Hot Topics - Diseases and vaccines - AIDS/HIV/AIDS vaccine
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Diseases and vaccines - AIDS/HIV/AIDS vaccine
March 1-7, 2004
►March 3, 2004 - Ancient Virus May Help HIV Patients Live Longer - HealthDay via Yahoo!
►March 3, 2004 -
Mysterious
virus may thwart HIV - New England Journal
of Medicine via New Scientist
►March 4, 2004 -
CDC Reports That OraQuick Test Produces Fewer False Positive HIV-1 Results Than
Other Available Tests - OraSure Technologies, Inc. via Business Wire
Comment: Avoiding a false HIV positive result is certainly important given the regimen of toxic drugs that HIV positive people are pressured to get.
►March 3, 2004 -
Persistent Hepatitis G Virus Infection in HIV-Positive Men May be Associated
With Prolonged Survival - New England
Journal of Medicine via Doctor's Guide
►March 8, 2004 - Doctors
protest 400% price hike in HIV medication - An AIDS group has filed a
lawsuit alleging antitrust violations. Two state attorneys general are
investigating, but Abbott says all complaints are without merit. -
www.ama-assn.org
►Polio
vaccines and the origin of AIDS: some key writings -
www.uow.edu.au
►The Origin Of Aids -
A Scientific Controversy - Tuesday March 2nd at 7.30pm - Special
Broadcasting Service Television via
www.sbs.com.au - "In his 1999 book The River, author Edward Hooper, a former
BBC journalist, charts a remarkable journey to the possible origins of AIDS. He
presents strong circumstantial evidence that points to the inadvertent
contamination of an experimental oral polio vaccine administered in Africa in
the late 1950’s. Hooper argues that this vaccine most likely became the vehicle
by which a simian precursor of HIV/AIDS carried by chimpanzees was able to jump
the species barrier into humans. If his conclusions are correct it would
indicate that the very people who were working to save lives were themselves
responsible for unleashing this terrible disease."
►September 25, 1999 -
A controversial HIV/AIDS hypothesis - The River - A Journey Back to the
Source of HIV and AIDS (requires registration) - journal article
(The Lancet)
►February 29, 2004 - Activists get help in fight on AIDS - Grant: Maryland groups receive $335 million, part of the president's pledge to fight the disease and help victims in Africa and elsewhere. - Baltimore Sun
February 23-29, 2004
►February 29, 2004 - AIDS Tots Used As 'Guinea Pigs' - New York Post Online - "The state Health Department has launched a probe into potentially dangerous drug research conducted on HIV-infected infants and children at a Manhattan foster-care agency, The Post has learned...Some 50 foster kids were used as "guinea pigs" in 13 experiments with high doses of AIDS medications at Manhattan's Incarnation Children's Center, sources said...Most of the ICC experiments were funded by federal grants and in some cases, pharmaceutical companies."
Comment: This is just one of many examples pointing to the fact that we should not blindly give power over our health to the government or the pharmaceutical companies. Clearly, we cannot simply assume they have our best interests at heart.
►February 19, 2004 - U.S. Worried by HIV Trends in Heterosexuals - Reuters via Yahoo! News
►February 25, 2004 - Dana-Farber scientists discover natural blocker of HIV-1 virus - Could lead to new strategies for preventing infection that causes AIDS - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute via www.eurekalert.org
►February 26, 2004 - Protein discovered that blocks HIV in monkeys: potential for vaccine and treatment research - Nature via www.aidsmap.com
►February 20, 2004 - New system helps predict disease spread, aids control efforts - www.vidyya.com
►February 23, 2004 - CIA Expert Warns of Looming HIV/Aids Threat in Africa, Asia - United States Department of State via www.allafrica.com
►February 23, 2004 - Harvard
School of Public Health’s AIDS Treatment Care and Prevention Initiative in
Africa Receives $107 million 5 year Grant from White House For Rapid
Antiretroviral Program Expansion - Harvard School Of Public Health
►February 20, 2004 - Pocket of resistance - The Engineer via www.e4engineering.com - "The solution to HIV diagnosis in the third world could be provided by a portable protein detector powered by a nine volt battery...The cost-effective Pocket uses a combination of silver-based chemistry, a diagnostic chip, and an optical sensor to do the same job as bulky, expensive and resource-hungry hospital machinery - at a fraction of the time and cost. "
►February 20, 2004 - HIV immunity may stem from ancient smallpox - Gannett News Service via The Arizona Republic
Comment: That's all well and good. But what if having immunity to HIV doesn't really mean much? What if HIV has nothing to do with AIDS, as some believe?
►February 18, 2004 - Researchers Study Long-Term AIDS Drugs Use - UPI via COMTEX via www.wtopnews.com - "A decade ago a diagnosis of HIV, which causes AIDS, meant a life expectancy of about two years. Now highly effective drug cocktails are keeping people alive far longer and doing it so well researchers are looking at the side effects long-term use of these medications may create."
