Posted on 11/13/2003 7:01:55 AM PST by neverdem
SAN FRANCISCO - An experimental AIDS vaccine tested in Thailand on some 2,500 drug users failed, biotechnology company VaxGen Inc. announced Wednesday.
The poor results were widely expected after the Brisbane-based company announced in February that a much larger experiment testing its vaccine in North America also had failed to prevent AIDS infections.
Most AIDS researchers agree that vaccines will be the only effective way to control a pandemic that has killed 28 million people and infected 42 million more, most of them in Africa.
Now that VaxGen's vaccine has failed, attention has turned to the two dozen other experimental vaccines now being tested on 12,000 human volunteers in experiments around the world. But none of those are as advanced as VaxGen's two failed experiments and any successful candidate is years away. The Thai results underscored again how notoriously wily AIDS is in beating the body's immune system, company officials said.
"The outcome of this trial is one more reminder of how difficult it is to combat HIV and how important it is for the international public health community to redouble the effort to develop an effective vaccine," VaxGen president Dr. Donald Francis said.
VaxGen's vaccine, like most others being tested, didn't contain the virus itself and can't cause AIDS. Instead, the vaccine contained small, man-made genetic bits of the virus that scientists had hoped would provoke an immune response strong enough to stop the virus from invading healthy cells.
Three years ago, the company enrolled 2,546 people in and around Bangkok who injected drugs and were considered at high risk because of their needle-swapping habits. Half were given the experimental vaccine and half were given a placebo. All volunteers were given extensive risk-reduction counseling, the company said.
In the end, the vaccine offered no greater protection than nothing at all: 105 people given the placebo became infected with HIV and 106 people given the vaccine tested positive.
In February, VaxGen announced its vaccine was ineffective against a different AIDS strain found in North America. In that experiment, the vaccine failed in a test with 5,400 volunteers deemed to be at risk because of their sexual habits.
The company was criticized when it said results from a tiny population of blacks and women in the experiment suggested the vaccine may have promise in those groups.
VaxGen said that more extensive human studies would be needed in blacks and women to decide. But without any government or other outside funding, the company said it can't proceed with those additional studies.
A company spokesman said VaxGen has been negotiating with the federal government, but no agreements have been reached.
VaxGen's share price closed down nearly 5 percent to $9.39 in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Wednesday.
The actual proof of causality vis a vis HIV and AIDS just isn't there. AIDS is real. HIV as the cause of AIDS was just made up. That is why there will never be a vaccine for AIDS. AIDS is simply not transferable by the transfer of the HIV virus. If it was then we would have an AIDS epidemic in this country - but we don't.
How many people have actually been tested for HIV in the U.S. I bet it isn't 1/100 of a percent of the population. The other 99.99% are going about their life free of worry and spreading their supposedly deadly virus around. But nothing happens. The HIV = AIDS people cannot explain that but the explanation is simple: HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
Absolutely wrong. AIDS is spread through a deliberate type of BEHAVIOR. You can't get it just from being in the room or shaking hands with an infected person (aside from the accidental infections through blood transfusions). You must deliberately commit an immoral act of sex outside of marriage or using intraveinious drugs.
Proof that conservatives are not immune to stupid conspiracy theories..
Not at all. AIDS is cluster of symptoms which can conceivably be caused by many things, just like encephelitis and pneumonia can be caused by many things. But in practically every case, it can be shown that HIV is at fault. Are there cases that are misdiagnosed or perhaps caused by other things? Certainly. But this does not negate overhwelming evidence for HIV culpability in AIDS. There is no conspiracy.
How many people have actually been tested for HIV in the U.S.
I'm not in the US but I have been tested for HIV as standard practice. I am HIV-negative (which is expected as I try to keep Commandments) and I also have not AIDS.
What is morality? Is it moral to let tens of millions die if you oppose their sex behavior? Please to explain what you consider to be nature of this morality.
In the Great Big Book of Everything (i.e. the Bible), it says the wages of sin is death.
In the U.S. millions more people are killed from cancer and heart disease than from AIDS, yet those who want the preserve the "homosexual lifestyle" (read that multiple unknown drug using partners in San Francisco "bath houses") cry and stomp their feet that only about $1 MILLION is spent per AIDS death. Most of the HIV/AIDS infected rump rangers only stop when they are too sick to find a willing partner to sodomizeand some even go out TRYING to get HIV. Poor Anal Infected Dip $h*ts! Cry me a river.
It is clear that sin is that which is not moral. But what is moral in this case? And why is it moral? Please to explain.
(Apologies, but by the way, I am myself familiar with Tanach although not in English translation. Is this a verse you cite? I do not know it.)
Yet another issue is that most people are tested by screening for antibodies, not the virus itself. It's cheaper, and through most of the disease phases, the virus is hidden within the t-cells (CD4-positive t-cells, if you must know), and wouldn't be detected anyway.
The problem with screening for antibodies is that many people don't develop antibodies for months after infection. So they may start showing symptoms like fever, headache, malaise (shades of Jimmy Carter) or enlarged lymph nodes, before the virus is detected. Doctors may put off testing until later when the antibodies will be detectable.
Then there's the different strains of HIV; HIV-1 group M, HIV-1 group O, HIV-1 group N and what appears to be a different type, HIV-2. The different strains can influence the result of screening assays.
I believe it talk more of death of soul in after life...
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