Prev Page 3 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 Next » Please log in to reply 137 replies to this topic

[roiethome]

whilst I agree this is a major step forward, I think the results show that it is too soon to throw away the condoms and start sharing needles with strangers, as there is still a high chance of becoming infected even after taking the vaccine.
If so, what is the point of releasing this information with such banner headlines now. I would not sign up for something which is so low a success rate.   Surely they should wait until it is 100% effective and then we can go back to how it used to be before this epidemic started.

[Scott]

At this point, it is a trial.  I don't believe there is any plan to release this vaccine.  

Releasing the information, however, may spur further R&D as well as see funding restored to programs.

And finally, it's news.  Not necessarily the best news, but it's newsworthy none-the-less.

[eggomaniac]

astral, on 2009-09-24 02:21:21, said:

It is a start, I suppose,

BUT what about the other 69% who still contracted the disease?????????

NOT 69%....
Actually less than 1% of ALL the volunteers developed AIDS.
The CONTROL group 0.6% - The PLACEBO group 0.9%
--------------
The TEST would have to be run at least 2 more times before it is given some weight, especially when the vaccine used was a combination of 2 disproven vaccines, NOT some new discovery.
Apparently the PLACEBO group did better than the Thai National average 1.4% by 0.5%.
{2007 statistcs Below}

They SOULD have run the test in some of those African countries where the Rate is ONE IN FOUR!!!! Thailand is barely in the top 50 for frequency.
https://www.cia.gov/...r/2155rank.html

Okay LAST edit  LOL  The newscast I saw said, as a Discalimer, this was only tested on the Asian HIV virus.
They said there are 3 or 4 strains in the World. [didn't know that]

Edited by eggomaniac, 2009-09-25 11:55:56.

[nidhogg]

Johpa, on 2009-09-25 05:07:19, said:

caf, on 2009-09-24 16:34:30, said:

I can't even spell epidemiology but as far as statistics is concerned you are right. It is not "statistically significant"

Thailand can't yet claim the hub of scientific discoverries. Nice try I suppose but mathematicains would not buy it.

Uh, perhaps there is a correlation between poor spelling and a poor understanding of statistics. A 31% increase in prevention in a phase III study is significant in any mathematician's book.

Well, I am not a mathematician, and I do have bad spelling - however, I once saw a cartoon program about statistics, so I will have a go.  Simply using a Chi squared test on the numbers presented (that cartoon was fairly detailed) gives you a bare level of significance that indicates that there is a 1 in 20 chance of the numbers falling that way by random chance.

Now, as it was quite a long cartoon, it also mentioned multiple regression analysis which is a statistical tool for dealing with lots of variables.  So, whats the odds that putting in data on participants sex, age, sexual orientation and drug use habits (to name a few) and still ending up that the vaccine is a significant independent variable? - small, would be my guess, very very small.  

Think I will keep the condoms handy for a bit longer.

[TAWP]

eggomaniac, on 2009-09-25 11:29:45, said:

astral, on 2009-09-24 02:21:21, said:

It is a start, I suppose,

BUT what about the other 69% who still contracted the disease?????????

NOT 69%....
Actually less than 1% of ALL the volunteers developed AIDS.
The CONTROL group 0.6% - The PLACEBO group 0.9%

Conracted HIV, not developed AIDS.

eggomaniac, on 2009-09-25 11:29:45, said:

The TEST would have to be run at least 2 more times before it is given some weight, especially when the vaccine used was a combination of 2 disproven vaccines, NOT some new discovery.
Apparently the PLACEBO group did better than the Thai National average 1.4% by 0.5%.

The reason is due to the campaign also containing information of safe sex, including pushing for usage of condoms etc.

And yes, as someone mentioned, the location of the trial indicates there were a fair number of late night establishment workers in this trial.

Not sure if professions of trial subjects are indicated in the documentation.

[eggomaniac]

caf, on 2009-09-24 02:45:09, said:

Jingthing, on 2009-09-24 16:32:32, said:

There is no cure for HIV, only treatment. What's scary? They chose a high risk population who just continued to live their lives as they would have anyway.