Comment: If HIV really has nothing to do with AIDS, and people are being given these highly toxic "AIDS" drugs prior to developing any symptoms (based solely on the presence of HIV in their blood), what, then, of the side effects? Is ignorance an excuse?
►February 17, 2004 - German Scientists to Test HIV Vaccine on Humans - Scientists in Germany are for the first time preparing to conduct human trials on a new vaccine designed to prevent HIV infection as well as slow the spread of AIDS in the developing world. - Deutsche Welle
►February 18, 2004 - Australian HIV Vaccine Boosts Immune System - The Gay Financial Network
►January 2004 - THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AIDS - The Central Villain Is Not A Virus. It Is Poverty. And The Critical Cure Is Not Medicine. It is Justice. (free for a time) - by Brian K Murphy - www.redflagsdaily.com - "This warning is at the heart of the issue. Root-Bernstein noted that 'AIDS may continue to plague modern society, just as other preventable infections...plagued our forebears, because of the closemindedness of the very physicians whose job it is to diagnose, treat and prevent these diseases. A century ago, they let patients die by denying that germs had anything to do with diseases. Today they may be letting them die by insisting that the germ is everything.'"
►February 16, 2004 - Germany Launches HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial - Germany Launches First HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial, a Yearlong Program to Involve Up to 50 Subjects - AP via ABC News
►February 17, 2004 -
New insight into
HIV vaccine development - University of Wisconsin-Madison via Medical News
Today
►February 17, 2004 -
HIV exhausts the
immune system through chronic non-specific activation - Weatherall Institute
of Molecular Medicine via Medical News Today
►February 16, 2004 -
Germany Begins its
First AIDS Vaccine Trial, Partnering with IAVI - press release -
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative via PRNewswire via Yahoo!
►February 16, 2004 -
Germany Launches HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial (requires registration) - The Kansas
City Star
►February 16, 2004 - Studies offer new insight into HIV vaccine development - University of Wisconsin - Madison - "Mutations that allow AIDS viruses to escape detection by the immune system may also hinder the viruses' ability to grow after transmission to new hosts, scientists at UW-Madison announced this week in the journal Nature Medicine...The discovery may help researchers design vaccines that exploit the notorious mutability of HIV by training the immune system to attack the virus where it's most vulnerable."
►February 17, 2004 - Nationwide H.I.V. Reporting to Bring Trends Into Focus (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times
►February 15, 2004 - Batch of New HIV Drugs Looks Promising - Medicines, Including Some That Attack the Virus in New Ways, Are Ready to Be Tested (requires registration) - Washington Post
February 9-15, 2004
►February 13, 2004 - Thailand responds to HIV vaccine critics - Science via Science and Development Network►February 11, 2004 - Drug to stop HIV spread to babies may harm moms - The treatment used in poor countries to prevent the spread of HIV from mothers to their babies may have a serious drawback: It can make the women resistant to the AIDS drugs they may need later on, disturbing new research shows. - AP via CNN
►February 13, 2004 - Aussie
Vaccine 'Blocks Out' HIV - Australian via
www.immunizationinfo.org
(abstract)
►February 12, 2004 - It's
Back to Basics After AIDS Vaccine Setbacks - Wall Street Journal via
www.immunizationinfo.org
(abstract) - "Due
to frequent mutation, resistance to neutralizing antibodies, and the ability to
hide from the human immune system, developing a vaccine against HIV-1 is proving
difficult. The most innovative vaccines currently in development are likely to
fail, according to Harvard Medical School professor Ron Desrosiers. To be
successful, researchers must slow down development and concentrate on basic
science questions concerning how HIV-1 interacts with the immune system, says
Desrosiers."
►February 13, 2004 - Aust scientists develop therapeutic HIV vaccine - PM via www.abc.net.au
►February 11, 2004 - Scripps scientists say genetic mutation doesn't protect against HIV and plague - Scripps Research Institute via www.eurekalert.org
►February 12, 2004 - Vaccine research: back to the drawing board? - www.aidsmap.com - "The major presentations on HIV vaccines at the Eleventh Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco were dominated by one question. Is it reasonable to press ahead with large-scale clinical trials, such as the one now underway in Chon Buri and Rayong provinces, Thailand? Or should the emphasis and funding for vaccine research shift more strongly back to basic immunology and experiments in animal models?"
►February 12, 2004 - Australian HIV vaccine gains international attention - National Nine News via http://news.ninemsn.com.au►February 13, 2004 - New vaccine hailed as HIV breakthrough - Herald Sun - "Medical experts are thrilled by early results from the injection, which kick-starts the body's immune system to fight HIV...Doctors say if the HIV level can be kept low, patients will avoid AIDS and live long and relatively healthy lives."
