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HIV Vaccine Approval For Human Trials
An anonymous reader writes with news that researchers from the University of Western Ontario have been given approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin testing an HIV vaccine in humans. From the article:
"The vaccine is the first based on a genetically modified killed whole virus, [researchers said.] ... a clinical trial on 40 HIV-positive volunteers will begin next month. That phase will last a year, after which 600 HIV-negative volunteers will see how the vaccine impacts their immune systems. A final phase, which will take about three years, will involve about 6,000 HIV-negative volunteers."
I hope this vaccine is as effective as the smallpox and polio vaccines have been. The world would do well to be rid of this particularly crafty and deadly virus. It is also a whole lot easier to introduce vaccination programs into third world countries (which counts as medicinal treatment) which would otherwise have severe religious problems with contraceptives like condoms (which counts as interfering with "God's work").
- Toast
to get someone to let you inject them with an experimental vaccine for a deadly virus? Is there a clause in the contract for a lifetime supply of AZT should the vaccine's quality control be lacking and the test subject contracts HIV? I've always been curious how this stage of research is handled.
I agree, now people can go back to having sex with monkeys!
You can even have another Toronto paper if you like.
I would.
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
Good to hear that this is going forward. Hopefully, this will lead to a brighter future for Africa.
I worry about the health of the participants, but, HIV isn't a death sentence anymore. I would volunteer for the trial, assuming that, in the worst case, they cover my medical expenses and anti-retrovirals to control it.
It would be worth it.
Let's hope this line of research dampens the damage being done by the pro-circumcision lobby's dubious attempt to present circumcision as a viable tool for preventing HIV.
This isn't just positive news, its HIV positive.
Go volunteer.
Why does a Canadian University need approval from the U.S. FDA?
WALSTIB!
Could more people be saved overall by considering testing volunteers semi-expendable in order to hasten medical advance?
Ask the volunteers.
Then Godspeed to you, sir. You are a much better man than I.
The best guess for transmission from simians to humans was not via sex, but by eating of undercooked monkey meat. (perhaps even raw). Near as I can tell, those perpetuating the sex with monkeys jokes are racists wanting to malign Africans with beastiality claims.
Learn to love Alaska
There's some progress on that, though still probably some years out from having something available.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Why, are you volunteering to be expended?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Pretty sure this means that they know it works but want to see if it fucks anything else up?
Well..., only if it fucks it up really bad. When "...common side effects may include: itching, rash, diarrhea, constipation, shortness of breath, nausea, inability to urinate, hair falling out, unusual hair growth, erections lasting longer than four hours, seizure, coma, or death...", it's a pretty safe bet that something that might keep you from getting AIDS will get even more slack that most of the miracle-cure-of-the-month medications whose manufacturers buy so much time on NASCAR broadcasts and Oprah. Well, unless the fuckwit social conservatives manage to derail it because it might lead to "...an increase in sexual activity..."
Here's hoping that the trials go well and this ounce of prevention gets the fast track.
When "...common side effects may include: itching, rash, diarrhea, constipation, shortness of breath, nausea, inability to urinate, hair falling out, unusual hair growth, erections lasting longer than four hours, seizure, coma, or death..."
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
Yeah, I was making light of this fallacy.
I guess the joke was "too soon".
Yeah how dumb is it to make sure this works before selling it. Totally illogical.
Or they're just making dumb jokes and you have chosen to project wholly invented motivations onto people you know nothing about. One of the two.
When "...common side effects may include: itching, rash, diarrhea, constipation, shortness of breath, nausea, inability to urinate, hair falling out, unusual hair growth, erections lasting longer than four hours, seizure, coma, or death..."
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
GET IN LINE.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I'm confused, you deny that HIV exists, and that you think sex causes disease, and condoms don't prevent this sexually transmitted disease? I'm curious that you assert there is AIDS (even if only non-HIV AIDS) and that sexually transmitted disease can't be stopped with condoms. What mechanism of transmission is there for non-HIV-AIDS? Is it just that if you have "bad sex" that God strikes you down with a non-existent incurable disease?
If so, that would be a pretty strong case for proving God, so I'm surprised more people haven't latched on to the "God kills people for sex, and I have proof" bandwagon.
Learn to love Alaska
delivers the goods.
Seeing aids go from you are going to die, to testing a vaccine in 25 years is freaknig awesome.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Who the hell dies in four yeas after getting aids? wait, that would be no one.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe if we discover that herpes is the cause of most cancers, instead of just a handful, it will receive some attention. If an incurable disease isn't killing people, it's not as much of a concern.
Back in college I would frequently get paid to be a test subject for medical research (to test for, say, metabolizing rates of a blood pressure medicine, etc); it was a fantastic way to help pay for school, and my grandmother was proud to tell everyone that I was "helping out the medical research community". The WORST was a concurrent heroin trial, where all the subjects were easily identified as "those guys puking in the toilets all day long"...and yes they were compensated. That being said, I cannot imagine how much they'd have to pay me to examine my body's reaction to an HIV vaccine....!
You know not all cancers are the same? and saying 'cure for cancer' is ignorant, right?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How do vaccines manage to have so many side effects if they are made from killed viruses? And what does it mean to kill a virus?
1. If it's proven safe for 2 year olds and prevents them from acquiring HIV infection, why the hell not?
2. There are a whole lot of other ways to get infected besides sex.
3. Personal freedom without consequence to other people is a lie that unscrupulous politicians and for-profit demagogues tell to get what they want from the credulous.
(3b. Social engineering without consequence to personal freedom is also a lie that a different set of unscrupulous politicians and for-profit demagogues tell to get what they want from the credulous.)
WALSTIB!
"this ahs better be good."
don't be a dumbass. It is what it is. If it doesn't work, then that's data as well. Learn why we have this process before showing everyone how stupid you are.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Somebody linked to the trolley car problem yesterday.
I think skipping one and two would count as the trolley car with the fat man on a bridge (which most people agree is wrong).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Oh, you been to El Taco Loco on Augusta Blvd, too? IMHO, their goat's brain tacos are the best in town.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Could more people be saved overall by considering testing volunteers semi-expendable in order to hasten medical advance?
