Vaccine Failure Means Setback in AIDS Fight

FOXNews.com ^ | Friday, March 21, 2008 | FOXNews.com

[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.

[xzins]

500 million dollars

[TampaDude]

HIV is spread primarily by two routes: sex and IV drugs. It’s very easy to avoid getting HIV. Not having sex with African bisexual heroin addicts is a really good idea.

[El Gato]

I am no expert...but have we ever killed a virus?

Polio is or was nearly dead. But it was killed by "starvation". The vaccine prevents one from getting, and also from spreading, the disease.

However, unlike antibiotics used against bacteria, a vaccine doesn't kill the infection, a virus in this case, if you've already gotten it.

[El Gato]

Yet the only threads in which the victims of a disease are regularly blamed are HIV/AIDS threads.

Colds are not spread exclusively by touch. Isn't the cold virus generally an airborne one as well as a "surfaces" one? Kinda hard to stop breathing, but stop putting things in the wrong places is much easier. So is not sticking things, used needles for example, into your body for recreational purposes.

It wouldn't even require the end to homosexual practices nor drug use, just other than promiscuous anal sex and use of new needles.

[Vaquero]

Zip it and voila, no problem.

[El Gato]

It’s the only STD that was ever afforded civil rights.

Certainly they used to keep records of persons, and their "contacts" with such diseases as syphilis and gonorrhea. Sometimes they would quarantine them. They most certainly quarantined people with other highly contagious and often deadly diseases. AIDS seems to be deadly much more than merely "often".

[ivyleaguebrat]

“What’s makes the sexual lifestyle choice more “special” than the other diseases”

The government feels guilty for inventing HIV to kill the black man :).

[El Gato]

So again, I repeat my question: Why do posters on FR treat HIV/AIDS differently?

As a fat guy myself, I can report that there is no sympathy here for people who have various conditions due to their own gluttony and sloth.

I feel the same way about smokers, now that the effects are well docutmented, at least on the smokers themselves. I've got a brother and a couple of sisters in law who have that particular vice. It's not nearly so deadly as AIDS, but deadly enough, if slower.

[El Gato]

The best prevention is to avoid non-natural sex and to not take drugs with needles.

Correct on the various dangerous sexual practices, particularly promiscuously engaged in. But taking drugs with needles is not the problem, taking drugs with shared "dirty" needles most certainly is.

Basically AIDS is spread through blood to blood contact, although other bodily fluids can be the 'carrier' from the 'donor' as well. Avoid getting the blood or "other bodily fluids" in contact with your own blood, while it's still in your body, and you'll avoid AIDS. But you can wash your hands till the cows come home, and will still get colds.

[Centurion2000]

The same way we could stop lung cancer and heart disease dead in their tracks by changing behavior? Why is HIV/AIDS different?

Because a lot of people don't like fags and the disgusting sexual practices that they practice which just so happen to cause them to catch this kind of filthy disease.

[metmom]

Eradication of a serious disease for free. Imagine that.

[Sister_T]

Commonsense is not permitted on this thread.

Actually, common sense abounds on this thread. Unfortunately, you aren't one of its contributors to it.

[wolf78]

This mindset of spending so much for a cure is equivalent to telling people not to bother washing their hands to prevent colds, we’ll just find a cure for colds. Or telling people not to bother quitting smoking, or watching what they eat, because we’ll just simply find a *cure* for whatever afflicts them.

The thing is: Medicine is about finding cures. Or to quote House, M.D.: " Isn't treating patients why we became doctors? - No, treating illnesses is why we became doctors. Treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable.

A doctor will tell an alcoholic to get help, knowing full well that he won't. And that's ok, because it's not his job to get people to change.

Then all the blame for the consequences is on the people who didn’t find the cure. It absolves people of personal responsibility. Besides, with all those other diseases, we already ARE advising lifestyle choices, something that isn’t happening with the AIDS/HIV issue.

