11 ms·

AIDS vaccine in final testing

381 points by swombat 16y ago

I hate to quote the Daily Mail, but this is also a good source (perhaps better): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1371540/Mosaic-HIV-vaccine-imminent-Scientists-begin-trialling-breakthrough-drug-year.html Couldn't find better sources yet.

swombat 16y ago
Another source (perhaps even better, but it's the Daily Mail, urgh): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1371540/Mosaic-HIV-vaccine-imminent-Scientists-begin-trialling-breakthrough-drug-year.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1371540/Mosaic-HIV...
bmelton 16y ago
A friend of mine was in pretty bad straits with the AIDS virus, full blown, and got into early clinical trials in a potential AIDS cure (don't know if it's this or not). When we last spoke, his white blood cell count was up, and there was literally no trace of the virus in his blood stream; which is to say that while the virus may not have been 100% eradicated, any presence was literally undetectable. That was over a year and a half ago, and I recently heard that he's still A-Okay, but I've heard surprisingly little about successful trials in the news.
- ChuckMcM 16y ago
  The title seems to be off, from the article: "... she and her team gear up for the first round of human trials of an HIV vaccine." from that it sounds like they are starting human trials. As I this is not the first vaccine to get to this stage, it's certainly not what your friend was given (I assume your friend is human) as they haven't tested on humans yet.
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- jules 16y ago
  That must have been a different thing right? Because vaccines don't work anymore when you're already infected? But still that's amazing news!
  - bmelton 16y ago
    Depends on the vaccine. There have recently been a number of vaccines that claimed to work after infection as well. I said elsewhere in the thread as well, but that was my question to him, and he indicated that it was intended to be marketed as a vaccine, but his trial was as a post-infection cure. I do believe it was the same product. Edit: It was said above, but the word I couldn't think of at the time was 'antiretroviral'.
- dstein 16y ago
  A vaccine would prevent you from getting aids, but probably not cure it.
  - bmelton 16y ago
    To wit, I believe it is both a vaccine and a cure, though again, I'm scarce on details -- but I had the same question for him when he first told me about it.
    - MScStudent 16y ago
      its hard to believe it would be a cure cause HIV mutates quite rapidly in people creating a fair amount of resistant strains
- thisrod 16y ago
  That's normal. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is now easy to treat. It hasn't killed many rich people for 15 years.
  - bmelton 16y ago
    Not to take anything away from your comment, but he was well past having just HIV, and full bore into AIDS, and he was also not even remotely wealthy. Having graduated from living in his car full time to a 180 square foot apartment just before his uninsured car was stolen.
    - peripitea 16y ago
      He probably meant "rich" in the global sense.
      - deleted 16y ago
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      - GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
        True, that is incredible that we can kick this disease pretty hard now. However the problem still stands, the only known solution is a bone marrow transplant and that requires a corpse + a 50/50 chance to die.
        RK 16y ago
        Bone marrow is generally harvested from living people. Some links here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow#Harvesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow#Harvesting
      - catch23 16y ago
        I'm guessing he wasn't sick in the USA, since you actually need to be rich to pay for specialized healthcare here.
  - SandB0x 16y ago
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Modern antiretrovirals are very effective. Combined with a healthy immune system, it's entirely possible for HIV to be present, but knocked into submission. Both health risks and chances of propagation are significantly reduced. That doesn't, however, mean the virus has been eliminated.
  - GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
    So the great part of this is that pretty much you can live to a ripe old age. The issue is price. If we can TREAT it for a person's life, thats great. That is no solution for a massive epidemic in Africa though where we'd be lucky to vaccinate everyone if we could, nevermind a long-term treatment.
    - redthrowaway 16y ago
