statism watch

The Army is a partner? That seems odd – typically, the Army’s job is to destroy strategic property and disable combatants. As does the lack of any partial protection or attenuation of viral load in those that caught the disease regardless. Anyways, hope this really works and doesn’t end up raising the incidence of AIDS down the road in Thailand. The last attempt to create an AIDS vaccine, a Merck product, ended in failure due to it actually causing an increased risk of the disease.

Update (2009/10/12): New information has rendered the efficacy of the vaccine ‘less convincing’, reports the LA Times:  “Now, a secondary analysis of the results has suggested the vaccine was not quite as good as believed, reducing infections by only 24 per cent, according to researchers who spoke with Science magazine. The first analysis included all 16,000 people in the trial, The secondary excluded patients who did not follow the experimental regimen.” More information is to follow October 20th.

Update (2009/10/20): ‘Promising’ AIDS vaccine has modest effect, reports the Associated Press upon official release of the report.

Flashback: Seasonal flu shot may increase H1N1 risk | Canadian HIV vaccine ready for human tests | Did leak from a laboratory cause swine flu pandemic? | Swine Flu May Be Human Error; WHO Investigates Claim | Lessons of 1976: swine flu, fear, mass vaccinations, wasted millions | Merck Makes Phony Peer-Review Journal | ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible | Officials investigate how bird flu contaminated vaccines in Europe | Vaccine Court: Autism Debate Continues | Did Pharma Giant with Gardasil HPV Patents Buy Nobel Prize? | Indonesian AIDS patients face microchip monitoring | Vaccines Found to Cause Diabetes in Children | CDC reports almost 8,000 adverse reactions to “Gardasil” HPV vaccine in U.S. | Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland | Government knew of HIV risk from imported blood | Bayer Continued Selling Contaminated Blood Product in 1980s | Aids scandals around the world | Blood Money: The Clinton Ties to the Blood Scandal

Toronto Star
September 25, 2009

BANGKOK–Scientists said they were thrilled – but nonetheless baffled – that a developmental AIDS vaccine has shown significant success.

Test results released here yesterday showed the vaccine – a combination of two vaccines that have not worked in humans before – cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 per cent.

It was the world’s largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand.

“I don’t want to use a word like `breakthrough,’ but I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is a very important result,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial’s backers.

“For more than 20 years now, vaccine trials have essentially been failures,” he said. “Now … we can start asking some very important questions.”

The World Health Organization and the UN agency UNAIDS said the surprising results, “instilled new hope” in the field of HIV vaccine research.

Trial results of the vaccine, known as RV 144, were released by the partners that ran the trial: the United States Army, the Thai Ministry of Public Health, Fauci’s institute, and the patent-holders for the two parts of the vaccine, Sanofi-Pasteur and Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.

Col. Jerome Kim, a physician who is manager of the U.S. Army’s HIV vaccine program, said half the volunteers were given six doses of two vaccines in 2006 and half were given placebos. They then got regular tests for the AIDS virus for three years. Of those who got placebos, 74 became infected, while only 51 of those who got the vaccines did.

That meant the vaccine was 31.2 per cent effective, Kim said.

Scientists would seldom consider licensing a vaccine less than 70 or 80 per cent effective, Fauci said.

The vaccine had no effect on HIV levels in those who did get infected. This, Kim said, was the most confusing aspect of the trial. Normally, a vaccine that gives partial protection, a mismatched flu shot, for example, at least lowers the viral load.

Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have an impact. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide are infected with HIV; two million died of AIDS in 2007, UNAIDS estimates.

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