[Tiara]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139879,00.html

Not exactly an AIDS vaccine, but actually a HIV immunity vaccine.

After getting three under-the-skin injections of the tailor-made vaccine, the amount of HIV in the patients' blood (called the viral load) dropped by 80 percent. After a year, eight of the 18 patients still had a 90 percent drop in HIV levels. All patients' T-cell counts stopped dropping.

Not quite there yet but still a nice thing to hear.

[IceFire]

Excellent progress...sounds like they are inching closer to getting this one beat.

[Rictor]

Awesome..

[Moonsword]

Sweet.  This is very, very good to hear.

[MatthewPapa]

I did not expect something like this to come so soon.

[Unknown Target]

Wow, amazing! *applauds*

[redmenace]

The real challenge is not necessarily creating the vaccine but making it in great enough quantities to innoculate mass quantities of individuals. Like the world polio vaccinations that will be the test.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by redmenace
The real challenge is not necessarily creating the vaccine but making it in great enough quantities to innoculate mass quantities of individuals. Like the world polio vaccinations that will be the test.

Actually, this vaccin has to be tailor made for every patient. It's made from his/her own cells (amongst other things).

But I expect the UN and other major governments to subsidize this treatment for HIV positive people if this becomes publically available.

[Lightspeed]

Wow, this is unexpected. There were/are several "strategies" around in development, and this wasn't particularily one of the more promising ones.

[redmenace]

The point still stands. It would be a massive undertaking for world innaculation. The vaccine basically would have to be cheap enough as well as simple enough to create in bulk. There are also questions about who should get this treatment. In my eyes, I see a treatment only being availiable to the well off (I am not making a judgement of whether that is right or wrong). Like a friends of the family's, Jerry Thacker, an aids activist(http://www.scepter.org/founder.asp), was well off(Marketing Consultant) when he found out that he had the virus. Because of that he and his wife were able to pay for advanced treatments and by some godly miracle they have been able to survive since 1986.

[Rictor]

Unfortunately, I forsee people's lives coming a distant second to the profits of well-connected drug giants.

It should be free to every man woman and child on Earth. Life comes before...well, pretty much everything, certainly money.

[redmenace]

Well, they have also put of money into research. They have a right to recoup their costs of R&D. They also have a ethical responsibility to their shareholders to make money. However, I think that if a real cure is found, the pharmacutical companies would be fairly and justly compensated for the pattents. But, even after the cure is found, more money will have to be put into the manufacturing in mass quantities.

[Rictor]

well, which is more important, the livelyhood of several hundred million people, or "recouping R&D losses and compensating shareholders (as if they haven't exploited the suffering of others for profit enough already)" ?

should millions suffer so that a handful of drug execs can buy another summer home?

[aldo_14]

I hope they can get this vaccine deployed in Africa ASAP.

[Rictor]

What he said.

[redmenace]

Originally posted by Rictor
well, which is more important, the livelyhood of several hundred million people, or "recouping R&D losses and compensating shareholders (as if they haven't exploited the suffering of others for profit enough already)" ?

should millions suffer so that a handful of drug execs can buy another summer home?

They can do what ever they want with it. I am not saying either way if it is right or wrong. But the naked truth is that it is theirs and no one can tell them what to do with it as long as they are not breaking the law. These companies don't have to do what they do. They don't have to research an AIDS vaccine or cure. Now the execs might have a moral dilema but not an ethical one. There would be a ethical dilema and they should hand over a cure if they were responcible for the suffering of the millions. But because they have offered a good or service that alleves pain and suffering doesn't make them evil.

[Liberator]

Is this a Vaccine?  IE an injection that protects from infection?

Just a more advanced treatment for those already infected?

[redmenace]

This is a treatment, but I wanted to point somethings out because I think people are thinking that this is the only major milestone that would have to be passed.

[Bobboau]

it seems to be a treatment for those infected

[Clave]

It is a much needed step in the right direction.