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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
I agree, now people can go back to having sex with monkeys!
You can even have another Toronto paper if you like.
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.
This isn't just positive news, its HIV positive.
It won't. They are offering a quick, cheap solution - people won't easily reject such an offer, even if it doesn't actually work. Plus they have a lot of religious support in some parts of the world - Muslims eager to demonstrate how the ancient practices of Islam included medical secrets only just discovered by those backwards westerners.
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
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".
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.
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
The test with HIV+ people is to check for side effects. They won't get any benefit from it, but they will experience all of the side effects that come with it (hopefully none, but the point of testing is to try to turn 'hopefully' into 'definitely'). The next round of testing (with the HIV- people) is to see if it actually works. These people are likely to be selected from demographics deemed to have a high risk of HIV infection, and if none of them become infected then it worked. If some of them, but a lower population than would be expected, become HIV+ then the vaccine is partially successful and may be used anyway if it has no side effects: reducing the probability of infection by 50% goes a long way towards eliminating the disease, because now there's a much higher chance that no one who is not immune will come into contact with a carrier.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My guess, the second batch of volunteers will be those in marriages/committed relationships with HIV+ positive spouses (eg: married to a nurse who got pricked, a spouse who had a bad blood transfusion, victim of rape, etc, etc).
You know not all cancers are the same? and saying 'cure for cancer' is ignorant, right?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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!
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
No, it's been more than 22.3 years. AIDS is finally funny.
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.
Amputation reduces the spread of STDs even more. That doesn't mean we should encourage it.
"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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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. :-(
The impression I got is that they're trying to use "all the people who we're not giving the trial vaccine to" as the control group. If we ignore the placebo effect, there's no difference between a guy who never got an injection and a guy who got injected with saline, and we have a goodly amount of data on people who never got an injection, so just observing a difference in infection rate between the test group and what would be expected without the vaccine may be sufficient.
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.
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."
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.
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.
I'm assuming they're not injecting anyone with HIV, just monitoring to see what fraction of picks it up and whether that fraction is what would be expected in the absence of vaccine. Deliberately injecting someone with live HIV seems unethical (or at least very questionable) to me, even if the subject is a volunteer.
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've worked with an organization providing care to the homeless a few years ago, and while being HIV+ is not a short-term death sentence anymore, it is nowhere near as easy to treat as you make it. Most patients can expect to spend about 3 to 7 years using drugs with only moderate side-effects, but after that, most start needing to use some stronger drugs. These can have very serious side effects, including vomiting several times a day, constant headaches, extreme dizziness, lack of appetite so bad that they have to force themselves to eat every meal, sexual dysfunction, etc.
I'm not a medical professional but from what I understand there are also strains of HIV that need the "strong" treatment right away, and people can even get multiple strains (I saw a few of those). Even with the medication being free in Canada, where I live, I spoke with people in their late 30s who stopped taking the meds because they'd rather have a few more years of relatively good life than living with the drugs' side effects.
We've made a lot of progress, but HIV is still a death sentence, just longer term. And you'll feel miserable for the better part of your remaining life. Not something to take lightly.
Religion is the best example of mass psychosis
Among other things. You could also get it from you yourself sleeping around, a trusted partner that has never slept around or get it from your parents, a dentist, other forms of blood transfer (such as during fights) or even during "safe" sex (there is really no such thing as safe sex).
Some STD's are so common they don't even routinely test for them anymore (HSV) and many don't know they have a form of it until someone else gets an outbreak.
Also with current medicine most are curable, can be depressed or transfers can be prevented.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
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
Vaccination is not only for prevention. There are a few diseases where the body can develop immunity from the vaccine significantly faster than it can from the natural disease, so even after infection there may be time for the vaccine to be helpful.
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.
NO, I think you technically always need a real control group receiving a placebo for it to be real science.
"We shot 20 guys in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun, and they died."
"But you didn't shoot a control group with sugar pills, so how do you know it was the gunshots that killed them?"
"...."
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 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
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
That would never go over, even with fully informed and highly paid volunteers. What they ARE doing is giving the vaccine to high risk individuals and monitoring their progress. If they can get the numbers then they can look for statistically significant reduction in infections,