AIDS: Defeatism or realism?
Since my dad covered his first AIDS conference in 1992, a lot has changed. But one thing hasn’t: we still don’t have a vaccine to prevent AIDS.
This is one of the saddest ongoing failures of science. Foundations, governments and a handful of companies have spent billions of dollars over the past 20 years trying to develop a vaccine to protect people from AIDS. But now, you hear scientists openly admitting that we may never reach this goal.
“We don’t know yet whether a peventative vaccine is possible or not,” said virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi of the Pasteur Institute this morning. The best we can hope for, she said, is to know by the end of this century whether or not a preventative vaccine will even be possible. Perhaps, she suggested, we will develop a therapeutic vaccine instead – one that can be given after infection, to help the patient fight the disease.
Is this defeatism, or realism? Scientists say HIV is an extremely difficult virus to combat, because it mutates quickly to evade vaccines, infects the body for life, and affects the human body in ways we are only beginning to understand. There are some who are hopeful that as we continue to learn more, we’ll finally come up with a vaccine solution.
Among these optimists are Helene Gayle, co-chair of this meeting, and a former official of the Gates Foundation, which has made major investments in the search for an AIDS vaccine. Gayle strongly disagreed with Barré-Sinoussi’s comments: “I’m fully confident we will have a vaccine,” she said, even if it’s only a therapeutic vaccine.
I wouldn’t ever argue that we should shut down an area of promising research. But as the years drag on, and the millions of dollars pile up, it’s worth asking whether, and when, this investment will finally deliver.
Comments
This isssue is really thought provoking & infact the reality. When the scientists are not confident enough to develop a vaccine, then everything shuts down. But atleast the therapeutic vaccine if developed earlier then it may have some reason for people working hard to combat this dreadful disease.
Posted by: Shanthi Sankaralingam | August 15, 2006 08:00 PM
I wonder what would happen if we spent the same amount on prevention that we did on researching vaccines
Posted by: martin check | August 15, 2006 10:41 PM
What lay people don't know is that developing an effective vaccine against HIV is conceptually different from developing all of our familiar vaccines against other viruses (like polio and more, recently HPV). In those virus infections, antibody is known to be protective. All the vaccine has to do is generate enough of the right kind of antibody. In HIV, the infection itself induces plenty of antibody--that is, in fact the basis of the HIV screening tests. They test for the presence of antibody against the virus. The problem is that the antibody is not protective. It is not just that the virus mutates to evade the immune response, it is that we don't really know how to immunize people to generate the kind of immune response that is protective against HIV--presumably just the right kind of T cell response. Alas, HIV is very smart in evading the usual protective immune mechanisms. Scientists just have to get smarter.
Posted by: Irene Check | August 16, 2006 04:52 PM
HIV induces variety of Antibodies production in people of HIV infection. Amount these antibodies, two opposite functions of antibodies may be found; protective and destructive antibodies. Chia et al reported two types of anti-HIV-P24 antibodies of opposite function are observed in each individual HIV infected patients; there are distinguishable by acid treatment, acid sensitive and acid resistant. One is anti HIV-P24 specific and the other is P24 and human platelet cross-reactive. These two types of antibodies with two opposite function reactive to a single HIV-P24 protein might be derived from two types of B Lymphocytes, it is important that if one can identify and the right clone of B lymphocytes. To study the right of B lymphocyte, which is responsible for the production of specific anti-p24 antibody but not the anti-platelet cross reactive antibody, may help to develop a right preventive or proactive vaccine for patient with HIV infection.
Ref: Characterization of HIV-1-specific antibodies and HIV-1 ...
WAH KIAM CHIA, V BLANCHETTE, M MODY, JF WRIGHT, J FREEDMAN British journal of haematology 103:44, 1014-1022, Blackwell, 1998. ...
Posted by: Wah Kiam Chia, Ph.D. | December 28, 2006 01:42 AM