      Africa's always going to be a problem. Assuming this vaccine is effective, we need to take the same approach to HIV that we did to smallpox. That will likely mean substantial Western subsidies for poorer nations, and a concerted boots-on-the-ground effort to administer the vaccine. It will be a long time before HIV is eliminated, and it will come at a substantial cost to taxpayers, but it's well worth it to rid ourselves of this disease.
      - derleth 16y ago
        > That will likely mean substantial Western subsidies for poorer nations, and a concerted boots-on-the-ground effort to administer the vaccine. It will also mean knocking the people who are convinced the vaccines cause AIDS out of the political world, lest they destroy our ability to do that. This will require action in both the Western world and in Africa, and will make a number of people very unhappy. I know most people here don't care about those morons. However, any accounting of the cost has to include the political cost.
        magicmorg 16y ago
        you may not need as many boots on the ground if you use this topical vaccine approach http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-application-of-cream-based-vaccines/ http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-ap...
- qeorge 16y ago
  That's awesome, happy to hear he's doing so well.
- deleted 16y ago
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Roritharr 16y ago
When i was 8 or 9 years old me and my best friend always fought about who would cure aids and who would cure cancer when we were grown up. Now i'm 23 years old, and went into CS instead of medicine although i had the possibility and had nearly as much interst in the field as in CS. Nice to know someone was already hard at work while we were joking around.
scott_s 16y ago
Title is misleading. To me, the headline "AIDS vaccine in final testing" implies that they are undergoing their final testing to verify that it does indeed prevent people from contracting HIV. That is not what it means. Rather, it means that they are in the final rounds to verify that the vaccine is safe, before they start human trials. A more accurate title, to my ears, would be "HIV vaccine almost ready for human trials."
- sabat 16y ago
  You're correct about what stage they're at, but this is still very exciting news.
- eli 16y ago
  or even, "New HIV vaccines almost ready for human trials" since, according to wikipedia, there have been at least 13 previous phase 1 trials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_vaccine#Phase_I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_vaccine#Phase_I
- reason 16y ago
  Yes, you're correct. There are 3 major phases in clinically testing a drug's safety and efficacy before it's brought to market, and it seems like they're close to starting the first one. For all those interested in the 3 phases, here they are: Phase 1: Small number of healthy volunteers to assess drug safety, toxicity, and pharmacokinetics. Phase 2: Small number of patients with the disease of interest to test drug efficacy. Phase 3: Large number of patients with the disease of interest to test effects of new treatment in comparison to those of existing treatments. This is where you see double-blind studies, etc. Personally, this isn't terribly noteworthy. They've merely devised a new theory that's shown to be effective using animal models, and are still quite a ways away from seeing if similar results will occur with human testing. Of course, I do hope they see good results.
  - patrickaljord 16y ago
    > Phase 2: Small number of patients with the disease of interest to test drug efficacy. > Phase 3: Large number of patients with the disease of interest to test effects of new treatment in comparison to those of existing treatments. I'm not sure phase 2 and 3 make sense for a vaccine though. Vaccines are only useful for healthy people. I guess the testing is done on healthy animals which are then transmitted the HIV virus, unless some people would accept to go through that kind of testing, not very likely but I'm no specialist so I may be wrong.
eli 16y ago
This is a very misleading headline. Many potential vaccines have gone through Phase 1 human trials in the past decade. Phase 1 is hardly the "final" test. It's mainly to establish safety, it doesn't even prove the drug works. AIDSVAX made it all the way to Phase 3 trials, but unfortunately it was not found to be effective. I've got my fingers crossed, but this is not a particularly newsworthy event.
mirkules 16y ago
I always wonder how they actually test if a vaccine against lethal diseases is successful in humans. I can't imagine there are volunteers who sign up to be injected with a vaccine and then get injected with a live HIV virus, just to see if the vaccine works. Or do they just inoculate volunteers from the highest "at-risk" population -- but then, how do they measure if people have been exposed eventually to the virus or not?
- kenjackson 16y ago
  You do double blind against a placebo with an at risk group. Then in X years you look at infection rates with survey data to complement it.