Comment: But what if, as some believe, HIV has nothing to do with AIDS?
►February 11, 2004 - Black Death Not Reason for Anti-HIV Gene Mutation - Nature via Reuters Health - "People with a genetic variation in a receptor on immune cells, called the CCR5-delta-32 mutation, are resistant to infection with HIV. The mutation is much more common in people of Northern European descent than in other populations, and it seems to have arisen some 800 years ago...Researchers have suggested that it became so common as a result of selective pressure by the Black Death plague in the Middle Ages, meaning that people with the mutation were more likely to escape the contagion...As plausible as the theory seems, it's apparently unfounded, researchers conclude in an article in this week's issue of the science journal Nature."
►February 9, 2004 - HIV therapy raises drug resistance - USA Today►February 11, 2004 - Lipid Sciences' Data: A Model for a New Therapeutic Vaccination Strategy Against HIV Infection - Data Presented at Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections - Lipid Sciences, Inc. via Yahoo!
►February 8, 2004 - Antiretrovirals' Benefits far Outweigh Their Side Effects - Sunday Times via www.allafrica.com
Comment: Where have we heard that before. And what if HIV has nothing to do with AIDS. Can it reasonably be said, if that is the case, that the known risks of anti-retrovirals are outweighed by a meaningless benefit?
►February 10, 2004 - A Global Battle's Missing Weapon (requires registration or subscription) - Op-Ed - The New York Times - "Of all the mind-numbing statistics about H.I.V. and AIDS, the most staggering — and important — is this: 95 percent of those infected worldwide do not know they are harboring the most deadly virus in history, and are therefore spreading it, however unintentionally. The primary reason for this is that routine AIDS testing is virtually absent in most countries during the long period — it averages eight years — when people don't know they have the disease because they have no visible symptoms."
Comment: But what if, as some believe, HIV has nothing to do with AIDS?
►February 10, 2004 - Infant Drugs for H.I.V. Put Mothers at Risk (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times
Comment: Ditto.
►February 9, 2004 - Stopping Newborn AIDS May Harm Mothers - AP via The Herald-Sun
January 26 - February 8, 2004 (2 weeks combined due to illness)
►February 6, 2004 - A New Approach to Halting HIV Infection - press release - Tulane University via www.newswise.com
Comment: But what if, as some believe, there is no need to halt the spread of HIV because it has nothing to do with AIDS or anything else problematic?
►February 2004 - Perinatal HIV transmission is low but still a concern (requires registration) - At an urban hospital, only nine of 131 infants born over a two-year period were HIV positive. - Infectious Diseases in Children
January 19-25, 2004
►January 23, 2004 - HIV experts suggest halt to Thailand vaccine trial - www.indystar.com
►January 2004 - HIV diagnoses increased in more than half of the United States (requires registration) - New statistics show that more effort in prevention strategies is needed. - www.infectiousdiseasenews.com
Comment: But what if, as many believe, HIV has nothing to do with AIDS? Then what do these diagnoses mean, other than an spelling an opportunity to create fear and sell toxic drugs?
►January 22, 2004 - Is AIDS Vaccine Trial In Thailand A Waste Of Money? - www.voanews.com - "The problem, as critics see it, is that neither shot seems to work very well on its own. The first shot has not looked promising in preliminary tests. The second shot has already failed a previous large-scale trial. Cornell University AIDS researcher John Moore says putting the two together doesn't add up...'There is this argument that naught plus naught might equal one. Personally, I don't buy into it. The evidence that the two vaccine components work better together than apart is really very poor.'"
►January 4, 2004 - AIDS: A Death Cult - by John Lauritsen - www.altheal.org - "This article has been hard to write. I've taken a break from "AIDS" for several years, and returning to the topic now, I've been in shock over what has been done to us. My opinions have not changed: I still regard "AIDS" as the greatest blunder and the greatest hoax in medical history -- an epidemic of incompetence and an epidemic of lies...As long as there has been "AIDS" there have been critics of the orthodox AIDS model: "AIDS dissidents". For the most part our voices were silenced. As AIDS became a religion, a death cult -- with sacred commodities, dogmas, rituals, and sacrifices - any expression of skepticism was tantamount to blasphemy."
►January 21, 2004 - CDC to ask for probe into HIV positive party goers - The China Post - "The Center for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday announced that 28 of the 92 homosexuals nabbed by the police at a drug party last week are HIV positive...According to the CDC, only one party goer admitted to the police that he is HIV positive. The police later identified 27 more reported AIDS cases after checking with the health authorities...They were all caught while attending the infamous drug and sex party, known as the "Home Party" in the gay community."
Comment: What's THAT about?