The problem is: The moment we begin to exclude "lifestyle choices" from medical coverage and research, the whole system will unravel. Let's say no funding for HIV/AIDS. Fine, I'm HIV-negative. But then I also insist on excluding diabetes type II and cardiovascular disease from being covered. Because that's a hundred times more costly for the general public. I am a health nut, I work out at least 5 hours a week, 5 hours during which other people can generate additional income, but still I am forced to pay for their repulsive lifestyle choices... and so forth, playing devils's advocate here...

So what happens next? Say a vaccine is discovered? The next step would be making it mandatory for the entire population just because some might at some point engage in risky behavior? Or become the victim of unfortunate circumstances? Just like what is happening with the HPV vaccine?

Basically. Maybe not mandatory, but recommended. Because it's a.) cheaper to vaccinate 100% than to treat 1-2% and b.) the best hope of containing / eradicating the disease.

But moral behavior is something the GLBT community is not known for, so I wouldn’t expect this level of responsibility from them.

The problem is: As so often you cannot legislate morals. That's like saying "Only moral people should be allowed to have guns". Doesn't work. Sometimes the greater good (avances in medicine / gun rights) means that you have to live with the side effects (more gun accidents, giving guns to people you don't like / treating people you don't like). But that doesn't necessarily mean that the overall objective is wrong (freedom from opression, protecting your family / freedom / protection from disease).

[toddlintown]

No erection; no injection.

[gidget7]

I also read here today, in an article about a homosexual suing because the Red Cross and health bureau are discriminating against homosexuals in not letting them donate blood. Moronic I know, however in relation to this thread, Africa does not take the Universal Precautions we do here, and homosexuals can and do donate there.

I thought it was interesting finding that out. One more reason for the elevated levels of AIDS cases there.

[Alter Kaker]

Because a lot of people don't like fags

Ok so let me get this straight. You don't like American homosexuals, so you want 40 million people, a large majority of whom aren't homosexuals but who are infected with the same disease that many American homosexuals have, to die? Am I missing the logical connection there? Because that doesn't seem to make too much sense to me.

I don't get what a Zulu in South Africa, a Kalanga in Botswana or a Chewa in Malawi have to do with a Liberace in the States other than the fact that their infections look similar in a lab. But again, maybe I'm missing something.

[pctech]

This disease was enabled by an immoral society having no self control. If they'd get back to God's way of doing things, this disease wouldn't be a problem.

You know, it seems to me that whenever a disease like this existed in the past that it was quarantined until the affected people were either cured or passed away. Not that I'm trying to sound heartless because I know there are those who contracted it through no fault of their own (i.e. blood tranfusions), but shouldn't the medical community be doing this now?

[Centurion2000]

Ok so let me get this straight. You don't like American homosexuals, so you want 40 million people, a large majority of whom aren't homosexuals but who are infected with the same disease that many American homosexuals have, to die?

No, I just don't care if they do. I do not want my tax dollars going to research this. We, as Americans, have better and more important things to focus on than the plight of infected homsexuals and africans.

[Alter Kaker]

No, I just don't care if they do.

Let me guess. You're also "pro-choice?"

The culture of death is hard at work.

[metmom]

You need a reality check. Even if there should be a treatment, or cure, for AIDS/HIV, do you really think it’s going to be used on those supposedly 40 million (where ever that number comes from) over in Africa?

It’s clearly going to go to the gays here in the US and over in Europe first, the ones who have the money and resources to avail themselves of it.

Do you really think that the corrupt, brutal, despots over there who don’t give a rats butt about their people, who abscond with food sent for relief and deliberately starve their own people, are going to all of a sudden allow AIDS treatments?

And just how are these people, who are starving and can hardly afford food and clothes going to pay for this treatment even if they could get it.

AIDS/HIV research is not about finding a sure for those afflicted in Africa no matter how much you say it is. The push is for gays from gays. If they really cared about those in Africa, they’d be doing something about it themselves. They’d be sending relief and going themselves. They’d be warning people here to stop the lifestyle that causes this and they aren’t.