  - mirkules 16y ago
    If I understand this correctly, it's all about finding a best-fit model for the change in infection rates after X amount of years. There could be a number of factors at play (environmental, political, religious), but the "correct" cause of change will stick out like a sore thumb.
- relix 16y ago
  When I was in university, the university hospital used to do a lot of medicine trials. Basically, you get paid to be a guinea pig. They did several experiments for HIV drugs. The details are fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, they create a replica of the HIV virus that is totally harmless, but has the same outer cell layer (and reacts to the same chemicals as the real HIV would), and then infect you with that. This allows them to test the interactions with drugs, without giving people real HIV. After the tests, you receive a certificate saying you are forever HIV positive according to some tests, but that it is a false positive, and using test X it can be verified that you're not really HIV positive. This was important for future medical operations and getting into certain countries that ban HIV-positive people. Needless to say, you got a lot of money to do these fake HIV experiments.
losvedir 16y ago
While this is a promising first start, it looks like it's a long way from being a working, FDA approved therapy. This sounds like it's entering Phase 1 testing. Phase 1 testing is where the drug is tested on healthy volunteers to monitor its effects on humans and whether it's safe and could potentially work. Next it moves on to Phase 2, where the drug's efficacy is tested in addition to safety, in a small number of patients. If a drug succeeds there, it will then move into Phase 3 trials with, usually, hundreds or even thousands of patients. FDA approval generally requires two such Phase 3 trials to succeed. The whole process can take ten years and drugs can and do frequently fail along the way. I wish I had the statistic on hand, but I'd estimate less than 20% of drugs entering Phase 1 trials make it all the way.
chubs 16y ago
This is pretty amazing news if true. Imagine the flow-on social effects of aids being reduced (or even eradicated!) in africa. Less orphans brings less poverty brings higher education, less violence, it really is going to be a big deal when someone finally makes an aids cure
guscost 16y ago
AIDS is not a virus, it's a set of conditions. HIV is what you'd vaccinate against. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_defining_clinical_condition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_defining_clinical_conditio...
dotBen 16y ago
I'm curious a to why this vaccine has been worked in at Los Alamos which is a national security orientated government laboratory. (US government, of course) On the one hand it makes sense - AIDS/HIV is a national security issue in many ways - I just wonder what that means for everyone outside of the US. If the US government owns the vaccine, are they going to share it openly and without prejudice to any other countries that want it? Even Iran? But it also makes you wonder, then, whether there is merit in donating to AIDS/HIV research charities if any significant break-throughs are going to be snapped up by the government as matters for national security.
- danenania 16y ago
  Even if they wanted to, there's no way they could keep it in their control. Medical researchers aren't soldiers; if a cure was found and the government was crazy enough to try to control it, instructions for synthesizing it would be on the web in five seconds.
- wgrover 16y ago
  I think there's an easier explanation than national security. There's a huge variety of research going on at all the National Labs. Their place within the Department of Energy motivates the development of unique energy-related resources (supercomputing, particle accelerators, you name it) which then find uses in fields like biology. At first glance, it looks like LANL's computing expertise facilitated this vaccine research.
  - dotBen 16y ago
    Very probably. Point still stands though, what's the point of funding independent AIDS/HIV research if the government is funding it on a national security agenda. Given this audience, perhaps that's rhetorical question - but I thought worth asking.
jessedhillon 16y ago
If this ever materializes as a widely available, easily administered vaccine, can you imagine the uproar from so-called religious folks in the US? A vaccine which safely prevents one from contracting an STD that is a killer of millions. These people are going to lose their shit as they race to the nearest camera to denounce science for supporting "immoral" sexual activity (read: anything but abstinence) or worse, homosexuality (because HIV can really only be gotten from gays). It was already pretty bad when the vaccine came out for HPV. In this case it's not hard for me to imagine Republicans blocking any aid to India or African countries (where the incidence of AIDS is highest) that comes in the form of an HIV vaccine, insisting instead that the money be spent on ineffectual abstinence efforts. Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical.
