actually recognising that this is a great step in the right direction for finding a cure/prevention for AIDs. I hope that all the cynicism about drug companies ensuring it never gets out is unfounded...
which is totally what she said
What virus? if what the article says is correct (and im understanding it properly), the vaccine is a "virus-like particle" which has the major HIV protein markers and coatings, that are common across all strains of HIV (but lacks any actual RNA to inject into cells). The marker's will hopefully trigger the immune system to build resistance. Now that thats out of the way, this sounds kinda fishy. It's one thing to come up with a vaccine, but it also claims to be a cure for HIV infections that have already taken place. As much as I wish that was true, it seems so improbable that the first 'cure' for a viral infection that we ever develope is not only vaccine, but also against what is possibly the deadliest virus lying around.
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!
My other sig is funny.
Tell that crap to a medical worker who got aids from an accidental needle prick or the woman who got it from her husband. Sanctimonious SOB.
Ya but only a small number of people in the U.S. need the treatment. Everyone is gonna need to get vaccinated though.
\.
Peer Review? It preliminary research was published in a peer reviewed journal. I found it in PubMed and gave it a read. I didn't understand much though, but on first glance it looks legit...as far as it goes. I mean, the results are promising but preliminary.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
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.
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
Being gay might not increase your chances of getting HIV (-> AIDS), but having gay sex might. The reasons are:
- 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.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Tell that crap to a medical worker who got aids from an accidental needle prick ...
Or, indeed, to someone who got AIDS from having some fun and sleeping around. WTF is wrong with that?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
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.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
Indeed. This strikes incredibly close to home, actually. My mother is currently a nurse. Once while drawing blood from a lady, the lady went psycho and blood ended up spraying into my mother's eye. Why were they drawing blood? She had common symptoms of AIDs. Those next few days were hell for the entire family (First, the lady refused to give blood again for testing, and second the labs still process it at the normal rate, despite the fact it happened on the job), thankfully it turned out said crazy lazy did NOT have AIDs or HIV. Could you fairly have cursed a faithful wife and mother to AIDs through such a silly claim? Furthermore, what's wrong with sleeping around, anyway? I shouldn't just have to defend it with my own mother...
There is a difference. A lot of people see sleeping around as a bad thing that a person is doing deliberately: an immoral act of will. Very few people see an accidental needle prick, or a bad blood transfusion, or being born to someone HIV positive, as a bad thing that a person is doing deliberately.
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?
but there's everything wrong with doing so irresponsibly. HIV isn't the only STD out there, after all.
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.
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.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
"It would still apply even if the company in question was run by a total sociopath."
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.
... "unprotected sex". Yea. And rape. And being born to a mother with AIDS. Stupid kid. Shoulda been born in Sweden, not sub-Saharan Africa, which has 72% of the world's AIDs/HIV cases (HIV & AIDS Africa). It's hard for the light of compassion to shine through the cloak of prejudice.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
There's some good arguments to support your claim - yet I doubt it.
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.
Who is John Cabal?