First Phase of AIDS Vaccine Trials Successful 554
rbarreira writes "Xinhua online is reporting on the success of the first trial phase of an AIDS vaccine, which was started on March 2005. From the article: '"Forty-nine healthy people who received the injection showed no severe adverse reactions after 180 days, proving the vaccine was safe," said Zhang Wei, head of the pharmaceutical registration department of the SFDA. "The recipients appeared immune to the HIV-1 virus 15 days after the injection, indicating the vaccine worked well in stimulating the body's immunity," he told the press conference.' After the results are further analyzed, 800 more voluntaries may be needed for the second and third phases of the vaccine's trial."
49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, success is good, but...
This is not proof. It isn't even close to it.
How long was Fen Phen tested? Thimerosal? RotaShield? Whoops.
I hope that this does work but stating that the vaccine has been prooven safe is very misleading.
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Plus, for all we know, most males lack a uterus.
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between a vaccine and a cure. If you could cure someone of AIDS and give their immediate descendants of some minor birth defects, that might be worthwhile. But a vaccination is something that would be given to everyone in order to prevent them from getting HIV in the first place. This being the case, birth defects are definitely not an acceptable consequence.
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell that to the gay community.
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you! Finally, someone who gets it.
I'm a lesbian. I also have an immune system/skin condition called psoriasis. I've spent the last eight years fighting with different doctors for the chance to try new treatments when they become available.
"This drug causes birth defects so women of child-bearing age..."
"I'm a lesbian."
"Yes, but while you are of child-bearing age I'm not comfortable prescribing..."
"Lesbian. Leeeeeeeeesbian."
"Yes, I understand, but while there is a possibility of your becoming pregnant..."
Certain rules do not apply to certain groups. I wish more medical doctors had the reasoning capacity that you have.
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Informative)
The reason for the doctors hesitation to prescribe you the experimental medicin is due to their danger of being liable for the side effects of those drugs that have not been officially aproved by the FDA, even if you acknowledge the danger of said effects.
Go talk to a lawyer and have him/her/it draft a letter of legal absolution from liability which you can offer the reluctant doctors in exchange for their cooperation.
Basically, they are just covering their own asses when they are denying you those drugs. Good luck.
Also, I think that the slashdotting community would probably not be adverse to you writing down some of your romantic exploits. In fact that's probably what the slashdot's journal was made for: Hot lesbian love ;-)
Lesbian doesn't mean no children (Score:3)
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AC from parent would it bother you to take that permanent contraceptive?
If it would. Why?
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Many people have a strange outlook on risk and statistics, especially young people. Buying lottery tickets, driving drunk, reckless driving, unsafe sex, et. al are symptoms of this. People aren't going to think of theirselves as at risk. I'd bet that most HIV+ people didn't plan on getting infected. I have a friend who got infected from her husband. She was a virgin when they got married. She thought there was no risk because she trusted him and they ev
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Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Informative)
Drug trials go through three phases, the first of which consists of a very small number of subjects. It's essentially the first time the drug is used on humans and to see it doesn't have immediate, obvious side effects not observed in animal trials. The 2nd and 3rd phases continue to monitor safety while attempting to determine the efficacy of the drug.
Keep in mind, that a lot of the recalled drugs, such as the COX2 inhibitors like Vioxx, don't show negative side effects until your trial goes into hundreds or thousands of subjects. And even then, the drugs are continually monitored after their release to look for effects that might be present only in 0.1% even or 0.001% of the population
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is also why some drugs get through the testing hurdles and still manage to kill/harm thousands of people. Even when the statistical formulae work out, there is still the chance that the result was due, in part, to randomness in the population. Consider that 100 is 99.99% of 1,000,000...
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It's not like any other large nations (or the companies that run them) would withhold life saving treatments from those in need [bbc.co.uk] of them to gain economic advantages....
Never fear, a new vaccine will have to be approved by your own FDA with an FDA monitored and approved trial. If the Chinese decide to charge you a premium for it, well, it serves you right.