- dandelany 16y ago
  Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical. Yup.
  - jessedhillon 16y ago
    I don't think I'm being cynical but I'm open to the possibility. The response from the religious groups to the HPV vaccine was very much along the lines of what I laid out in my original comment. Here's a Catholic perspective on the matter: "...and by eliminating one element of risk it might act as a green light for promiscuous behaviour,” said the Catholic Church spokesman. Taken from, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/catholic.church.warns.new.vaccine.may.increase.underage.sex/4592.htm http://www.christiantoday.com/article/catholic.church.warns.... It's pretty amazing that, on Hacker News, a glib throwaway comment like this gets any votes whatsoever. If you disagree with what I wrote you should at least be able to take a minute to write a few well-formed sentences that make a point, instead of leaving this comment that adds nothing.
    - dexen 16y ago
      There are two groups of reasons to refrain from promiscuous behavior. One is the high-visibility, high-impact kind of reasons, like risk of infections. The other is the low-visibility, high-impact kind of reasons, like effects on morality, family relationships and whatnot. Now the other group, being low-visibility, is much harder to convince people about, than the high-visibility group of reasons. Whoever teaches people to refrain from promiscuity may be naturally fond on the high-visibility group of reasons as an easy argument. Should the high-visibility group be dismounted (by successful vaccinations, in this case), it suddenly becomes harder to get the message through. Which was expressed in a slightly roundabound way with, ``and by eliminating [[the highly-visible risk]] [[people may feel greenlighted]] for promiscuous behavior''. In short, a vaccine by itself isn't a message in any direction (it's neutral), but lessens one of messages left there by evolution (STDs). Uh, that's my take, anyway.
j_baker 16y ago
If you don't want to wait for this HIV vaccine, there are others you can volunteer to test if you live in the Bay Area: http://www.helpfighthiv.org/vaccinetrials.htm http://www.helpfighthiv.org/vaccinetrials.htm
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andresmh 16y ago
I worked at Los Alamos as an undergrad. I didn't know they did bio research. Go LANL!
GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
So honestly while I am super excited about the possibility of AIDS being a fear of the past, heres my criticism: I read sometime ago that the conundrum with AIDS is that the better the immune system response, the faster it spreads. Because the response basically brings it's food to it faster. So vaccines seemed to actually do more harm. I'm very curious on this, and would hope to see more on this particular story, and with more details than a "almost ready for human trial yay!"
ck2 16y ago
So is it going to be $8 or $80? Probably $8 outside the USA and $80 inside ?
yason 16y ago
As long as people won't let go of their urge to inflict their guilt into various lethal diseases we'll always have enough of them; double so for sexually transmitted diseases.
bnegreve 16y ago
Assuming that this vaccine "works", can it be of any use to people that already contracted AIDS ?
berito 16y ago
I am going to go get some with the filthiest tonight!
berito 16y ago
I am going to go get some with the filthiest tonight!
gohat 16y ago
This has almost no value. This basically says that a proposed vaccine has shown some signs of efficacy in animal models and has not even been tested yet in humans as to whether or not it is safe. In the field of AIDS, vaccine development has been tragically hard.
takameyer 16y ago
While I'm happy to hear this promising news, this article could really use more beef. Anyone have some good references or additional information on this topic?
antihero 16y ago
Wouldn't you have to have balls of steel to do human testing for this? If it doesn't work, don't you essentially contract HIV?
magicmorg 16y ago
Scott_s is right it isnt even in phase one yet and may not make past phase two plus how cross reactive will it be to newer mutations in HIV will it just create a selective pressure to more virulent viruses but check out a cool vaccine type here it doesn't use any needles http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-application-of-cream-based-vaccines/ http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-ap...