The ends never justify the means. Never. Note that if they could, any action, no matter how heinous, could be justified. So they don't. Which is why such experiments ought to never be considered ethical.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Yes, mandatory vaccination is violation of individual liberty. But just imagine the benefits of completely eradicating HIV. For one, no one will have to be vaccinated against it ever again.
No, it's been more than 22.3 years. AIDS is finally funny.
The good news....You didn't contract HIV.
The bad news....you did contract syphillis and gonorrhea.
Quit your whining. Four years isn't a long time for phase 2 and 3 testing. Do you really want to mass inoculate people before you know it's safe?
No, it is NOT technically possible.
Stop spreading your ignorance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Likely for something like this, the manufacture of the vaccine is the real bottleneck. They could produce now and won't break any laws or rules, they just can't sell/use it (in the US). So, if they start full-scale production now, they likely would still sell out on day 1 of sale 9 years from now. Would people get infected between now and then? Likely. But the long term effect wouldn't be much different, as the number of distributed dosed 9 years from now would be the same in either case. And, given how most things are distributed, those with "high risk" careers would be first, and those "at risk" more than them will be ignored for a few years (vaccinations for firefighters and nurses, not for druggies and gays).
Learn to love Alaska
So in the clinical trials, do some of the volunteers NOT get the actual vaccine? It seems like you have to validate its effectiveness against something... but giving people a placebo instead of an actual vaccine against a life-threatening disease seems sort of dodgy...
You know not all cancers are the same? and saying 'cure for cancer' is ignorant, right?
Then why is there a "Cure for Cancer" wonder in Civilization, eh? Answer that smart guy.
"Well, none of them got HIV, if that's what you're asking."
"The ends never justify the means" is just a cliche excuse people use to escape having to make the hard decisions.
Anything that happens to you during a trial gets noted as a possible side-effect.
Note that diarrhea and constipation are noted right next to each other, for instance. Ditto for hair loss and increased hairiness.
It is highly likely most of those are completely unrelated to the vaccine, and that you’ll experience no such effects, but at this point, it’s really hard to tell. It pays to be cautious, or even paranoid, when conducting trials.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Or 3 years, if you bypass the FDA.
If human trials look good. Field test in Africa. Some regions have a 1 in 3 infection rate. Almost any reduction, even with side affects, would probably be beneficial in that region.
In fact, I think if approved. I'd like to see a President/Congress with the balls to purchase and donate a few million doses for Africa.
Now we can go back to eating raw monkey meat like god intended. Just don't forget that dipping sauce!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Besides, how do you think the monkeys feel?
I'll bet they aren't thrilled either.
No brain, no pain.
Killed whole virus means whole virus if mistakes are made. I had a co-worker who spent several weeks in the hospital several decades ago that got shot with a still "hot" vaccine. Oops.
Attitudes like yours are the reason it took so long for us to get around to curing this disease in the first place.
Are you sure that it doesn't have more to do with the fact that it is incredibly difficult?
As the Anonymous Coward helpfully pointed out, I was confusing live vaccines with dead ones.
No more so than making assault illegal is a violation of your personal right to punch someone. Personal liberties stop where they infringe on the rights of others. Plus, noone is being held down at needle point, just being denied privileges that they can be replaced with private sources. When an individual forgoes a vaccine, they're increasing the chance that you and I will encounter and be infected with the disease (since vaccines aren't 100% effective and since prevention is a combination of reducing exposure and boosting immunity).
So do you think Big Condom is behind the lie?
"Making the hard decisions" is just a cliche excuse people use to justify doing the unthinkable.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
1. Define proven safe for 2 year olds. Cough medicine was proven safe for 2 year olds. It wasn't until one mother refused to accept a diagnosis of SIDS that it was discovered that some children had not developed the ability to metabolise certain compounds.
In other words, we often know what is safe for most 2 year olds, but not all.
2. Yes, blood transfusions, and toddler drug parties. Just to name a few.
3. We're not asking for personal freedom without consequence. We're just asking that our toddlers be allowed to attend pre-school without being required to have STD vaccines.
There is a significant difference between a highly infections disease like TB or the Measles, versus a disease with very very limited transferrence.
For example, HepB, basically falls into two main infection categories. Older kids who may have begun being sexually active or IV drug users OR infants born to infected mothers.
Outside of that, infection rate is pretty much non-existent. Nor likely to be spread to other children. So negating a child's ability to attent pre-school over an STD vaccine seems to be consequence without personal freedom.
PS - I am not opposed to vaccinations. I believe them useful. But I do think that sometimes our policies and implementations leave a lot to be desired. We will give children 2-5 vaccines in a single Dr. visit. That's a lot of the worst diseases we know all at once, for a little undeveloped toddler immune system to cope with.
My children have received most all of their vaccines, we've just taken the time to spread them out with 1-2 vaccines every couple of months.
Social conservatives and social liberals engage in sexual activity all over the world. The only difference is with whom or which group of people and how socially open you are about this topic. I think the real problem is having unprotected sex with a partner you know little or nothing about. You're free to do as you wish with whomever shares your desire. While HIV is the numero uno STD to watch out for, there are just as many other STDs out there can can ruin a happy and health life. So while social conservatives are annoyingly in-your-face about sexuality, the over all message is to be careful regarding your mind, body, and soul (if you believe). Perhaps the problem isn't so much with conservative philosophy as in how it's being delivered in a manor that rubs people the wrong way. Either way, you only have yourself to watch out for. Don't pay attention to others if you get all hot and bothered about it.
Life is not for the lazy.
except that was a cure for cancer, not HIV. but close enough, yeah...
Umm, what? That's the justification for literally everything that humans do. Every action is a tradeoff for an expected return. "Should I expend energy to eat food? No, dammit, Baloroth said the ends never justify the means!"
Fine, give the vaccinations. Maybe at 10 years of age. But requiring toddlers to have STD vaccines is kind of pushing it.
Currently, Hep B and now in some regions the HPV vaccines are mandated.
My argument is taking away the opportunity to educate your child is not a fair or morally justified policy. Not for non-infectious diseases.
***
"But just imagine the disadvantage of completely unknown long-term vaccine affect applied to the entire human race."
Imagine if 15 years later we discover every adult who receives the vaccine is fine. But every child has become sterile. Sucks to be the human race.