The Op is saying there is a cure. "an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus"

BTW I hope a cure will be found

For the record > He did NOT. A cure for a disease and a vaccine to prevent a disease are 2 different animals, NOT a ping pong game, as you suggest.
I do agree, and the news reports state, that these 'findings' will require many years of verification before a vaccine, like polio vaccines, can be administered to everyone in the World to stop the spread of AIDS, [until it morphs]. The news reports actually stated to NOT get this confused with a cure and that it holds no hope for those who are already afflicted and the OP did use the language suggesting a cure.
  As for the "Thai discovery" part, it was some Army guy, Thai or American I'm not sure, who decided to run the study with 2 vaccines that had previously been proven useless.
  I can't find whether one or more of those 2 vaccines had been developed in Thailand, but suppose NOT.
   If a Thai Army guy decided to throw those 2 together and it leads to a vaccine for our grandchildren and wipes out AIDS, he definitely should recognition, albeit posthumously!
   I, for one, believe this study, out the $65,000,000,000 [yes that is billions] that has been spent on this disease, falls into the 'anomaly' factor; meaning out of the dozens and dozens of similar studies, you have to get one that burps at you.
   The REAL medical story are the World diseases that kill way more People on the Planet than AIDS and get a SMALL % of the attention and FUNDING they throw at AIDS.
    One HAS to laugh. Canada is stopping Tami flu vaccination because a recent 'study' showed it increases the risk for Swine flu.

[jonclark]

For those of you who are interested New Scientist has an interesting article in a Q and A form. It's pretty good and easy to read without too much technical jargon

link here  


http://www.newscient...ne-triumph.html

[Payboy]

Quote

produced In Bangkok!

Seriously?  

[BlackJack]

There is only ONE product that is 100% effective in preventing AIDS, Herpes, HPV.
Just this week a little know Australian company was approved USA patents until 2024. They also have patents in 26 other countries.
They have gone through the hard slog of phase 1 2 3 trials and have FDA fast track approval. The product is ready for release and has binding contracts in place with large pharmas and the Worlds leading condom maker. (I was going to say largest but as this is a serious subject I resisted   ).

The news out of Thailand seems to be research fodder news and the product maybe years away from the market as it needs to go through all the PROPER internationally recognised trials. Particularly with its efficacy.

Some comments i received from people in the front line of research in the USA state that any vaccine would be 5- 7 years away.
If you remember in the late 80's they said a vaccine would be available in 2 years. Now 20 plus years on still no vaccine.

A vaccine that would be only 30% effective could be viewed as dangerous as the virus by its very nature adapts and survives. To set off a man made change via a vaccine could prove to be more of a pandora's box than a fix. Particularly if the military is involved.

I am all for a cure in whatever shape or form but i wont be lining up for a jab - same for swine flu.

[Scott]

I post removed for flaming.  Warnings will be issued if this goes off-topic.  Discussion and disagreement are welcomed, but keep it from getting personal.

[JetsetBkk]

jonclark, on 2009-09-25 12:51:11, said:

For those of you who are interested New Scientist has an interesting article in a Q and A form. It's pretty good and easy to read without too much technical jargon

link here  

http://www.newscient...ne-triumph.html

An interesting article, with a some realistic comments:

Quote

One slightly worrying finding is that people who did become infected had similar levels of virus in their blood whether or not they'd been vaccinated.

But lets not dwell too much on that, eh? Reading some of - most of - the posts here is like watching drowning men clutching at straws.

[Jingthing]

Yes, of course, even if this modest success turns out to be a viable path towards a reasonably good vaccine, it is still many years away from being released. It is frustrating. By the time they have a real vaccine, if ever, many of us if still alive will have lost interest in sex anyway (that works too).

[BlackJack]

for those interested in the OZ co for more info and good reading look up Starpharma
ticker is SPL on the ASX

[caf]

eggomaniac, on 2009-09-25 12:49:03, said:

caf, on 2009-09-24 02:45:09, said:

Jingthing, on 2009-09-24 16:32:32, said:

There is no cure for HIV, only treatment. What's scary? They chose a high risk population who just continued to live their lives as they would have anyway.

The Op is saying there is a cure. "an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus"

BTW I hope a cure will be found

For the record > He did NOT. A cure for a disease and a vaccine to prevent a disease are 2 different animals, NOT a ping pong game, as you suggest.
I do agree, and the news reports state, that these 'findings' will require many years of verification before a vaccine, like polio vaccines, can be administered to everyone in the World to stop the spread of AIDS, [until it morphs]. The news reports actually stated to NOT get this confused with a cure and that it holds no hope for those who are already afflicted and the OP did use the language suggesting a cure.
  As for the "Thai discovery" part, it was some Army guy, Thai or American I'm not sure, who decided to run the study with 2 vaccines that had previously been proven useless.
  I can't find whether one or more of those 2 vaccines had been developed in Thailand, but suppose NOT.
   If a Thai Army guy decided to throw those 2 together and it leads to a vaccine for our grandchildren and wipes out AIDS, he definitely should recognition, albeit posthumously!
   I, for one, believe this study, out the $65,000,000,000 [yes that is billions] that has been spent on this disease, falls into the 'anomaly' factor; meaning out of the dozens and dozens of similar studies, you have to get one that burps at you.
   The REAL medical story are the World diseases that kill way more People on the Planet than AIDS and get a SMALL % of the attention and FUNDING they throw at AIDS.
    One HAS to laugh. Canada is stopping Tami flu vaccination because a recent 'study' showed it increases the risk for Swine flu.

