A world first: Vaccine helps prevent HIV infection

[John317]

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE and MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writers – 11 mins ago

BANGKOK – For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.

The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.

Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine," Col. Jerome Kim said in a telephone interview. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is "not the end of the road," but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.

"It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said in a telephone interview. "This is something that we can do."

Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; 2 million died of AIDS in 2007, the U.N. agency UNAIDS estimates.

[Dr. Shane]

Male circumcision cuts AIDS risk

Quote:

Male circumcision reduces the risk that men will contract HIV through intercourse with infected women by about 70 percent, according to a study reported in The Wall Street Journal.

After discovering the dramatic results, French and South African researchers halted the study about nine months in order to offer the uncircumcised men the opportunity to undergo the procedure, the newspaper reported.

So if circumcision is 70% effective and the new vaccine is 31% effective, if a man does both, that's 101% protection. Right?

[fccool]

take a quiz

http://duesberg.com/presentations/$bnAIDSQuiz.pdf

[phkrause]

It is quite interesting what we as created beings can do given the time. It makes one wonder what some of the things that man was doing just before the flood. Again dgrimm glad that your back.

pk