There’s talk that a new microbicide for HIV prevention is being developed.  The testing audience are developing countries. 

As usually researchers have found a few people that are immune to the current disease –HIV for this century-.  IRIN Plusnews reports that Canadian researchers have found proteins (i.e. dots on genes) in HIV immune female sex workers;  what this means is that there is an ability to extract, investigate and replicate genetic coding –DNA-, but someone has to be the guinea pig.  The problem with story is that (as paragraph six informs us) vaccine researchers have previously encountered setbacks; in September 2007 a major vaccine trail was halted because candidates of the trails “may have” incurred increased risk of being infected.  Why does one halt a trial, unless there is evidence to indicate that people ‘may have’ actually gotten the disease where they did not have the disease?

Why is it that we never see the advertisements to earn a few bucks to participate in HIV clinical trial vaccines –for non infected people- in the USA?  The vaccines aren’t only tested on the infected, but also those not infected.  I’ve seen the ads in the developing world, and it is very disturbing. 

Perhaps you have seen the Ads in the USA, but I’ve been working in and out of NY hospitals for 10 years and I haven’t seen them.  [‘Come lets us test HIV vaccines on you for a few hundred dollars…’.]  Why are developing countries always the guinea pigs?  In response, the justification that the rate of spread is higher is false, because the numbers are crunched in ratios of people and per square mile, so if a country has less people in numbers the rate of proliferation is vast.

Can you put your safety at risk for a few hundred US dollars.  American’s won’t rush to do it -being uninfected- so why expect any less from those overseas?

The argument from researchers is always the same… (page 2) “It is this type of basic research that will help us develop new tools to stop the spread of HIV”.  My response:  PREVENTION ALSO COMES TO MIND!!!

Stop versus prevent…which one holds better results…keep in mind viruses naturally replicate and develop unique strands when  you develop a vaccine.  They are what you call ‘assimilative’ and ‘adaptable’.

Surreal world analogy:  Think the Borg in Star Trek!!!

Original Article:  Sex workers offer hope for HIV prevention at http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80228

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Health.