My point is not that this isn't a great thing. I think it is. And hopefully, we're not greedy bastards who make it way over-priced and prevent it from reaching those in Africa.
My point is this mandatory requirement, that says if you do not give you child a vaccine for a non-infectious disease, then your child cannot be educated.
We're not just talking public schools. But even private schools.
Our daughter has every vaccine but Hep B. Because we had not given her Hep B vaccinations, she was refused entry into a private pre-school. I can understand about measles, mumps and other highly communicable diseases. But I'm not too worried about STDs with 2 year olds.
No, it's been more than 22.3 years. AIDS is finally funny.
Are you positive its finally funny? Are you HIV positive its funny?
(note I'm not saying all means are justified by the ends, or even that all means to a good end are justified. But saying the ends never justify the means seems to me to be just as inaccurate as saying they always do.)
Right, and that's why I accept mandatory vaccines for highly communicable diseases. If my child didn't have her measles vaccines she could pass it on to other children.
The same is not true for diseases that are not highly communicable such as STDs.
"Plus, noone is being held down at needle point, just being denied privileges that they can be replaced with private sources."
No Sir, this is where I get f***** g*d d**n annoyed. Everyone retorts this....but it gets applied to private schools. Which are pressured by the states to adhere to the state policies. And many of which, believe they have to adhere to the policies.
So NO, we don't have a private friggin alternative to turn to. Thanks to my daughter not getting her HebP vaccine (only one she doesn't have) she was denied entry into a private pre-school because of State law.
If I had a private alternative, I wouldn't speak up over it. So let's reverse this whole paradigm.
My child not receiving the HepB vaccine will in no way harm your child. (Unless they're having toddler sex.) But your policy of needlessly protecting your child is hurting my child's well-being.
Yes, if one decides they don't want a vaccine, the only option is to stay home and home-school. Can't even go to a private school. :-(
Fine, give the vaccinations. Maybe at 10 years of age. But requiring toddlers to have STD vaccines is kind of pushing it.
It all depends on how long it takes the vaccine to produce the best immune response.
The whole stupid issue with the "Mandating HPV vaccine for 11 year olds" is because it takes years for the immune system to fully gear up against HPV after the vaccine, just in time for 15 or 16 year olds who are become sexually active.
And I encourage you to tell some poor 8 year old who was infected via blood transfusion that it was better that he didn't get the vaccine as a 2 year old...
With the first link, the chain is forged.
You can take that statement literally in that manner. But that isn't what it means nor what has ever been meant by it. What it means is that you can never do an action which is evil in and of itself, even for a good end. So the deliberate killing of an innocent is never justified. However, killing in self-defense can be (because the action is self-defense, not the killing itself. But that is a rather complex argument). In any case, my point was you can never perform reckless trials on humans no matter how great the potential reward. The details of what does and does not constitute "reckless" are of course open for debate. Treating humans as semi-expendable would count. Note that you could conduct the trials on yourself (or, possibly, if the volunteers did so knowing full well the risk.) However, the FDA would never approve such trials unless the danger was extremely great, due to the risk of volunteers being coerced through whatever means (among other things).
I was trying to be pithy, the issues of ethics are a little difficult to discuss on the Internet like this.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Imagine if 15 years later we discover every adult who receives the vaccine is fine. But every child has become sterile. Sucks to be the human race.
Imagine if 15 years later we discover every adult who receives the vaccine is fine. But every child has gained super-human intelligence. Awesome to be the human race.
I can play the "let's make shit up" game, too!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
The means themselves do. If the means are ethical, then they can be used. If they are not, they cannot. Simple as that. The argument for this is nearly as simple as saying we cannot know the future, so it becomes impossible to say definitely that the end will result. In this case, we do not know that this vaccine will cure HIV, so we could not use unethical means. It is a bit more complex than that, of course, but I'm trying to not get embroiled in a major argument on Slashdot (again).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
IMO it pays the lawyers, who put everything but curing you as a bad side effect. "Hey we warned ya it would fall off, see, turn the page over."
I think in relation to viruses, the better term is to "disable" a virus rather than to "kill" it since it is not all clear that a virus is actually a living thing. This is a point that seems still to be in discussion.
You presume too much about me with your statements.
I know about the trials and tribulations of the communities when HIV was found out and pointed out as being "god's punishment" by those whom are uncaring and hateful.
But such hate and ignorance doesnt mean I cant joke about the hate or ignorance.
If anything, it points out our history... much like blackface, hooded cloaks, and hitler of which you see many jokes making fun of these topics.
1. Define proven safe for 2 year olds. Cough medicine was proven safe for 2 year olds. It wasn't until one mother refused to accept a diagnosis of SIDS that it was discovered that some children had not developed the ability to metabolise certain compounds.
In other words, we often know what is safe for most 2 year olds, but not all.
Point taken, but sometimes we have to go with what we know and change it when we learn more. Actually, that applies pretty much all the time. With that said, I'm not opposed to a prudent level of caution. Just opposed to failing to take action because somebody is afraid without evidence to back it up - which happens a lot. A compromise between acting on imperfect knowledge and analysis paralysis has to happen.
2. Yes, blood transfusions, and toddler drug parties. Just to name a few.
Just making sure - the "kids can't get HIV, they don't have sex" argument is common among people who don't realize there are other vectors. Having raised three children, I feel confident in stating that they will find ways to bleed on each other that adults never imagined.
3. We're not asking for personal freedom without consequence. We're just asking that our toddlers be allowed to attend pre-school without being required to have STD vaccines.
See above. HIV is NOT only a STD.
To elaborate and clarify, I am not suggesting that if the vaccine proves effective, we must immediately begin inoculating 2 year olds. However, eradicating the virus may be best achieved by mass vaccination at an early age, much as was done with other devastating diseases. I myself carry a small scar from my smallpox vaccination, which my children did not have to have, thanks to mass vaccination. Whether that's the course to follow for HIV I will leave to far more knowledgeable folks. I just won't complain if that's the course they pick.
All in all, you seem like a prudent parent. I just think it's a good idea to follow the advice of the experts in most cases. It's usually the safest bet. Never 100% safe, but life doesn't give us many 100% sure things.