Yes.  "vaccine to prevent"  and not a cure. You are absolutely right.  Mea culpa   mea  culpa

Your last post was on the ball too.

[oldsalt]

sedeflonga, on 2009-09-24 15:16:04, said:

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....

more you can read at http://news.yahoo.co...ed_aids_vaccine

p.s. I tried to post it at news clipping but was not allowed. Can some mod move it there?

regards

I have not read anywhere that the vaccine was "produced" in Thailand.  The study was "produced" in Thailand, courtesy of volunteers.  There will be drug companies behind it, of course, and someone, either in govt. or a deparment, will be getting consideration for their support, in one form or another.

[PeaceBlondie]

One tiny step for mankind.

[gregb]

teatree, on 2009-09-24 18:52:30, said:

Vaccines routinely kill people

Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland
http://www.telegraph...-in-Poland.html

I worked with Francis Crick at the Salk Institute in San Diego. Not in the same lab of course, and I was a peon, so I never actually had a conversation with him. The best I ever got to do was sit in a corner and listen to him wax philosophical, but what I do remember from this time was that he was an ego maniac. He was motivated by his own desire to see his name in history.

Still, I would trust anything he developed as being genuine. While he was getting paid an obscene amount of money at that time to sit around and think about interesting problems, he never really struck me as a business man. Today's crop of researchers however are nothing more than efficient instruments to turn carbon life forms into paper markers with dead American presidents on them. Any vaccine released in the past decade or two is as likely to be a poison as it is to be a genuine cure/prevention for anything. If a profit can be made, truth is irrelevant.

It is a sad state of affairs when you can't trust the medical and scientific profession, but this is the nevertheless where we have arrived in today's diseased culture. You can make statistics say anything if you are clever, and +/- 10 people (the difference between the 2 groups was only 20) out of 16,000 doesn't give me any confidence that this is real and not simply an attempt to steal more grant money.

Maybe in 50 years we'll know whether this vaccine actually has any merit, but I doubt anyone will find me in the queue to get shot up by today's big business pharma thieves.

If the rest of you want to be lab experiments, be my guest. But always remember that money has corrupted research today. Decide how much your life is worth before you believe anything.

[hansnl]

cloudhopper, on 2009-09-24 16:39:12, said:

JetsetBkk, on 2009-09-24 16:31:11, said:

webfact, on 2009-09-24 16:26:53, said:

Quote

The results were part of the HIV Vaccine Trial Phase III on 16,402 Thai  volunteers in Chonburi and Rayong provinces. Half of the volunteers  were given the RV 144 vaccine in 2006, and the other half received  placebos. Of those who got placebos, 74 became infected, while only 51 of those who got the vaccines did.

That scares me...
Who where these "volunteers"
Second how will they be cured?
Obviously they are infected with HIV.

I wonder if the volunteers were paid?

For example:

"Here's 5,000 baht if you take this test.

PS. You may die early if it fails"

Nice.

You know it's been an equally long time since I studied ethics, but I can't help but wonder how many of these trials will be done in Sydney, San Francisco or Amsterdam.

You would be surprised!

[Ijustwannateach]

From the terms of the trial- which included free counselling, condoms, and advice about safer sex- plus the guarantee of being treated if contracting the disease during the trial- I'd say that the participants (even with the placebos) were better off in terms of hedging their risk against the consequences of HIV infection than they would otherwise have been.

Testing vaccines and so forth is always a risky prospect, and those who participate need to be fully informed- however, without such volunteers, no vaccines would ever move to final stages (because they would never be tested before full-scale deployment).  Thank goodness there are volunteers and test subjects not only in Thailand but all over the world who are willing to put themselves at a certain level of risk for the potential benefit of all of us.

What I feel is sad is that this trial is clearly publicly funded (through a government military source); it just shows that the historic problem with HIV research in the private sector remains true:  it is more profitable to treat it than it is to do research to try to cure it.  Thank goodness for government-funded research.

[mommysboy]

sedeflonga, on 2009-09-24 15:16:04, said:

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....

more you can read at http://news.yahoo.co...ed_aids_vaccine

p.s. I tried to post it at news clipping but was not allowed. Can some mod move it there?

regards

31% !!!!.

failed again.