381 points by swombat 16y ago

swombat 16y ago

Another source (perhaps even better, but it's the Daily Mail, urgh): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1371540/Mosaic-HIV-vaccine-imminent-Scientists-begin-trialling-breakthrough-drug-year.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1371540/Mosaic-HIV...

bmelton 16y ago

A friend of mine was in pretty bad straits with the AIDS virus, full blown, and got into early clinical trials in a potential AIDS cure (don't know if it's this or not). When we last spoke, his white blood cell count was up, and there was literally no trace of the virus in his blood stream; which is to say that while the virus may not have been 100% eradicated, any presence was literally undetectable. That was over a year and a half ago, and I recently heard that he's still A-Okay, but I've heard surprisingly little about successful trials in the news.

ChuckMcM 16y ago
The title seems to be off, from the article: "... she and her team gear up for the first round of human trials of an HIV vaccine." from that it sounds like they are starting human trials. As I this is not the first vaccine to get to this stage, it's certainly not what your friend was given (I assume your friend is human) as they haven't tested on humans yet.
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jules 16y ago
That must have been a different thing right? Because vaccines don't work anymore when you're already infected? But still that's amazing news!
- bmelton 16y ago
  Depends on the vaccine. There have recently been a number of vaccines that claimed to work after infection as well. I said elsewhere in the thread as well, but that was my question to him, and he indicated that it was intended to be marketed as a vaccine, but his trial was as a post-infection cure. I do believe it was the same product. Edit: It was said above, but the word I couldn't think of at the time was 'antiretroviral'.
dstein 16y ago
A vaccine would prevent you from getting aids, but probably not cure it.
- bmelton 16y ago
  To wit, I believe it is both a vaccine and a cure, though again, I'm scarce on details -- but I had the same question for him when he first told me about it.
  - MScStudent 16y ago
    its hard to believe it would be a cure cause HIV mutates quite rapidly in people creating a fair amount of resistant strains
thisrod 16y ago
That's normal. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is now easy to treat. It hasn't killed many rich people for 15 years.
- bmelton 16y ago
  Not to take anything away from your comment, but he was well past having just HIV, and full bore into AIDS, and he was also not even remotely wealthy. Having graduated from living in his car full time to a 180 square foot apartment just before his uninsured car was stolen.
  - peripitea 16y ago
    He probably meant "rich" in the global sense.
    - deleted 16y ago
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    - GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
      True, that is incredible that we can kick this disease pretty hard now. However the problem still stands, the only known solution is a bone marrow transplant and that requires a corpse + a 50/50 chance to die.
      - RK 16y ago
        Bone marrow is generally harvested from living people. Some links here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow#Harvesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow#Harvesting
    - catch23 16y ago
      I'm guessing he wasn't sick in the USA, since you actually need to be rich to pay for specialized healthcare here.
- SandB0x 16y ago
redthrowaway 16y ago
Modern antiretrovirals are very effective. Combined with a healthy immune system, it's entirely possible for HIV to be present, but knocked into submission. Both health risks and chances of propagation are significantly reduced. That doesn't, however, mean the virus has been eliminated.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
  So the great part of this is that pretty much you can live to a ripe old age. The issue is price. If we can TREAT it for a person's life, thats great. That is no solution for a massive epidemic in Africa though where we'd be lucky to vaccinate everyone if we could, nevermind a long-term treatment.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    Africa's always going to be a problem. Assuming this vaccine is effective, we need to take the same approach to HIV that we did to smallpox. That will likely mean substantial Western subsidies for poorer nations, and a concerted boots-on-the-ground effort to administer the vaccine. It will be a long time before HIV is eliminated, and it will come at a substantial cost to taxpayers, but it's well worth it to rid ourselves of this disease.
    - derleth 16y ago
      > That will likely mean substantial Western subsidies for poorer nations, and a concerted boots-on-the-ground effort to administer the vaccine. It will also mean knocking the people who are convinced the vaccines cause AIDS out of the political world, lest they destroy our ability to do that. This will require action in both the Western world and in Africa, and will make a number of people very unhappy. I know most people here don't care about those morons. However, any accounting of the cost has to include the political cost.
      - magicmorg 16y ago
        you may not need as many boots on the ground if you use this topical vaccine approach http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-application-of-cream-based-vaccines/ http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-ap...
qeorge 16y ago
That's awesome, happy to hear he's doing so well.
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Roritharr 16y ago

When i was 8 or 9 years old me and my best friend always fought about who would cure aids and who would cure cancer when we were grown up. Now i'm 23 years old, and went into CS instead of medicine although i had the possibility and had nearly as much interst in the field as in CS. Nice to know someone was already hard at work while we were joking around.

scott_s 16y ago

Title is misleading. To me, the headline "AIDS vaccine in final testing" implies that they are undergoing their final testing to verify that it does indeed prevent people from contracting HIV. That is not what it means. Rather, it means that they are in the final rounds to verify that the vaccine is safe, before they start human trials. A more accurate title, to my ears, would be "HIV vaccine almost ready for human trials."

sabat 16y ago
You're correct about what stage they're at, but this is still very exciting news.
eli 16y ago
or even, "New HIV vaccines almost ready for human trials" since, according to wikipedia, there have been at least 13 previous phase 1 trials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_vaccine#Phase_I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_vaccine#Phase_I
reason 16y ago
Yes, you're correct. There are 3 major phases in clinically testing a drug's safety and efficacy before it's brought to market, and it seems like they're close to starting the first one. For all those interested in the 3 phases, here they are: Phase 1: Small number of healthy volunteers to assess drug safety, toxicity, and pharmacokinetics. Phase 2: Small number of patients with the disease of interest to test drug efficacy. Phase 3: Large number of patients with the disease of interest to test effects of new treatment in comparison to those of existing treatments. This is where you see double-blind studies, etc. Personally, this isn't terribly noteworthy. They've merely devised a new theory that's shown to be effective using animal models, and are still quite a ways away from seeing if similar results will occur with human testing. Of course, I do hope they see good results.
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  > Phase 2: Small number of patients with the disease of interest to test drug efficacy. > Phase 3: Large number of patients with the disease of interest to test effects of new treatment in comparison to those of existing treatments. I'm not sure phase 2 and 3 make sense for a vaccine though. Vaccines are only useful for healthy people. I guess the testing is done on healthy animals which are then transmitted the HIV virus, unless some people would accept to go through that kind of testing, not very likely but I'm no specialist so I may be wrong.

