May 18, 2006
Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we had a safe, effective vaccine to prevent the transmission of the HIV Virus? You may wonder if this is even possible. The answer depends upon whether the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world, can claim this as a top priority. Important work on HIV Vaccine Research is currently being done by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, and the NIH Vaccine Research Center, but more is needed.
An HIV Vaccine would not only save countless lives, but while Bush spends billions on the war, the National Institutes of Health is facing a budget reduction, since flat funding of the National Institutes of Health is in effect a budget decrease when you factor in inflaction.
Find out what you can do by visiting the brand spanking new AIDS Vaccine Clearinghouse created by my friend Edd Lee and the other great folks at the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, and be sure to check out this list of HIV Vaccine Awareness Day Events taking place today around the country.
Posted by David at May 18, 2006 06:13 PM
The article reporting that there is no vaccine to prevent the spread of HIV is not entirely correct.
There is a pill, named Tenovir, that does prevent the spread of HIV when given to HIV negative people as it helps prevent HIV from getting a foothold in a negative HIV person.
However, many Christians of the Taliban and Holy Roller types are trying to keep it from ordinary folks who do not have HIV because they feel that it would encourage sexual freedoms that have not been enjoyed since the pre-hiv days 1960s -and first half of the 1970s generation(for a description read John Rechy's Books---City of the Night and The Sexual Outlaw) and thus create possibly strains of syphyllis and GC that would be very difficult to cure. What needs to happen is a vaccine for these which the research was killed when Penicillin came along . The reason was that Penicillin cures the pre-1960 VDs and so there is no need for a vaccine. That is fallacious reasoning.
As for as the Bible thumpers et al are concerned; I see them as far more immoral than anything that they can imagine. Human Nature being what it is; people will engage in risky behaviors and it is better to have available Tenovir and other such medications to prevent HIV than to deprive people of it.
This is like the Catholic Church Policies creating poverty in the world by refusing to allow condoms for any reason amd advocating menstural cycle birth control. The consequences have been children brought into the world whose parents can not adequately care for them and the Church itself does little to help them although it did run an adoption agency. Adoptions should be resorted to as a last resort. A Child belongs with it's parents who are parents who can afford to adequately take care of it. Aside from crowding the planet; the church is also guilty of preventing the extinction of veneral disease which could have been wiped out after the 1920s had the church not prevented it's membership from condom use. Instead the Church created a reservoir of these diseases.
The Pope finally agreed to allow Catholics condoms to prevent the spread of Venereal Disease and HIV. That however does not excuse the Church's past behavior which in some ways it is still trying to cling to.
Unfortunately Tenovir is very expensive. If it were released and given under the supervision of a physician to prevent it's abuse like penicillin has been(resulting in difficult to cure strains of VD)---HIV could disappear from the face of the earth. We have eradicated smallpox (except in lab specimens) so we could eradicate HIV and Herpes also. If a way to manufacture Tenovir in great bulk---it would go a long way to preventing HIV infection.
The real solution is to find a cure for HIV and that is within reach thanks to advances in molecular biology.
