Vaccine for HIV?

I've heard people talk about how there may never be a true cure for HIV/AIDS because people would have no fear and start having copious, unprotected sex. Not sure I believe that. But this seems like encouraging news at face value.

 

Unless they can get it safely into sub-Saharan Africa, it won't make a shit's bit of difference.

 

HIV Vaccine Approved for Human Studies
After two decades of research, a group of Canadian scientists has won approval to start testing an experimental HIV vaccine on humans.

The vaccine, developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario, has received a green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical human trials.

Beginning in January, the vaccine will be given to 40 healthy people with HIV to test its safety.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1104653--hiv-vaccine-developed-in-canada-approved-for-human-studies?bn=1

 

Maybe I don't properly understand how vaccines work, but I thought you had to get a vaccine BEFORE you get infected, not after. If they are giving it to 40 people who already have HIV, how is this a vaccine?

 

They're testing its safety to make sure it doesn't kill them. The second phase will involve testing it on 600 HIV-negative subjects and the third phase would ramp that number up 6,000.

Reading. It's FUNdamental.

 

I found this sentence to be a little strange, maybe worded improperly, although maybe answered by the second story:

The way this is written, with no other explanation given makes it sound like they gave 16,000 volunteers the vaccine, then tried to infect them with the HIV virus. I can only assume that they took 16,000 AIDS or HIV patients the vaccine. But damn, some clarity would be nice.

 

You can get the vaccine for $180,000.

 

No. What they did is give the vaccine to 16,000 volunteers from at-risk groups, then compared the rate of infection from that group within a certain window of time to the expected rate of infection from that group within that same window of time.

 

It's like Magic.

 

"Magic has a secret AIDS cure" sounds like such bunk to me, and always has.

There are too many smart scientists working on this problem to sneak an off-speed pitch by them for twenty years like that. And if Magic gets the red carpet treatment, wouldn't someone else with money get it, too? And wouldn't someone talk eventually?

"Magic has a secret AIDS cure" is on par with the faked Moon landing to me.

One thing I thought was cool in recent months was the story about how video gamers solved some kind of structural puzzle regarding the virus. Wisdom of the crowd.

 

I believe in the moon landing. I also believe that Magic Johnson has access to some drug that the rest of the public does not. Secret cure? Not necessarily... A drug that might be in the works in another country that is not FDA approved? That seems the more likely scenario.

 

Yeah, there are certainly different levels of such a so-called conspiracy where believability and plausibility begins to fade proportionally.