eli 16y ago

This is a very misleading headline. Many potential vaccines have gone through Phase 1 human trials in the past decade. Phase 1 is hardly the "final" test. It's mainly to establish safety, it doesn't even prove the drug works. AIDSVAX made it all the way to Phase 3 trials, but unfortunately it was not found to be effective. I've got my fingers crossed, but this is not a particularly newsworthy event.

mirkules 16y ago

I always wonder how they actually test if a vaccine against lethal diseases is successful in humans. I can't imagine there are volunteers who sign up to be injected with a vaccine and then get injected with a live HIV virus, just to see if the vaccine works. Or do they just inoculate volunteers from the highest "at-risk" population -- but then, how do they measure if people have been exposed eventually to the virus or not?

kenjackson 16y ago
You do double blind against a placebo with an at risk group. Then in X years you look at infection rates with survey data to complement it.
- mirkules 16y ago
  If I understand this correctly, it's all about finding a best-fit model for the change in infection rates after X amount of years. There could be a number of factors at play (environmental, political, religious), but the "correct" cause of change will stick out like a sore thumb.
relix 16y ago
When I was in university, the university hospital used to do a lot of medicine trials. Basically, you get paid to be a guinea pig. They did several experiments for HIV drugs. The details are fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, they create a replica of the HIV virus that is totally harmless, but has the same outer cell layer (and reacts to the same chemicals as the real HIV would), and then infect you with that. This allows them to test the interactions with drugs, without giving people real HIV. After the tests, you receive a certificate saying you are forever HIV positive according to some tests, but that it is a false positive, and using test X it can be verified that you're not really HIV positive. This was important for future medical operations and getting into certain countries that ban HIV-positive people. Needless to say, you got a lot of money to do these fake HIV experiments.

losvedir 16y ago

While this is a promising first start, it looks like it's a long way from being a working, FDA approved therapy. This sounds like it's entering Phase 1 testing. Phase 1 testing is where the drug is tested on healthy volunteers to monitor its effects on humans and whether it's safe and could potentially work. Next it moves on to Phase 2, where the drug's efficacy is tested in addition to safety, in a small number of patients. If a drug succeeds there, it will then move into Phase 3 trials with, usually, hundreds or even thousands of patients. FDA approval generally requires two such Phase 3 trials to succeed. The whole process can take ten years and drugs can and do frequently fail along the way. I wish I had the statistic on hand, but I'd estimate less than 20% of drugs entering Phase 1 trials make it all the way.

chubs 16y ago

This is pretty amazing news if true. Imagine the flow-on social effects of aids being reduced (or even eradicated!) in africa. Less orphans brings less poverty brings higher education, less violence, it really is going to be a big deal when someone finally makes an aids cure

guscost 16y ago

AIDS is not a virus, it's a set of conditions. HIV is what you'd vaccinate against. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_defining_clinical_condition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_defining_clinical_conditio...

dotBen 16y ago

I'm curious a to why this vaccine has been worked in at Los Alamos which is a national security orientated government laboratory. (US government, of course) On the one hand it makes sense - AIDS/HIV is a national security issue in many ways - I just wonder what that means for everyone outside of the US. If the US government owns the vaccine, are they going to share it openly and without prejudice to any other countries that want it? Even Iran? But it also makes you wonder, then, whether there is merit in donating to AIDS/HIV research charities if any significant break-throughs are going to be snapped up by the government as matters for national security.

danenania 16y ago
Even if they wanted to, there's no way they could keep it in their control. Medical researchers aren't soldiers; if a cure was found and the government was crazy enough to try to control it, instructions for synthesizing it would be on the web in five seconds.
wgrover 16y ago
I think there's an easier explanation than national security. There's a huge variety of research going on at all the National Labs. Their place within the Department of Energy motivates the development of unique energy-related resources (supercomputing, particle accelerators, you name it) which then find uses in fields like biology. At first glance, it looks like LANL's computing expertise facilitated this vaccine research.
- dotBen 16y ago
  Very probably. Point still stands though, what's the point of funding independent AIDS/HIV research if the government is funding it on a national security agenda. Given this audience, perhaps that's rhetorical question - but I thought worth asking.

