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Promising Vaccine Candidate Could Lead To a Definitive Cure For HIV
Zothecula writes "A very promising vaccine candidate for HIV/AIDS has shown the ability to completely clear the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a very aggressive form of HIV that leads to AIDS in monkeys. Developed at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), the vaccine proved successful in about fifty percent of the subjects tested and could lead to a human vaccine preventing the onset of HIV/AIDS and even cure patients currently on anti-retroviral drugs."
Which is why they spent over $500 million in 2011 just on HIV vaccine clinical trials? Sorry, your argument doesn't really hold water, and anyway the company that *does* come up with the vaccine will make a killing.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
Not just make a killing, but will put all the other companies out of business as their treatments become worthless.
Which is why they spent over $500 million in 2011 just on HIV vaccine clinical trials? Sorry, your argument doesn't really hold water, and anyway the company that *does* come up with the vaccine will make a killing.
I agree, but you are arguing against a conspiracy theory, never works.
Why is figure 12 in the supplements, it seems to be the most important part (it compares cd4+ T-cell levels)? It is not even mentioned in the main text. Isn't reduction in the actual pathology the most important goal of a treatment?
This sounds really interesting...
It sounds like, instead of infecting the patient with a blunted virus that would eventually die away, they are permanently infecting the patient with a persistent virus that looks and acts like their target but causes no harm to keep up the immune response over the long haul. Sounds to me like a really interesting approach.
Maybe someone could enlighten me to the history of this approach in the treatment of other diseases, or is it novel?
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
:)
Though vets in the US and Canada might not have much need, I can see an immediate use for this vaccine as it stands...
From: Wikipedia: Simian immunodeficiency virus
Beatrice Hahn of the University of Pennsylvania recently led a team of researchers to find that chimpanzees do die from simian AIDS in the wild and that the AIDS outbreak in Africa has contributed to the decline of chimpanzee populations.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Besides any vaccination campaign would take some years to ramp up and anti-retrovirals become less effective and ultimately go out of patent over time any way. So it's not like their business is going to go bust over night or wouldn't have drawn to a natural end anyway.
You don't buy tinfoil hats. The ones you buy are all compromised. Learn how to build a tinfoil hat yourself.
Only if they price it so that everyone who needs it can afford it. Obviously that won't happen, they will want to maximize profit in rich countries instead of practically giving it away in Africa, so all those poor people will still need the other cheaper treatments.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nah, he'll be fine. A Kleenex is using enough when self-abusing in mommy's basement
It boils down to "Dead people don't make you money."
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Given that HIV/AIDS has made the population growth rates in certain places explode, and that these places have very young populations, would a definitive cure for HIV/AIDS set off a massive population timebomb? Has any thought been given to the consequences of very suddenly removing a big source of mortality?
Actually, a number of big pharma companies do give away (or sell at cost) to poor regions like sub-Saharan Africa the same medications they charge an arm and a leg for in the richer parts of the world. Where the process breaks down is when a disease disproportionally affects a poor region (like malaria) such that there is not a fiscally sound business model for pursuing the high risk/benefit research involved with drug development.
As an aside, I think that one of the most commendable fields of the Gates Foundation is their promotion of research for malaria (see the TED talk where Gates releases a jar of mosquitoes into the audience).
As someone who actually worked on (albeit briefly) an HIV vaccine candidate, I'd like to comment that there have been a number of successful anti-SIV vaccines already, each of which have gone on to miserable -- and expensive -- failures when the underlying technology was applied to an HIV vaccine. And for those candidates that actually made it to human trials before failure, each attempt had a human cost as well (conspiracy theorists, go fuck yourselves).
That being said, the approach used is rather clever, if someone risky. The technique used is what is known as a "Heterologous Antigen" delivery, but in this case it has been combined with a persistent agent that establishes a life-long infection. The vector used was Rhesus Cytomegalovirus, which has a analogous human virus known as Human Cytomegalovirus, aka Herpesvirus-5.
CMV is a very common infection (in some countries 90+%, although somewhat lower in the United States). It's generally considered harmless to healthy individuals, and most pick it up during childhood, where it is commonly passed around in daycare centers and such. Initial symptoms are usually mild and non-specific (although in some individuals it can produce Mono-like symptoms), and typically afterwards the viral infection is well-controlled with no further signs of infection. Unlike some more famous members of the Herpesvirus family, it does not produce any sores or vesicles or such.
However, on occasion it can be dangerous, as one of the infectious agents that can sometimes result in TORCH syndrome effects (like the infamous "Blueberry Muffin Baby") when primary infections (first encounter with the infectious agent for an individual) occurs in a pregnant women. It can also be dangerous in immunosuppressed individuals, such as organ transplant recipients and advanced AIDS patients.
I'm just waiting for there to be an accidental release of smallpox. I know that nearly no one from my generation on has been vaccinated. A single out break of that in a major metro area and international airport would be one of the most devastating things our generation could witness.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Nah, then they will just pay someone to write a paper stating that HIV vaccine causes autism.
So are you saying you don't understand that drugs cost huge amounts of money to research, develop, test, and approve? Or is it that you don't understand that no business concern can operate at a loss indefinitely?
It may SUCK that we have to make these decisions, but unless you have a way of funding drug research that doesn't involve the companies doing the research losing money year after year, then this is the reality we live in.
Education would make those poor people's lives better. Better food. Better medicine. Better housing. Better water treatment. Is it "sickening" that I didn't buy a house for a poor family in Africa, yet bought a house for myself and my family? Is the contractor who built my house morally reprehensible for working for me, instead of losing his life's savings building houses that people can't afford in Africa?
Please learn to divorce the touchy-feely "every human is special and deserves to live like Warren Buffett" from the practical reality that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Patents you have to keep secret are worthless
Yeah, things that don't exist often are.
Ezekiel 23:20
Wrong - you're just so wrong. Look at the top causes of death worldwide - HIV/AIDS is SIXTH, more people die of diarrhea than of HIV, and diarrhea is very preventable. More than FOUR times the number die of heart disease, which is also largely preventable.
And that's just worldwide. As an exercise to improve your awareness of the facts, go look up the causes of death in the U.S. and report back to us. Don't forget to mention motor vehicle accidents (4 times the deaths caused by HIV), and FREAKING DIABETES (8 times the deaths caused by HIV).
People needlessly die from HIV/AIDS, but it's not even close to the "biggest Darwin award disease ever". Maybe you have some personal bias that makes you think that.
You think all Bayer makes is HIV treatments? Losing one product doesn't make a company go bankrupt.
True, when Bayer's heroin sales became unpopular, and then it lost it's Zyklon-B product line, they still had aspirin to fall back on.
And the rape victims. Especially the 9-year-old girls who are raped because it's believed sex with a virgin will cure you of the disease. Yeah, everyone with HIV totally deserves it.
You should do your own homework too. That is nothing like the fallacy of sunken costs. The fallacy refers to when somebody invests in a course of action, and sticks to it when it is clear that the investment won't pay off. Citation: http://www.skepdic.com/sunkcost.html
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
It's worth remembering that for us it wouldn't be as devastating as when smallpox was first introduced to the native american. Each of us has descended from a long line of people who were exposed to smallpox and somehow survived. Unlike the native americans, who were a population with no experience with the disease.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not nearly as devastating, but we should be able to expect a large outbreak of chicken pox in the adult population. The vaccine has to not offer lifelong protection. So, we are protecting a generation of children from a highly contagious disease, but let them become vulnerable as adults.
Sadly, it's a real thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
You do realize that smallpox existed for a long time before the global effort to eradicate it via vaccination, right? Evolution somehow favored your ancestors.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."