[Richard W]

nidhogg, on 2009-09-25 06:07:17, said:

Well, I am not a mathematician, and I do have bad spelling - however, I once saw a cartoon program about statistics, so I will have a go.  Simply using a Chi squared test on the numbers presented (that cartoon was fairly detailed) gives you a bare level of significance that indicates that there is a 1 in 20 chance of the numbers falling that way by random chance.

That's reassuring - I got the same result by mental arithmetic approximating the difference of two Poisson's by a normal - 74 + 51 infections = 125 = average of 62.5 in each sample.  Standard deviation of Poisson is square root of mean, so standard deviation if no effect is 8.  Then 1.96 standard deviations of difference is 1.96 times 1.41 times 8, i.e about 22.  Actual difference in numbers is 23, so near enough 1 in 20 chance of getting such a big difference.  (Normal approximations get rather approximate in this region.)

However, the alternative hypothesis is not that the vaccine made a difference, but that it reduced the number of infections.  That means there is actually only a 1 in 40 chance of the vaccine seeming to do as well as it did purely by chance.

Quote

Think I will keep the condoms handy for a bit longer.

Yep - cutting the infection rate by a third means the vaccine can only be an additional measure.

Have the infections been categorised by HIV types?  I remember hearing at the start of the trial that the vaccine was more appropriate for the US than for Thailand.

[Dakhar]

But did you include the influence of the flux capicitor has making such calculations?

[caf]

The one thing that would persuade me of the statistical significance of the result (and perhaps it has merit, but I don't know) is if there is not, or unlikely to have, such 31% deviations between various samples of some 8,000 subjects. The difference between 74 and 51 would seem small enough it could be attributable to natural changes between various samples. For example, if there was another sample of 8,000 placebo recipients that had HIV infections in the 50s or 60s then we will have a different picture of the result (and in this case the "31%" will be a lot lower). This is not meant to debunk the result, but to keep in mind the margin of variation in HIV infected cases between different samples (which is an unknown) when interpreting the result.

Efectively this is what The Lancet is saying

Glad that some poster has now changed his mind and admits this is a vaccine.  So it actually injects a mild form into the blood. Nothing wrong with that per se - the polio vaccine was a breakthrough with few harmful consequences -  but it is important to check facts before posting

This research is importantly a step in the right direction but not to the extent the Thais are claimimg. A long way to go

[nidhogg]

caf, on 2009-09-26 07:57:43, said:

So it actually injects a mild form into the blood.

No mate - definately and absolutely NOT.

The two vaccine candidates are both recombinant vaccines.  I am on dial up so can't do a proper post on the nature of the two vaccines used in combination, but got this snip from the yahoo link in an earlier post:


ALVAC uses canarypox, a bird virus altered so it can't cause human disease, to ferry synthetic versions of three HIV genes into the body. AIDSVAX contains a genetically engineered version of a protein on HIV's surface. The vaccines are not made from whole virus — dead or alive — and cannot cause HIV.

People need to be very clear about this.

[nidhogg]

gregb, on 2009-09-25 20:21:24, said:

I worked with Francis Crick at the Salk Institute in San Diego.


Not in the same lab of course, and I was a peon, so I never actually had a conversation with him. The best I ever got to do was sit in a corner and listen to him wax philosophical, but what I do remember from this time was that he was an ego maniac. He was motivated by his own desire to see his name in history.

(snip)

It is a sad state of affairs when you can't trust the medical and scientific profession, but this is the nevertheless where we have arrived in today's diseased culture. You can make statistics say anything if you are clever, and +/- 10 people (the difference between the 2 groups was only 20) out of 16,000 doesn't give me any confidence that this is real and not simply an attempt to steal more grant money.

Maybe in 50 years we'll know whether this vaccine actually has any merit, but I doubt anyone will find me in the queue to get shot up by today's big business pharma thieves.

If the rest of you want to be lab experiments, be my guest. But always remember that money has corrupted research today. Decide how much your life is worth before you believe anything.

Watson was always the brains in that pair, and everyone knew it - which might be part of the drive of Crick for fame.  


As to the current trials.  Pretty much every major HIV vaccine trial in the world (including several in Thailand) has been a resounding failure.  This one, if memmory serves correctly was an attempt to salvage two candidates that have failed spearately in trials.  Another failure might have knocked HIV vaccine trials on the head - for the foreseeable future.  In this respect, I can see that the results maybe overhyped, to allow continuation of funding for the research.  The objective, an HIV vaccine is considered, generally, a worthwhile objective.

As a side note, the US army has invested considerably in all kinds vaccine research for more than 100 years. The objective of course is vaccines for US troops - so while I am not knocking their involvement, its not entirely without self interest - still that does not alter that many vaccines in common use owe a considerable debt to the US armys involvement in vaccine research.