►January 20, 2004 - Biggest-ever AIDS vaccine trial draws stinging criticism - USA Today - "When the world of AIDS vaccine research erupts into controversy, as it did again last week, the source is often pent-up frustration over the snail's pace of progress and the best use of research money...More than 20 years into the epidemic, only one vaccine has completed two large-scale clinical trials. It failed both. The latest flap centers on yet another test of that vaccine as part of a two-shot combination with another experimental vaccine."
January 12-18, 2004
►January 15, 2004 - Scientists warn big AIDS vaccine trial in Thailand will fail - AP via www.sfgate.com - "A massive human experiment testing an AIDS vaccine now underway in Thailand is bound to fail and the U.S. government is wasting $119 million funding it, 22 leading HIV researchers charged...The scientists allege the 16,000 Thai volunteers who are expected to receive a shot over the next two years will receive a cocktail made of two antiquated AIDS vaccines, each of which failed previous human tests."
►January 15, 2004 - Experts: Halt HIV Vaccine Trial - HealthDayNews via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - "Continuing a U.S. government-sponsored, large-scale trial of an HIV vaccine in Thailand is throwing good money after bad, a team of leading experts claims...The U.S. government defends the trial, saying this combination has not been tested on humans before now and it should at least be attempted."
►January 15, 2004 - Clinton Gets Five Companies to Reduce the Cost of AIDS Tests (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times - "Former President Bill Clinton announced yesterday that his foundation had negotiated deals with five major medical companies to steeply discount the price of two crucial diagnostic tests for H.I.V./AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean."
Comment: But what if HIV has nothing to do with AIDS, as many believe?
►January 2, 2004 - New York Data Reveal More New HIV Cases Are in Women - (requires registration) - Reuters via www.medscape.com
►January 14, 2004 - Conmen Cash in On HIV/Aids Scourge - The Herald (Harare) via www.allafrica.com - "'Diagnosed with Aids? Look no further, we have holy water and herbs that cure the virus and boost the immune system!...The increase in the number of people succumbing to the deadly HIV/Aids has resulted in an upsurge of 'miracle cures'."
►January 13, 2004 - Animal and human DNA link may give AIDS clue - The Sydney Morning Herald - "Human and animal DNA can combine naturally in a living body, a new study has shown...The dramatic discovery, in which pigs developed human and hybrid cells in their blood and organs, could help explain the origin of AIDS."
Comment: It's certainly looking more and more like using animal cell cultures for human drugs and biological products may have been a dangerously misguided venture. For more on their use go to Scandals: On "mad cows" and sick monkeys: From the people who brought you SV40 in vaccines.... Perhaps it's time to take seriously the notion that what we don't know can hurt us.
►January 12, 2004 - The blame game - The strategies for reducing HIV rates in Australia seemed to be working. But now, Jock Cheetham reports, the experts are wondering what went wrong. - The Sydney Morning Herald - "HIV rates are rising again after years of decline, dragging NSW into line with many other states and international trends. The AIDS Council of NSW is searching for the best response after years of safe sex messages that may have missed their targets."
Comment: But what if, as many believe, HIV has nothing to do with AIDS.
Comment: Again, what if, as so many believe, HIV has nothing do with AIDS?
January 5-11, 2004
►January 11, 2004 - Moms with HIV encouraged to breastfeed - www.startribune.com - "'You can't just say, "Don't breastfeed." That's a death sentence for many babies. Fine, they won't get HIV, but they will die of diarrhea,' said Jean Humphrey, who heads Zvitambo, a research project funded in part by Canada that examines HIV and breastfeeding in Zimbabwe."
►January 11, 2004 - Lankan doctor on the path to an AIDS cure - www.thesundayleader.lk - "Here is someone who just might have the solution that millions around the world have long been waiting for - a possible cure for AIDS. Dr. Mass Usuf is an alternative medical practitioner who specialises in acupuncture, homoeopathy, palm diagnosis and naturopathy and believes that homeopathic treatment, combined with other alternative methods of cure can be effectively used to fight this deadly disease."
December 29, 2003 - January 4, 2004
►December 28, 2003 - Liaisons fueling AIDS in Africa - Washington Times
Comment: On the other hand, there is convincing evidence that it is not sex, but the use of re-usable needles that is largely fueling "AIDS" in Africa (1,2).
►December 30, 2003 - Looking forward to 2004: HIV vaccine prospects - www.aidsmap.com
Comment: What if, as some believe (1,2), AIDS has nothing to do with HIV?
►December 29, 2003 - Africa is dying of Capitalism, not AIDS - www.khilafah.com - "The problem lies with the fact that American drugs companies have developed a treatment program for AIDS, spending enormous resources in research and development under the protection of the patent. Their reasons for doing this are simply financial; they intend to recoup their expenditure by selling the treatment at a massive profit."
Comment: And what if, as some believe, it is AIDS medications, not "AIDS", which are killing people?
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