And to bring this back to reality, I haven't heard anyone, anywhere suggesting mass vaccinating toddlers with HIV vaccines. IF the vaccine is effective, and IF it will give my (not so distant) future grandchildren a life free from even the outside chance of contracting that nasty virus, I would be first in line to take them to the doc for the shot.
WALSTIB!
There is always an element of risk with any vaccine. Needle contamination, bad nurse sticking the wrong spot, bad manufacturing batch, etc. (Thought there may or may not be some potential issues with HepB.)
The point is, where there is a legitimate risk of concern, it makes sense to me to give my daughter a vaccine.
When there is essentially zero risk cases for a toddler age 2-10 to contract the disease. It doesn't make sense to me to subject her to the procedure.
I am actually a skeptic of vaccine dangers. My wife who is a nurse was rather laughable at those silly to fear them. That was until she began researching them a bit more. Apparently, there's been a lot of question into the practices the FDA uses to determine deaths related to vaccines.
Individuals who have lost infants within 24-48 hours of subjecting them to vaccinations find their children are not counted in the statistics. Dismissed as SIDS (unknown diagnosis).
Also, while it is easy to determine effect and safety over a large group of children, it is very hard to make that determination individually and universally.
All the tests had shown children's cough medicine to be safe. ALL tests made this conclusion. To say otherwise was considered near lunacy.
However, the death of one child whose mother refused to accept a diagnosis of SIDS brought forth an unusual discovery - the child had toxic levels of one of the cough medicine chemicals resulting in a drug overdose. That almost got the mom arrested for drug overdose of her child. Until a further review of the toxicology report revealed that only one chemical was at overdose levels all the others were not.
That's when the doctors realized that the child's body had failed to metabolize one of the chemicals. They realized there was no neglect or overdose, rather an previously unknown risk had manifested. Had that one mom not persisted, her child would have just been one of many SIDS cases.
Hundreds of thousands of kids had taken cough medicine without harm. But will we ever know how many SIDS cases were tied to cough medicine? I don't think so.
Likewise, with vaccines, it is hard to know for sure that a death was in response to a vaccine. But I'd wager that anytime a young undeveloped immune system is forced to cope with a reaction to a virus or vaccine, that it takes a tremendous toll.
As a parent, I've watched the misery of my kids for that 1-2 day period after vaccinations. They're miserable, sore, cranky and in discomfort. So clearly there is a physical toll on their body. I am all for taking necessary risks. Just don't see why I should take unnecessary risks.
When my daughter is 10, with a much more developed immune system, I'd be much more likely to consider such STD related vaccines as HepB, HPV, and HIV.
An action (means), to be justified, would seem to need to be beneficial... but what makes it beneficial is the results (the ends).
Priapism is usually painful, and often ends with either someone drawing off the blood with a needle or necrosis of the penis. But, hey, if you're into that kind of thing, I'm not here to judge.
You might want to do some extra research. I don't know what state you live in, but here in California, it is common for schools to tell parents that they cannot enroll their children in school if they are not vaccinated. Some are lying. Some just believe a lie told to them by someone else. You do have to sign a waiver stating that you understand you did not vaccinate your child, but it is not required, and they cannot legally deny you access to the public schools over vaccination. I would assume that private schools can, but I don't know.
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
I hear they are taking applications for the best human guinea pig reality show ever.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Are you sure it wouldn't start in the middle east? Ex. Afghanistan
Have you ever watched a toddler after a vaccination. What a miserable creature they are. Trust me, the effects of one is pretty significant at times.
And many adults have been brought low by multiple diseases in combination. That's pretty well documented. In fact, that's EXACTLY how HIV kills.
SO how do they do the final testing of the vaccine?
They are starting human trials, but does that mean that eventually they are going to give this vaccine to someone and then inject them with HIV and see what happens?
How much money do you pay patients to be injected with a deadly virus that you "think" that you have a vaccine for now.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Why is Phase I testing the vaccine on people that are HIV positive? A vaccine is a preventative measure it is not a cure so it won't have any effect on people that already have HIV. So why test it on them? Anyone?
"Point taken, but sometimes we have to go with what we know and change it when we learn more."
I agree. It's why I think vaccines for highly communicable diseases are acceptable requirements. And when they mandated, I had few objections. But it's starting to become "every vaccine" is mandated policy.
Establish two categories of vaccines:
1. Required due to high level of communicable risk.
2. Recommended, not required until age 10 when risk is higher.
I'd be fine with such a rational policy as above.
"I haven't heard anyone, anywhere suggesting mass vaccinating toddlers with HIV vaccines."
Nor I, but such does exist regarding HepB & HPV. And in a discussion a few months ago, I saw the question arise. "What if there was an HIV vaccine." If it passes, I'll wager you a silver piece that the issue will come up.
If it is effective, than I am all for it, once my children are a little older. Not two. Not needlessly when they're immune system is still in development. I take that risk with most virus' because there is an immediate danger of both infection and spread. That immediate danger is not posed in these cases.
"Having raised three children, I feel confident in stating that they will find ways to bleed on each other that adults never imagined."
Correct me if I am wrong. But that has repeatedly, and repeatedly been expressed as not being a vector. Same is true of saliva. They have repeatedly told us that such poses little to no risk.
You are right, HIV, is not only an STD. Not sure any disease is only an STD. But it is a disease that requires bodily fluid exchange. Versus one that is exchanged via air or bodily contact. There is a significantly different riskset with those two vectors. One is a high risk vector, the other extremely low, so as to be non-statistically significant within certain demographics.
"All in all, you seem like a prudent parent. I just think it's a good idea to follow the advice of the experts in most cases. It's usually the safest bet. Never 100% safe, but life doesn't give us many 100% sure things."
I agree. And in most cases I do. (Blast it OREO.....they tell me not to eat you, but I can't STOPPPP!!!) ;-)
***
FYI, I wasn't as big on this issue until this year. We had registered my 4 year old daughter for pre-school. She was so excited. My wife really needed a break time from being home with the kids all day. It was a private pre-school.
My daughter's vaccinations were current, she had everything but the HepB. We decided we wanted to wait on that. First day of school comes, and they refuse to allow my daughter to attend. There is no real risk of contagion. My daughter returned home disappointed, and my wife in tears. All our plans were pretty much shot down. And it was too late to enroll in any other pre-schools.