jessedhillon 16y ago

If this ever materializes as a widely available, easily administered vaccine, can you imagine the uproar from so-called religious folks in the US? A vaccine which safely prevents one from contracting an STD that is a killer of millions. These people are going to lose their shit as they race to the nearest camera to denounce science for supporting "immoral" sexual activity (read: anything but abstinence) or worse, homosexuality (because HIV can really only be gotten from gays). It was already pretty bad when the vaccine came out for HPV. In this case it's not hard for me to imagine Republicans blocking any aid to India or African countries (where the incidence of AIDS is highest) that comes in the form of an HIV vaccine, insisting instead that the money be spent on ineffectual abstinence efforts. Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical.

dandelany 16y ago
Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical. Yup.
- jessedhillon 16y ago
  I don't think I'm being cynical but I'm open to the possibility. The response from the religious groups to the HPV vaccine was very much along the lines of what I laid out in my original comment. Here's a Catholic perspective on the matter: "...and by eliminating one element of risk it might act as a green light for promiscuous behaviour,” said the Catholic Church spokesman. Taken from, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/catholic.church.warns.new.vaccine.may.increase.underage.sex/4592.htm http://www.christiantoday.com/article/catholic.church.warns.... It's pretty amazing that, on Hacker News, a glib throwaway comment like this gets any votes whatsoever. If you disagree with what I wrote you should at least be able to take a minute to write a few well-formed sentences that make a point, instead of leaving this comment that adds nothing.
  - dexen 16y ago
    There are two groups of reasons to refrain from promiscuous behavior. One is the high-visibility, high-impact kind of reasons, like risk of infections. The other is the low-visibility, high-impact kind of reasons, like effects on morality, family relationships and whatnot. Now the other group, being low-visibility, is much harder to convince people about, than the high-visibility group of reasons. Whoever teaches people to refrain from promiscuity may be naturally fond on the high-visibility group of reasons as an easy argument. Should the high-visibility group be dismounted (by successful vaccinations, in this case), it suddenly becomes harder to get the message through. Which was expressed in a slightly roundabound way with, ``and by eliminating [[the highly-visible risk]] [[people may feel greenlighted]] for promiscuous behavior''. In short, a vaccine by itself isn't a message in any direction (it's neutral), but lessens one of messages left there by evolution (STDs). Uh, that's my take, anyway.

j_baker 16y ago

If you don't want to wait for this HIV vaccine, there are others you can volunteer to test if you live in the Bay Area: http://www.helpfighthiv.org/vaccinetrials.htm http://www.helpfighthiv.org/vaccinetrials.htm

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andresmh 16y ago

I worked at Los Alamos as an undergrad. I didn't know they did bio research. Go LANL!

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago

So honestly while I am super excited about the possibility of AIDS being a fear of the past, heres my criticism: I read sometime ago that the conundrum with AIDS is that the better the immune system response, the faster it spreads. Because the response basically brings it's food to it faster. So vaccines seemed to actually do more harm. I'm very curious on this, and would hope to see more on this particular story, and with more details than a "almost ready for human trial yay!"

ck2 16y ago

So is it going to be $8 or $80? Probably $8 outside the USA and $80 inside ?

yason 16y ago

As long as people won't let go of their urge to inflict their guilt into various lethal diseases we'll always have enough of them; double so for sexually transmitted diseases.

bnegreve 16y ago

Assuming that this vaccine "works", can it be of any use to people that already contracted AIDS ?

berito 16y ago

I am going to go get some with the filthiest tonight!

berito 16y ago

I am going to go get some with the filthiest tonight!

gohat 16y ago

This has almost no value. This basically says that a proposed vaccine has shown some signs of efficacy in animal models and has not even been tested yet in humans as to whether or not it is safe. In the field of AIDS, vaccine development has been tragically hard.

takameyer 16y ago

While I'm happy to hear this promising news, this article could really use more beef. Anyone have some good references or additional information on this topic?

antihero 16y ago

Wouldn't you have to have balls of steel to do human testing for this? If it doesn't work, don't you essentially contract HIV?

magicmorg 16y ago

Scott_s is right it isnt even in phase one yet and may not make past phase two plus how cross reactive will it be to newer mutations in HIV will it just create a selective pressure to more virulent viruses but check out a cool vaccine type here it doesn't use any needles http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-application-of-cream-based-vaccines/ http://gcc.eyeptv.net/blog/2011/03/08/needle-free-topical-ap...