This is only Phase 1 of 3 (Score:4, Informative)
Phase 1 in clinical trials is meant to make sure the drug in general is "safe" and to determine the maximum safe dosage.
Testing if the drug really works as expected, how effective it is etc. is done in Phases 2 and 3 with a much larger group, in double-blind experiments.
Still, before Phase 1 there were many other experiments - i.e. test with animals, computer simulations etc. - which must have shown some promise otherwise they wouldn't spend money on the human trials.
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:5, Interesting)
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You can be SURE that this had been done previously. This is just phase 1 of the HUMAN trial. There were probably hundreds of smaller tests done previously, on various lab animals, human blood samples, etc. They only start human trials when they know, to a certain extent, that there is a very low risk of infection or death due to the vaccine.
This is VERY promising. Just think about it... HIV is an INCURABLE disease, which kills %100 of it's victims. As of now, 49 people out of 49, were infected with HIV an
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Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it? Seriously. That's a pretty big claim. You could make the same claim of diabetes. No cure. Without treatment you will die from it. But nobody thinks of it as a fatal condition. AIDS may well become something similar. Look at Magic Johnson, been diagnosed with HIV for 15 years. As far as anyone knows he is quite healthy. Given the way things look for him, at 47 years old he is more likely to die of old age than HIV/AIDS complications.
Re:49 people + 180 days = proof?? (Score:4, Insightful)
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As for the cells, they probably injected infected cells into recipients, which is exactly what the article says. It didn't say HIV-1 cells it said HIV-1 specific cells.
In Soviet China... (Score:2, Funny)
pool's closed (Score:5, Funny)
HIV (Score:5, Insightful)
All it takes is one night in the wrong club at the wrong time and no matter what kind of protection you have -- it could be too late.
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Any questions?
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Re:HIV (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't it take a little longer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't it take a little longer? (Score:5, Informative)
I would suggest they probably tried introducing HIV into a blood sample of the patient, and tried to see how successful HIV was in reproducing. If it can reproduce well in "normal" blood, but badly in the blood of the patient, that's a reasonable indication that they're immune.
Proof of Immunity? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Proof of Immunity? (Score:5, Informative)
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However, I think that we can assume that in making the drug, before recruiting testers at all, they have probably done in vitro tests to determine that it makes exposed cells more resistant to HIV infection. (Otherwise, why bother doing Phase 1 trials?)
When you get
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You won't find any Communists in China under 75 these days. Mao died 30 years ago and Communism shortly after.
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in a laboratory.
First Phase of AIDS Vaccine Trials Successful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Phase of AIDS Vaccine Trials Successful (Score:5, Funny)
"I dunno how much AIDS scare y'all, but I got a theory - the day they come out with a cure for AIDS. Guaranteed, one-shot cure. On that day, there's gonna be fucking in the streets, man. It's over! Who're you? C'mere! What's your name, baby? No, it's over, yeah, woo-hoo! Man, if you can't get laid on that day, cut it off."
-- Bill Hicks
Re:First Phase of AIDS Vaccine Trials Successful (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First Phase of AIDS Vaccine Trials Successful (Score:5, Funny)
I felt a disturbance in the force. It is as if the fantasies of millions of slashdotters were suddenly silenced.
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Both of which are already curable with antibiotics.
Both are just minor passengers. The former goes away with treatment, the latter after 9 months or less. Reminds me of an old joke: "Life, an STD that's 100% fatal in all who contract it".
This is the one I'd worry about. It's still incurable and more contagious than any of the others in your list.
However, stop and think about this for a second. If we can cure HIV/AIDS, then we've found a way to expunge the body
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The fact of the matter is that a majority of us have herpes of some type (cold sores)- except that infection is not on our genitals.