My daughter lost out on education (at a private school mind you), because she didn't receive one vaccination that is for a disease that is not a highly communicable disease.
That's when I realized something is rather wrong with the system. We're not talking a public school, get our free education only if you abide by our rules. But a private institution. That leaves no option but home-schooling.
If this applies both to oral as well as genital herpes that'd be great. I get a cold sore in the same spot about twice a year and what a pain it is.
Excellent.
I have to deal with anti-vaccers on a pretty regular basis. It gets tiring.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the future you should probably be required to submit your post to the FDA to ensure it's safe for human consumption.
When "...common side effects may include: itching, rash, diarrhea, constipation, shortness of breath, nausea, inability to urinate, hair falling out, unusual hair growth, erections lasting longer than four hours, seizure, coma, or death..."
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
What are you going to do with it when you simultaneously have diarrhoea and constipation?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Understood. I'm 100% for this, just to ease your mind :-) I was just concerned that the trial might inadvertently affect someone, but since these are dead vaccines I'm all for this.
What are you going to do with it when you simultaneously have diarrhoea and constipation?
Try not to sneeze?
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
When you walk into the ER, the sign up desk is usually the first thing you see in front of you.
/Well, if you've had an erection for 4 hours, maybe the second thing you see.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd like to see a President/Congress with the balls to purchase and donate a few million doses for Africa.
The Gates Foundation seems a more likely candidate.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Virtually no one in the 1st world will go from contracting to dying of AIDS in four years.
Hell, most people in the 1st world who are HIV+ will die of something else before AIDS kills them.
Your point being? This is a vaccine, not a cure. It won't help anyone once they catch the disease.
Liberty in your lifetime
Mother's refusal to accept SIDS diagnosis leads to discovery of metabolic issue with regards to cough medicines
http://articles.cnn.com/2007-10-17/health/cough.syrup.deaths_1_cold-medicines-cough-medicines-child-deaths?_s=PM:HEALTH
Just a list of pulled meds...
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/EnforcementActivitiesbyFDA/SelectedEnforcementActionsonUnapprovedDrugs/ucm245106.htm
At one time X-rays were used with pregnancies the way we use ultrasounds. It was claimed to be totally safe. Until it was later determined that unborn infants suffered greater risks from X-rays, including higher cancer rates.
***
Also, excuse me if I am a tad suspect whenever millions of $$$ are involved in an industry. And a government that has repeatedly made mistakes and hid them.
That said, I still believe that generally vaccines are safe, and that they are beneficially for society. But should not be required unless highly communicable.
This is a vaccine, not a cure: Meaning if anyone catches the disease in the next four years, it won't help them when it finally does come to market.
Liberty in your lifetime
Hi, Straw Man. How are you today?
Who said anything about wanting mass vaccinations? Let those who want to buy it, buy it.
Liberty in your lifetime
So your point is what, that there's nothing wrong with this because the FDA inflicts years-long delays on bringing other life-saving drugs to market, too? Yeah, I'm so much happier now. At least their insane regulations are fair and aren't singling this drug out.
And say hello to the other straw man right above your comment. Who said I supported compulsory inoculation?
Liberty in your lifetime
If things like SOPA or "network neutrality" make it into law, your comment probably won't be a mere joke in a few years.
Liberty in your lifetime
And, strangely enough, the experts seem to disagree with you.
Viruses mutate, and quickly, in people with active infections. Vaccines may not be able to eliminate the virus, but if the infection isn't active, it isn't mutating. And mutated strains is what turns HIV into AIDS in people who are on modern treatments.
You're correct, however, there are two charts, the side effects experienced by the group receiving the medication, and the side effects of those receiving a placebo. What's relevant are the ones that differ significantly (positive or negative) in frequency between the groups. That's where you see both the benefits, and the potential side effects.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
"Doing the unthinkable" is just a cliche excuse people use to explain New Jersey
Also Chiropractic. Don't forget Chiropractic.
weinersmith
If phase 1 goes well I'd be extremely surprised if this didn't go fast track. There's a chance that the FDA would even approve a hybrid 2/3. Of course, while fast tracks do usually go to life threatening diseases without other treatment options, the potential population size here might make the FDA a little cautious. When you've got a vaccine that everyone in the world should probably receive, and it's the only thing which will save two generations on a whole continent - they might just opt for a little caution. Also, the whole-virus vaccine may not be completely effective on every variant of HIV.
Also note: "Sumagen Canada has secured patents to the vaccine in more than 70 countries." Which could translate as: "Sumagen Canada is going to get very very rich off of first tier economies, and if they're feeling really nice - they might just exchange the vaccine for the title deed to Sub-Saharan Africa (it's the only way they could pay for it)."
Yeah, what do these people who are doing the unthinkable think they're doing?
I'm a scientist in mind, if not in profession, but really... come on and put some effort into it.
I click the link.
I see the hyperbole in the first few paragraphs. Start to ignore the rhetoric and go for the linked "facts". Hit a site, linked to prominently under the heading "Informative Websites" (alongside other prominent links such as "Mind Control 101", "State Use of Schizophrenia", "Human Race Being Nonconsensually Brain-Linked", "US Army Intelligence Officer: Gang Stalking Phenomenon is Precursor to Coming Holocaust", etc.).
Whoop, whoop, amber alert, plough on.
Anyway, the link I click is centre-page, top of the fold, with the name "AIDS Controversy" (and they don't capitalise AIDS properly half the time) on the domain biblebelievers.org.au
Whoop, whoop, red alert, plough on anyway.
Read the first name on the list. Apparently a Nobel prize-winning biochemist is top of the list. Look him up on Wikipedia. Read the first two paragraphs about him which contain the following:
"Since winning the Nobel Prize, Mullis has been criticized in The New York Times for promoting ideas in areas in which he has no expertise. He has promoted AIDS denialism, climate change denial and his belief in astrology."
Right up until the last line I was prepared to give the guy a chance, at least, but I don't believe he's been misquoted at all based on the links there.
I tried to get further down the list but either the people listed were non-notable, outside their field of expertise (a mathematician... really?), misquoted, not discoverable via some quick searches or just plain loopy. There probably are a couple of sensible people in there but even being ASSOCIATED with those organisations, websites, etc. and not clearly stating their personal position somewhere I can find it is pretty damning evidence that they just don't care who quotes them or what they are associated with.
