Conspiracy theories about the refusal to develop an HIV vaccination or AIDS cure are all over the place.
Cynics and critics believe that the big pharmaceutical industries and government collaborate to keep the cure for HIV and AIDS out of public reach. Not finding a cure for AIDS/HIV, some believe, keeps antiretroviral medication drug makers very wealthy.
But preventative HIV clinical trials are happening in communities across the globe and across America. Atlanta, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Francisco, San Juan, Seattle, and Washington are all holding preventive HIV vaccine trials and looking for members to become involved in a local Community Advisory Board.
The HIV positive community can support HIV vaccine research to help end AIDS. Although the same vaccine may be tested for both therapeutic and preventive effects, what works to prevent HIV infection may not necessarily work to treat people who already infected. Therapeutic treatments are administered to those who have the virus while preventive trials are for those statused HIV negative. Although there are currently no HIV/AIDS vaccines approved for use, many, many clinical trial studies are underway right now.
In the past 12 years, four large-scale efficacy trials have been conducted in various populations. In Thailand, the RV144 trail found a 31 percent reduction in the rate of HIV acquisition among vaccinated heterosexual men and women. The RV144 trial has given scientists reason for cautious optimism. But developing these findings could take years, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease said, because the traditional HIV vaccine trials are lengthy and it is still not known which immune system responses a vaccine needs to trigger to protect an individual from HIV infection.
To accelerate HIV vaccination development, scientists funded by NIAID propose using adaptive clinical trial designs. These designs allow a trial to be modified in response to data acquired during the study. These trials would rapidly screen out poor vaccine candidates and examine much closer the more promising candidates.
Last July, scientists were able to find the antibodies that prevent most HIV strains from infecting human cells. The RV144 trial in Thailand was the largest HIV vaccine study ever conducted and last March the Thailand study reported more than 16,000 volunteers. The study was sponsored by the US Army in partnership with the US Military HIV Military Research Program and the RV144 collaborators which include the NIAID.
The goal of a therapeutic vaccine is to strengthen the body‘s immune responses against HIV in hopes of boosting its ability to control HIV replication. For most people, natural immune responses against HIV are not enough to control HIV disease over the long-term. It is hoped that by boosting immune responses artificially that HIV disease progression could be prevented or significantly delayed.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Initiative and BeTheGeneration (to find a vaccine cure) are aligned to find a safe and effective vaccine to prevent the spread of HIV and stop the AIDS epidemic. NAID has worked with community leaders, community-based and national organizations, health professionals and educators to provide communities most affected with HIV.
source: BeTheGeneration.
May 18 is National HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD), a day to celebrate the thousands of volunteers, community members, health professionals, and scientists who are working to find a safe and effective vaccine against HIV.
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