Personally, I fail to see the alarming hysteria regarding herpes as anything other than social stigma. Social stigmas can be pretty strong, but not life threatening. So my guess is that the herpes stigma these days, is about as powerful as the inter-rac
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yeh sure, they all say that, but I did not get any yet, it's unfair!
Booster shots? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Spring break is coming up! Get your annual HIV immunizations here!"
The only real downside is that if this (or another) vaccine is effective and reliable, then there's the risk of other STDs becoming more prevelant again as people relax their safe sex practices. That includes unplanned pregnancies. Some people really do need a hypothetical gun to their heads to think about using condoms or monogamy.
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Hate to burst your bubble, but most people I know don't use condoms to avoid disease, they use them to avoid pregnancy. Condoms only reduce the transmission of a subset of STDs.
Lack of information (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual press release is more cautious than the excerpt that is quoted here; describing the result of the trials as saying that the vaccine is "safe and possibly effective." Apparently there were no ill effects, and if I interpret the text correctly, they detected antibodies against whatever these people were injected with. Which does not prove at all that the vaccine could be effective, because the envelope proteins of HIV are so variable that buidling up immunity is enormously difficult. However, it is probably as much as one could reasonably hope for in this first phase of trials.
That said, there is nothing in this press release to suggest that this vaccine trial will have a better outcome than the series of failed trials that have already preceded it. Mainly because there is very little information in this press release at all. Obviously, it was written by someone who did not have a clue about the science behind the trials; you can't tell from this what the vaccine consists of and how it is supposed to work. More worryingly, the "director of the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products" is quoted as saying that "The HIV-1 specific cells injected into the recipients were the DNA fragments of the virus which don't cause infection." Which is nonsensical enough to suggest that the aforementioned director, who held the press conference, doesn't have a clue either. Probably he is more remarkable for his political skills than his medical ability.
But maybe these Chinese researchers are on the right track -- who knows? A vaccine against HIV is very much needed, and the hope that we will be able to create one seems to shrink with every new failure.
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I am willing to bet these patients would be somewh
HIV test (Score:5, Insightful)
For the non-biologists: vaccines are often based on exposing the body to a protein from the virus (but not the entire virus). In doing so, the body produces antibodies that recognize the protein. The next time the body sees the protein (i.e. when exposed to the actual virus), the body will be able to quickly destroy the virus particles before the person becomes infected.
However, a lot of tests for viral infection is based on the presence of the antibodies in blood. So, if the person has been immunized using the vaccine, the person will have those antibodies in blood, and it becomes difficult to tell whether the antibodies came as a result of vaccination or infection.
Re:HIV test (Score:5, Informative)
There are quite a few different tests for HIV - you're right, the primary test is antibody-related (a quick-n-dirty relative of the Western blot, followed up by an actual high-precision blot if the initial screening turns up positive), but there are alternatives based on testing for the actual genes.
In a nutshell, the sample is combined with a set of enzymes and primers that will replicate only a specific stretch of DNA (in this case, the HIV genome). If there is HIV in the blood, you'll end up with a lot of HIV DNA around the place, which you can then test for with fluorescent probes or something similar.
This type of method would not be affected by anything your immune system does, as it tests directly for the presence of the virus.
There's a list of the available tests, and a bunch of other information - mostly aimed at patients - here [hivtest.org].
I Wish They Would Elaborate... (Score:3, Interesting)
Biology is not my forte, but since the HIV-1 virus was made to NOT cause an infection, how would they know if the vaccine actually worked?
The question: Money vs. Patents vs. The people (Score:2)
AYDS (Score:3, Funny)
Mod me off-topic, I don't care. That video is funny shit.
Safety, not Efficacy (Score:3, Insightful)
All that has been demonstrated is that the vaccine doesn't have an immediate lethality in a small group of (presumably) ethnically similary people. They placed HIV virsues in blood samples obtained from these people, and the blood mounted an immune response. I'd like to point out that even people dieing of AIDS demonstrate an immune response to the HIV virus -- this is the very nature of the ELISA test used to diagnose the disease! Further, a demonstrated "immunity" in a small sample of blood is nothing; the body demonstrated immunity to the disease, often for the better part of a decade, before dying of it during the normal course of HIV/AIDS.