I terminated my investigation there. Please note that I've seen people claim man didn't walk on the Moon and their "evidence" got several stages further than this just by the presentation (but obviously fall down on facts later on).
If you want to quote random crap at me, at least make sure it's *feasible* random crap, not linked to complete timewasters, attention-seekers and tinfoil-hat-nutters. Any form of argument, whether religious, scientific or otherwise, needs to be able to stand alongside who it cites and quotes with pride, and to be taken seriously when doing so. Otherwise, we will just file it in the bit-bucket within literally SECONDS of checking facts.
Why, are you volunteering to be expended?
Seriously.... people aren't going to volunteer for such a thing out of the blue. Although, some homeless or poor people might be enticed to take on huge risks, in exchange for cash, shelter, or food for their family. The risks scientists can expose people to and be able to sleep at night still have to be quite limited.
This is why scientists need to figure out a way to make non-sentient clones that are highly genetically similar and highly physically similar to humans in structure, function, and appearance, based on mostly human DNA, so they could have models to experiment on that essentially are human bodies, but since the clones are non-sentient, either have no working brain or rather, have the intelligence equivalent to a dog brain, they can be experimented on readily without a living person taking on any risk.
Then it would make sense if they could give the vaccine to 1000 models; and see how many of their human models become infected, after vaccination, and after certain exposure to the real virus.....
So how much does everyone think this is going to cost? The largest group of people that have HIV/AIDS live in Africa and are very very poor. Who gets first dibs on this? Obviously the wealthy, but what can be done for the extremely poor?
I do love it when two contradictory posts, one in response to the other, are both correctly modded +5 (insightful|interesting).
It shows people are thinking, and that the famous "slashdot groupthink" is a myth.
Well done both parent & grand parent posters.
That's goats. Completely different.
The ends never justify the means. Never. Note that if they could, any action, no matter how heinous, could be justified. So they don't. Which is why such experiments ought to never be considered ethical.
Truly?? You care to qualify that statement?
What you have there is a false dilemma, mixed with a slippery slope argument. You claim "if the ends ever justified the means", the ends would always automatically justify any means. Ridiculous!
I think you have the concept of justification confused here. Things of adequate weight justify other things rationally.
Of course lots of people who did quantifiably heinous things, had what they called justifications for them that they believed, they were not compellingly of sound reason -- people who committed genocide had justifications, they just don't make any logical or moral sense.
Reductio ad absurdum: Apparently the US engagement in World War II was totally unjustifiable based on your reasoning. Even stopping the Nazi genocide campaign would not be an end justifying killing a smaller number of people.
The right thing to do(TM) would have been not to build an army, and to simply instead just wait and try negotiating and other non-violent resistance tactics to attempt to diffuse the situation; despite the lives lost by inaction -- the cost of action cannot be justified, if the ends can't justify it.
Then the only justifiable thing to do if someone declares war against you, is to surrender.
If a small army of 100 men arrives at your country's border, and announces they will fight your nation to the death unless you surrender, and show no resistance, so they can execute their plan they inform you of -- to kill every man, woman, and child, in your country of 100 million, then the only justifiable thing to do is to surrender to this army of 100. Because stopping them from killing 100 million of your country's people does not justify opening fire and risking the lives of this army of 100.
The only possible way to justify firing on this army of 100 is to achieve the end of preventing them from killing all 100 million of your country's people, like they will if not stopped by force.
"Making the hard decisions" is just a cliche excuse people use to justify doing the unthinkable.
If something is unthinkable, then clearly it has not been thought about adequately. How can you know if the means are justified by it, if you can't actually think about it?
Is it ethical to shoot a person who's holding a gun on a dozen hostages in a bank and has promised to shoot one in five minutes unless a vehicle and a pile of money are handed over? If the answers are not the same, what is causing the means (shooting a person) ethical (justified) in one case but not the other, if not the end goal?
In this case the means 'shooting a person' are not required to achieve the end... an alternative end is available: hand over a vehicle and a pile of money.
If you want to say the situation justifies shooting a person, then for the action to be justified.... avoiding the less-destructive alternative also has to be justified.
Mother's refusal to accept SIDS diagnosis leads to discovery of metabolic issue with regards to cough medicines
So WHAT?
Seriously, do you realize how retarded that argument is? It's akin to the lunatic perpetual-motion-machine peddlers who always fall back on the "they laughed at the Wright Brothers" retort.
When you have hundreds of thousands of mothers who are in denial over the death of their child, one of them is bound to be right eventually. It doesn't matter. It's completely irrelevant. We're not going to go around investigating the ravings of every irate female just because statistics tells us that one will eventually turn out to be correct. That kind of thinking is wasteful and dangerous, and it's embarrassing to see it being pushed by supposed adults.
Because you say so?
"So NO, we don't have a private friggin alternative to turn to. Thanks to my daughter not getting her HebP vaccine (only one she doesn't have) she was denied entry into a private pre-school because of State law."
Yeah, because pre-schoolers NEVER bleed. Okay, in US padded-wall schools maybe they don't, but hepatitis B can be transmitted by saliva too.
But hey, if there's a demand for schools that admit students who haven't had their shots, shouldn't some enterprising individual come along and start one? Isn't that how your vaunted private system is supposed to work? Anyway, you DO have an alternative. You mentioned it: home schooling. It seems very popular with parents who deny their kids vaccinations.
That said, I still believe that generally vaccines are safe, and that they are beneficially for society. But should not be required unless highly communicable.
When you say "only if highly communicable"; I think you are not looking at the big picture. And what about highly dangerous diseases that could become highly communicable through a small mutation? Viruses that are extremely dangerous and take lives.
Wouldn't it be better for the public good to have a world population highly resistant against these, so there are as few copies of these bugs floating around as possible, and therefore fewer deaths?
HIV falls under that category -- a virus that mutates with high frequency. Has types that can cross species. Has subtypes that can attack different cells. With a few mutations, the very real possibility exists of it adapting new transmission methods, such as airborn like flu.
