Posted on 03/21/2008 5:39:05 AM PDT by metmom
The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may actually have put them at increased risk of becoming infected, The Washington Post reported.
Experts are questioning the overall strategy and scientific premises of the nearly $500 million in AIDS vaccine research funded annually by the government after the two field tests were halted last September and seven other trials of AIDS vaccines have either been stopped or put off indefinitely.
The recently closed studies, STEP and Phambili, were halted when it became clear the STEP study was futile and possibly harmful.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Outstanding post. Just outstanding.
I'm not a budget analyst so I don't really know anything about the funding of Disease A vs. Disease B. Maybe you should ask the President, who has taken a courageous stance in promoting increases for HIV/AIDS funding. Also, instead of taking funding away from HIV/AIDS funding for the similarly-preventable disease of your choice, why not instead question the hundreds of billions the government wastes on real nonsense (like the entire Departments of Housing & Urban Development, Agriculture, Education, Labor and Commerce?).
The total spending on all disease research is peanuts relative to the total budget. As for actual dollars per disease, that's just not something I know remotely enough to comment intelligently on.
The self-righteous moralists who say that all people with HIV/AIDS (and there are around 40 million of them, plus 25 million already dead) deserve to have HIV/AIDS because they're sinners and that therefore we shouldn't worry about them.
I want an apology from you for the nasty comment to me in your post 93, to wit: “Maybe gay sex is more common in the nightspots you frequent...”
Take it back.
You’re both outstanding. :)
Who said that?
Name somebody.
Got a link? Got a post number?
Your arguments are asinine.
Probably not any more than the ones to you calling someone gay.
Just a suggestion: do both.
Tell smokers not to smoke AND work to develop treatments for lung cancer.
Tell people in Africa at risk for HIV to avoid risky behaviors (and tell them how to do so), AND also work to develop treatments and maybe even a cure.
Tell people who are obese or who have a family history of heart disease to exercise and eat right, AND also work to find better cholesterol lowering medications, etc.
Life isn't a zero sum game.
No please, tell me what you really think.
I’m waiting for that apology for your rude comment in #93.
******************
OK. Asinine, and lacking in originality.
Ok.
Smallpox.
Okay, what if the smokers' lobby demanded the right to teach elementary students about their alternate lifestyle? What if they demanded a greater share of research dollars so that smokers could freely practice their lifestyle choice with no physical consequences?
That's what the GLBT lobbyists do. You know that, admit it.
A real one.
Use FReepmail if you aren't man enough to do it here.
I think a lot of prevention activities have happened over the last 25 years -- prevention and education programs are all over the place. And there's been a significant reduction in incidence (at least in western countries) since then.
But as far as viewing it as consequences for bad behavior, no, I won't agree with that. I've lost family members to smoking, I urged them again and again to quit, but they chose not to. I couldn't see myself stand back and say "well, those are the consequences of your behavior".
There were a couple people I knew in high school who later died of AIDS. When I heard they were ill, I didn't think "oh, now you're suffering the consequences of your behavior". I felt badly for them, I felt badly for their family (a mother having to bury her son is one of the saddest things that can happen -- even if the son was gay and died of AIDS).
I agree that gay activists are obnoxious, offensive, and 100x more bothersome than most other disease treatment advocates. And I agree that the amount of money spent on HIV/AIDS is out of proportion to what's spent elsewhere, and I know that's due in part to PC.
But I can't take the next step and insinuate that because someone was stupid enough to have receptive anal sex that society should treat them differently from anyone else who contracted a disease due to lifestyle choices. Just because we all know that Larry Kramer and other AIDS activists are [insert insulting term here] doesn't mean the person who suffers from a lifestyle related disease doesn't deserve compassion and treatment. That's true whether the lifestyle related disease is smoking-related cancer, AIDS, diabetes from obesity, whatever.
“OK” what?
And tell the GLBT community here to stop it’s immoral, life threatening behavior.
The people in Africa are bearing the consequences of that irresponsible behavior. The AIDS/HIV research isn’t about them anyway. It’s a liberal PC push to allow gays to continue in their lifestyle without bearing the consequences of their behavior.
Most of the rationale behind the funding for this isn’t to help the victims in Africa and it will likely be decades before any over there even have hope of seeing it. That’s why we’re simply calling it as we see it. It’s about promoting a consequence-free homosexual and drug lifestyle.
It’s nobody else’s fault the disease is still around because a cure hasn’t been found but that of the gay and drug using community. They are the ones responsible for it. They are the ones who can stop it dead in it’s tracks and they are responsible to do so. It’s reprehensible that they would continue behavior that they know will result in the deaths of others.
It’s wrong to continue that, demand funding, and then lay the deaths of innocents at the feet of scientists and researchers for something they failed to do.
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