So, while any development towards a vaccine for the HIV virus is unquestionably a good things, lets not read too far into this.
Hats off to those brave test subjects (Score:5, Insightful)
For the equivalent of $250.
Damn.
Guinea pigs could not be infected (Score:3, Insightful)
However, upon reading the article, it states:
and that makes a lot more sense now.
Yes, but Manto Tshabalala-Msimang knows better! (Score:4, Interesting)
She has her own "very effective" approach against AIDS/HIV. She sais it is vital for people to build up their immune system so she strongly
believes in giving people the choice between antiretroviral drugs and taking traditional remedies, such as lemons,
garlic and beetroots. In fact she promotes mostly the second while her boss, never acknowledged that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?ne
That time of the year again (Score:3, Funny)
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Anyhow -- this is very good news.
Re:49? (Score:5, Funny)
Pssst, there were 150 participants, but 101 of them died.
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Pssst, there were 150 participants, but 101 of them died.
Or they got kicked out of the research because they got HIV in a night on the town celebrating that they were now immune to AIDS!
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Re:49? = 7 * 7 (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmm, this was China... I think 8 is the lucky number there. Never mind.
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circular definition (Score:2)
We might just as well define a car accident to be a collision between vehicles which occurs when at least one of the drivers is drunk. Then we could say that all car accidents are caused by being drunk.
An immuno-deficiency can be caused by lots of things. Transplant patients take drugs to cause an Aquired Immuno-deficiency Syndrome. All transplants would have AIDS except that AIDS is defined to include a finding of HIV.
Suggesting
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http://aliveandwell.org/ [aliveandwell.org]
According to the 1999 World Health Organization (WHO) report, the total number of actual diagnosed AIDS cases on the African continent is about equal to the total for AIDS in America even though Africa, with its 650 million people, has more than two times the population of the USA. (61) Africa is often cited as a worst case example of what could happen in America despite figures that demonstrate t
Re:Duck and Cover (Score:4, Informative)
The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS [nih.gov]
HTH. IHBT. HAND.
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Short version, HIV causes AIDS.
I'd also say it proves you're an idiot, but we'd have to culture you in isolation as part of the process, and I don't think we can get funding for that.
Re:Duck and Cover (Score:4, Interesting)
Could someone with more insight please explain why there are scientists who deny there's a link?
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I suspect it's not the scientists that deny the link, at least not the honest ones.
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(Don't forget to mod me down - I said something bad)
No. You just said something that most intelligent people consider stupid, knowing that most Slashdotters (who, in all honesty, are not really as smart as they think they are) will consider it stupid as well. That's why you got modded down.
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Homophobes - The evil gays are spreading disease!
Alternative therapy peddlers - I can cure AIDS with homeopathic medicine!
Politicians - AIDS was made by white men to kill black people!
Jackasses - Sure I'm HIV+ baby, but it doesn't cause AIDS!
Oh, forget it. This is too easy.
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Let's inject you directly with some blood from an HIV+ person.
I'm sure we can find someone of your blood-type, with no other known pathogens - just HIV. Heck, if you're scared of contracting something else that we can't test for, I'm sure we could get some purified samples of HIV to inject you with.
After all - if it's lifestyle choices and not the virus, you'd have nothing to fear, right?
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No, because, well, you know, viruses cause diseases, they don't mutate into diseases. Even if we're laymen and not scientists, we should choose our words more carefully so as to not spread bullshit and misconceptions.
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Looks like you don't know how HIV works if you think 5 years is plenty of time to say that guy is all in the clear.
Here [worldbank.org] is a page with some details, but I'll snip out the important part that I thought was common knowledge to anyone who had done any sort of rudimentary research into this topic.