It has not so far, but the possibility should not be discounted, could happen at any time, could already have happened. HIV with the high amount of it in the world (similar to flu), could be an airborn virus just as communicable as flu, on no time splat. By the time the news was out, it would be way too late to start working on production of enough vaccines to abate the inevitable carnage; and getting the vaccines compulsorily administered after that is such a slow thing that many lives would be lost due to the lack of foresight.
If much of the population is immunized against HIV, it may not thrive under the new transmission (and kill off the human population); the airborn variant might never take hold if the increased resistance caused by immunization to HIV results in failure to infect.
It is in the public interest to eliminate or reduce the amount of virus in the world before that could happen, through compulsory immunization, and having most of the population resistant, so HIV doesn't thrive anywhere, therefore can't mutate. It's unimportant that this doesn't help the 2 year old while they are a 2 year old; it helps the public health, because they will be resistant later in life, and the rate an abated virus can mutate is lower, with much fewer candidate hosts.
In this case the means 'shooting a person' are not required to achieve the end... an alternative end is available: hand over a vehicle and a pile of money.
Of the two, caving in to the demands is the less moral solution.
Then we get to see the religious lobby screaming that the government is spending tax money to encourage fornication. That'll be entertaining. The only reason they aren't upset about the current anti-HIV schemes is that a third of it is reserved for abstinance-only campaigns.
Because it's a US trial. The vaccine was developed in Canada, but they're doing the trial in the US, presumably as people meeting the trial criteria (HIV negative people at high risk of infection) are easier to come by, if only due to having 10x as many people.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I for one, would like to know what happens when God has bad sex.
Reasoning that "the ends never justify the means" is itself making a hard decision.
Perhaps its better to judge from case to case, instead of generalizations.
Sometimes a hard decision is necessary, a compromise has to be made.
But sometimes the price is just too horrible and unthinkable, indeed.
Cargill: [gets out five files] Well, I've narrowed your choices down to 5 unthinkable options. Each will cause untold misery and--
President: [points to the third file] I pick #3.
Cargill: You don't even wanna read them first?
President: I was elected to lead, not to read. #3!
Why does a Canadian organisation require any permission from the Government of the USA?
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
>At some point there will be a diseases that starts in Wales or New Zealand that can be traced back to sheep....
TFTFY
In Scotland the men are generally too drunk to chase sheep.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Yeah, being a "spoiled, self infatuated, irresponsible, whiny, obnoxious asshole." is AC's job.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
You've obviously not seen enough pr0n recently...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Basically any decently powerful medication goes all batty on side effects because of the body's irritating habit of requiring some 5-70 interactions to get anything done. So it's only 3rd generation medicines etc that get the job done right because of 20 years of practice. My own minor hobby is studying stomach acid preventers. (Not cheap calcium rolaids etc, the other pills that are supposed to prevent your stomach from overproducing the acid in the first place.)
The first gen ones did work, but over-targeted related biochem targets, so they didn't play nice with a whole slew of important prescription meds. Only later by switching around the component molecule rings did the newer ones mostly behave.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This is a longstanding issue in medical trials. If you want to carry out a controlled trial of a treatment *already* in use, you have to jump through so many hoops it's not feasible. Meanwhile, if you're a doctor who just feels like prescribing fried monkey brains, you're perfectly free to do so.
[FUCK BETA]
Can you help clear up my ignorance then:
My understanding was that all vaccines had a none zero chance of infecting you with the disease they are made from. Okay Cow Pox won't give you small pox, but heat treating rabies (for example) would kill the virus, but it theoretically only takes one to escape for you to be infected. Run the probability numbers and it may be worth the risk that I am vaccinated against mumps but there is still a finite chance that I am infected by the disease in the process of vaccination.
A quick bit of research seems to say that it depends on the vaccine in question, but MMR seems to be a good example of one in the class of a vaccine that can genuinely harm you because it is an attenuated vaccine. This is not a reason to not have the immunisation but i believe it is reaching to say that it is technically impossible to contract HIV through this experiment.
So I ask why is it completely impossible to contract HIV from this experiment? What have I misunderstood?
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Really?
A clock is ticking, there is a switch in front of you that is set to kill 100 people. You could flick the switch to kill a different 10 people.
Do you choose to kill 10 people in order to save 100 people? Make your decision quickly because the clock is ticking and you don't have long. I think most people would choose to flick the switch and to actively kill 10 people rather than allow 100 people to be killed. Would you condemn someone who made that decision?
Now scenario B, you have to possibly kill a thousand people in order to probably save a billion. What do you do then?
The ends can justify the means; this is a world of grey that we live in.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Individuals who have lost infants within 24-48 hours of subjecting them to vaccinations find their children are not counted in the statistics. Dismissed as SIDS (unknown diagnosis).
Well, yes. There was actually one incident here in the UK where a 14 year old girl died after being given the cervical cancer vaccine. The newspapers kicked up a huge fuss about this. Turns out she had a previously-undiagnosed cancer that had been spreading throughout her body for months.
There's always going to be some kids that die soon after being vaccinated just by chance. What matters is whether more die than expected; it makes no sense to attribute deaths to vaccination just because by chance they happened at around the same time.
I'd imagine that companies making small condoms would have just as much to gain.
The risks scientists can expose people to and be able to sleep at night still have to be quite limited
I'm pretty sure that the combined efforts of the Nazis and the Tuskegee doctors have proven that to be false. There are plenty of other examples, I just can't think of them off the top of my head.
pedants infesting slashdot
Luckily I brought my trusty can of Pedant-RAID. DIE VERMIN! DIE!
The list of side effects given by the parent were an example of standard side effects that are listed for practically any over the counter or prescription medication. Common over the counter painkillers often list possible side effects as scary as 'difficulty breathing' or 'potential kidney failure'. If someone somewhere in a trial had a side effect then it will probably end up in the list just in case. Neither of the two links in the summaries list out any side effects of the vaccine. This isn't to say that there won't be any though. Even dead vaccines work by tricking the body's immune system into believing it is being attacked so may prompt a variety of side effects as the body reacts to the 'attack'.
>erections lasting longer than four hours
Where do I sign up!
I'm sure this has been mentioned, but one presumes that there are two primary tests:
A) does the vaccine have side effects & what are they
B) does the vaccine work.
In order to answer B, doesn't this mean you have to find someone without HIV, administer the vaccine, and then expose them to HIV?
