Slashdot Mirror
AIDS Vaccine Is Partially Successful
ifchairscouldtalk writes "A Phase III 'RV 144' study in Thailand succeeded in reducing HIV infection rate in trial with 31.2% effectiveness. The study was conducted by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and used strains of HIV common in Thailand. It is not clear whether the vaccine, which combines AIDSVAX with Aventis Pasteur ALVAC-HIV canarypox vector, known as 'vCP1521,' would work against other strains in the United States, Africa or elsewhere. Strangely, the vaccine had no effect on levels of HIV in the blood of those who did become infected, providing 'one of the most important and intriguing findings' of the trial, according to Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial's sponsors."
If you managed to accidentally partition 16,402 people such that one group was exposed 31.2% less than the other, I think you could count yourself as "fairly unlucky".
As I understand it (not very well since HIV transmission is not a topic that interests me much) it would be the combination of microtears and ejaculating inside the anus that produces the increased risk of transmission. If that is correct (it may not be) then it is receiving anal sex from an infected male partner that carries high risk, regardless of the gender of the receiver. However, only a male who gets infected can then infect someone the same manner as the woman will not be ejaculating in another partners anus. Under those assumptions homosexual anal sex will indeed be riskier, that is it will spread the disease through a population faster and more easily, than heterosexual sex. If giving anal sex to an infected parter carries the same risk as receiving then that would not be so.
That is no more bigotry than it is to say that heterosexual sex carries a higher risk of pregnancy.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/