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It would be nice if someone did a control first to see if people infected with HIV actually die.
To this date, noone has managed to live forever (i.e. not die). Please post evidence that people infected with HIV life forever.
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Re:obvious question (Score:4, Insightful)
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You are on the verge of trolling, but I'll bite. Your post makes a bunch of claims about what famous people said. According to your logic, because smart scientists say something, they must be right.
You then try to say that because some things presented at press conferences were fakes, that all things presented at press conferences were fakes. Logic 101, anyone?
The overwhelming evidence for the link between the presence of HIV antibodies in human beings and the development of AIDS is convincing enough.
Y
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That's not his logic. His logic is that reasonable tests of the HIV/AIDS theory have shown it to be most probably true, and there is a high correlation between seropositivity for HIV and the development of and eventual death due to AIDS related illnesses. If your argument is that we shouldn't trust *any* fact that we are handed, you are correct: no fact is 100% true. But that makes life unviable, and the
Re:But I thought... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's not really the case. HIV actually replicates very quickly after infection. Even though one may not show symptoms for many years, that's unusual. Most people develop the first symptoms within weeks of getting the virus. But with or without symptoms, signs of the virus can be found very quickly, particularly in the lymphatic system.
Do not confuse HIV infection and symptoms with AIDS. One isn't considered to have AIDS until their T-Cell count falls below 200 cells per uL. This is usually the point where the person starts developing the kinds of diseases that normally don't affect healthy people. Before that point, you still has a tendency to get sick from a number of more common illnesses.
Re:Umm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about blood transfusions, broken condoms, infected partners that picked it up via adultery, rape victims and dumb kids who don't know any better (since we don't teach them safe sex, and they're too hormoned-up not to fuck)? That doesn't even get into the mess over in Africa. Are you seriously prepared to condemn every single infected person simply due to the fact that many of the dying got that way from carelessness?
An ounch of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That doesn't mean however that you can always prevent bad things from happening, or that we shouldn't care enough to try and find a cure.
And by the way, your arguement can be twisted for just about anything. Why should we try to develop a cure for cancer? Those people should have known to get themselves checked up (many cancers can be detected early, via screening, thereby removing the need for any miracle cure), and should have known to avoid carcinogens (do you check everything you eat?). Yet to take that stance both condemns people for honest mistakes, and condemns the blamelessly unlucky along with the careless by denying them a cure as well.
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Yes, he is. He is a Christian.
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Well duh this IS Slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
I hate to be a dink, but we've had a way to completely control this infection for about 20 years now; it's called abstinence
No need to preach abstinence here; we at Slashdot have been abstaining from sex all our lives (not by choice though :)
Re:Umm ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't show.
Why is it important to develop a way to allow people who have little regard for their own health to remain healthy?
Because compassion is one of the things that makes us human?
(Leaving aside cold-blooded economic arguments about how you'd much rather have healthy productive workers contributing to your economy than sick people who are draining it. AIDS doesn't make business sense.)
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Ummm... the same reason we talk people down off bridges and high buildings? Compassion, maybe? Not to mention the fact that these people end up with others who are more responsable, and simply don't know their partners are infected. Really though, even though you're being modded Troll, you've got a point; but just leaving people to twist in the wind isn't moral from my point of view. We really need to eliminate the attitude of fatalism that some people have, especially young people. You see a lot of ar
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I can reassure you, you aren't a dink. You're an ignorant asshole.
Ever heard of the hundreds of ways you can get infected without sex? Blood transfusions were a common vector in the early days, before everyone got paranoid about them, for example. You can still get the virus through blood, for example during an accident (with you as the victim, or you as the helper who doesn't wear p
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abstinence probably cures acne and cancer as well, and leads to better eyesight and higher salaries
I can personally attest that the last two are not the case. :(
lovely (Score:2, Insightful)
Warts can keep coming back, and they give you cancer.
Plenty of "curable" things leave you (or your baby) with permanent damage.