Being a volunteer ... for this ... damn. That takes nuts.
But don't stand to close in line
You mean social conservatives like these? If anything, that would probably make it even more popular with them as an off-label prescription...
Well, yeah, that's as good a list of examples as any, but I don't mean to pick on the Republicans per se. Though the Republican party does have more than it's share of FSC's, FSCism can and does cross party lines. Which is why we should worry. A potentially effective vaccine for a horrible disease that affects tens of millions of people worldwide, including, yes, innocent children, and mark my words, some fuckwit social conservative will bitch about it because it might keep gays from getting sick and dying.
You claim "if the ends ever justified the means", the ends would always automatically justify any means. Ridiculous!
I think you might have meant the opposite (if not, that sentence doesn't make any sense). No, the statement doesn't need qualification. What needs qualification (very carefully) is what exactly counts as an evil means. Killing is not in and of itself necessarily an evil means. Murder, yes, but not killing. Exactly why is an argument that ethicists have argued over for centuries, but you seem to have the right idea (your argument was more or less correct about that: it would be justified to kill in self-defense. Also, in defense of others).
On the other hand, if your only means of stopping the invasion was the murder of, say, 100 completely innocent people (if for example the invaders tell you they will invade unless you do so, and they are too powerful to stop otherwise), that would not be justified (because of the axiom I originally stated).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
No. Here is a definition of unthinkable:
Too unlikely or undesirable to be considered a possibility
Therefore the word doesn't necessarily say anything about how much thought has been put into a contingency. Next time you feel the urge to write a pedantic nit-pick post which adds nothing to the discussion you ought to get your facts straight first.
To avoid being found guilty of exactly what I just accused you of, both GP and GPP are wrong. X is a cliche excuse for Y is itself a cliche excuse for not confronting the truth that the world is a complicated place with few right answers and even fewer absolute truths.
The problem with this is that it is the complexity of the human brain that makes a lot of drug complications difficult ascertain, requiring large medical trials and years of testing. Research can already be done on animals to make sure that a drug almost certainly works but testing for side effects and interactions with other drugs requires human trials. Testing on almost human clones with a radically altered brain wouldn't give any insight into this so actual human testing would still need to be done.
Completely agree. That is why I rename 'kill' to 'terminate' on every *nix machine I have access to.
Your comment confuses me for the following reasons:
Ceviche *is* cooked. (The proteins are denatured with acid rather than heat.)
Venison is *not* monkey. (Not even moderately related as far as species go.)
Steak/Horse/Venison/etc Tartar (a raw chopped preparation) can be exceptionally tasty with no cooking whatsoever.
Back in 1971 I got the only flu shot I'll ever have, it gave me the worst case of the flu I ever had before or since -- but that was when they were using live vaccines. Do they even use live viruses for vaccines these days at all?
Free Martian Whores!
What, pray tell, is a "semi-expendable person"? You sound like the folks who owned the Upper Big Branch coal mine.
There is no such thing as a semi-expendable person unless you're some kind of damned monster.
Free Martian Whores!
Baby, I always thrill the monkeys with my sweet love.
Currently hooked on AMP
You ask the critical question of the modern age: "If I let the hundred die, I'm not liable. If I kill the ten to save them, do I get charged with murder? If so, fuck 'em."
Pedantery is a nerdy trait, especially in conversation with other nerds. It doesn't matter if you're an engineer, a programmer, or a scientist, most things nerdy require accuracy, so nerds are mostly pedantic by nature.
Free Martian Whores!
The guy on TV last night said if the trials go well, we'll have the vaccine in 5 years.
Free Martian Whores!
On the other hand, if your only means of stopping the invasion was the murder of, say, 100 completely innocent people (if for example the invaders tell you they will invade unless you do so, and they are too powerful to stop otherwise), that would not be justified (because of the axiom I originally stated).
This is one of those "hard decisions" that the disagreeing posts are talking about - and one I would never ever want to have to make. If the means is the murder of 100 innocents, and the ends is saving thousands or millions (again, of innocents), you can't use a blanket statement that it is unjustified. The situation determines the ethics, and either choice you make you're a monster.
As the thread is titled: It's a numbers game. If your inaction causes more harm than the intentional action causes - you've only really flipped the equation. The means was the harm caused by your inaction. The ends is you didn't have to make that call and suffer the responsibility.
It's a good debate, and one that we need to continually involve ourselves in so that when it comes time to make those calls we can at the very least say "we did the best we could." As another poster in this thread very insightfully noted: the sides of this debate are contradictory, but they're both right.
+1 Disagree
And well done to you for pointing it out so well. An excellent lesson that's not always given: Just because two points contradict each other doesn't mean one is wrong.
+1 Disagree
That's why God gave us penicillin! ;)
I'm gonna need a bigger can...
'borderline brain dead' clones would also have difficulty reporting internal and subjective nervous system/perception based side effects, such as: ... pretty much all the "really wish it didnt feel so fucked up when i take this" type ones. Which makes them still in the end require real people.
nausea, intestinal pains, blurred vision, loss of speech, seeing sound, hearing colours, the sensation of having ones bowel sucked out the anus
XML - A clever joke would be here if
I would.
Good for you and good for the rest of us too. :)
I agree with tgetzoya; you are a much better man than I.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
This is true. My issue is with the FDA and the time (and expense) it takes to do this testing. If we had some sort of private certification firm, especially if there were multiple ones so they had to compete, this kind of testing would be a lot faster and cheaper. But instead we have a government monopoly, and therefore a massive, inefficient bureaucracy to deal with.
Liberty in your lifetime
So in other words, the next four years without this drug is going to produce a bunch of people who end up with HIV but can use the vaccine to control it, preventing AIDS, but not eliminate it. Does that mean they have to take the vaccine all their life in order to continue to control it, or will it still be a one-time think like administering a vaccine to an uninfected patient? Will HIV-infected-but-vaccinated people be able to transmit the disease to unprotected partners?
Any way you look at it, this four-year bureaucratic delay is going to cause people to catch HIV who otherwise wouldn't. Thank you, FDA.
Liberty in your lifetime
The citation is to a book, Healing our World, by Mary Ruwart. There's an entire chapter about the damage the FDA has caused.
Liberty in your lifetime