HIV Vaccine potential-sketchy or promising?

Duke University is working on developing HIV vaccines. The idea behind the vaccine is that it owuld bind to hte GP-120 glycoportein on HIV's envelope.

The paper refers to a previous trial in which Thailand developed a vaccine that was "partially effective"

I think this article is interesting in that it mentions the specific receptor that vaccine is expected to bind to. But it doesn't elaborate on the mechanism of action after binding and how it work. Also, the "partially effective" vaccine form Thailand sounds kind of sketchy - I'm curious to learn how it was partially effective and how the researchers tested it.
Overall, this article proposes a good idea, hopefully there will be a HIV vaccine in the future.


-Michelle Jin
Source: http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/healthteam/story/10473572/

China to manufacture vaccines for global market

After meeting WHO international standards for vaccine regulation in March, China is now poised to make a splash in the global vaccine scene. Groups like GAVI (which purchases enough vaccines to cover 50 million children annually) are particularly excited about this move, which will result in more favorable prices. China currently produces almost 1 billion doses of vaccines a year.

However, you can't discuss Chinese vaccines without being reminded of their current track record - 2007 saw 93 deaths due to Chinese cough syrup, for example. In 2008, hundreds of thousands of infants were poisoned by powdered milk tainted with melamine; shockingly, even more powdered milk was found to be contaminated in 2009. Suffice to say that scandals like these do not inspire confidence in the ability of Chinese manufacturers to produce safe products in massive quantities.

With that in mind, we can anticipate the need for a regulatory body to ensure that these vaccines continue to be produced to international standards. However, one Chinese health expert, Yanzhong Huang, says that such an agency wouldn't be enough - what China needs is "the market economy, democracy, media monitoring, civil society, as well as a well-developed business ethics code." In short, China needs to change the way it does business before people in the international market will feel comfortable using their vaccines. (This could lead to a whole separate discussion on Chinese society and economy, but that's really beyond the scope of our class, so I'll just change tack here.)

Chinese-produced vaccines will likely be tough to deliver to the American public, if current exemption rates from childhood vaccines are any indication. Relevant comment is relevant:

"If they started producing all vaccines in china and phased out the American made ones I would refuse every last chinese vaccine. If my kid has to go unvaccinated because i dont wanna risk her being killed by a tainted chinese pharmaceutical then so be it. I know if they allow the chinese to produce vaccines the population of unvaccinated children will spike and spiral out of control. This decision will singlehandedly lead to the return of polio and other diseases like smallpox."

Sounds like closed-mindedness with a dash fearmongering, right? Sure, but that doesn't change the possibility that some sub-par Chinese vaccine product will slip through the cracks, especially at the volume at which they'll be produced.

We're going to need some intense regulation of these vaccines, but the manufacturing capacity provided by China's facilities will be a boon to immunization and eradication efforts worldwide.

-Alan Le

P.S. Pardon the lateness! Looking forward to seeing everyone's models :]

Washington Times: China positions itself to become major player as vaccine provider

Monterey County Herald: China to enter vaccine market

Breakthrough discovery on mechanism of prion disease

Researchers from the University of Alberta doing studies on prion disease have discovered a new property of prion diseases that changes the way we think about prion diseases. While studying BSE, the researchers found that prion particles as well as bystander proteins were being destroyed in the brains of infected individuals for up to 7 months before the animal started showing symptoms. This means that the brain "fights back" more than was previously thought. Additionally, the study shows that prion diseases can change depending on the brains reaction, and might not be irreversible. If we can learn from how the brain fights off the infection for those months before symptoms appear, we may be able to gain insight into possible treatments for prion diseases.


http://www.medindia.net/news/Concealed-Face-of-Prion-Disease-Revealed-by-Medical-Researchers-94319-1.htm

--Sarah Kaewert

HIV+ Philadelphia teen denied entry to school

Someone's already written this up (whoops) but speaking of both "dual-use" science controversies and flu...I read about the controversy over the engineered H5N1 that's super infectious! It's interesting that they proposed the type of censorship that I was thinking about in the last problem set (i.e. publish generally, to get specifics you need clearance)—but just who would get access to the classified information? I tend to think of bioterrorists like I think of suicide bombers (using crappy kitchen tech), but the truth is that some legit scientists could definitely turn bioterrorist (i.e., the guy sending anthrax, a top researcher for the government who apparently was a co-creator of the vaccine). My brother recently told me about the plot line of a novel series/videogame called "Rainbow 6" in which the bioterrorists work for a biotech firm, and plan to throw virus into the fans at the Sydney Olympics in order to kill everyone off (except themselves, who are of course vaccinated) and thus save the ecological world from destruction. It's scary how "bioterrorists" could come from within our own institutions.

SO IN OTHER NEWS

A 13 year old boy was denied admission to a private boarding school in Philadelphia because "it was necessary to protect the health and safety of the 1,850 enrolled in the institution." The AIDS Law Project is, of course, suing the school for discrimination, interestingly enough under the "Americans with Disabilities Act." I guess there's not really a medical-condition-specific discrimination law? A 6-year-old in Jakarta, Indonesia was also thrown out of school because her father is HIV+; she may be able to get in if she proves she is not HIV+.

It's interesting that there's still so much prejudice over HIV, even in America. (I mean, what's the likelihood that this 13 year old would spread it to his classmates? How much unprotected sex/needle drug usage is there in that school?) Even more for a 6-year-old whose father has it. I thought ostracization happened in Africa, or decades ago in America. For shame.

Article

-Annelise

WHO Weighs in on European Measles Outbreak

The WHO, through an issue of their publication the Weekly Epidemiological Record, has announced that 26,000 cases of measles have occurred throughout Europe from January 2011 to October 2011. This figure is a steep rise from any previous and indicates the possibility of a continued outbreak of the deadly disease. They have placed blame mainly on fallout from the autism-vaccine controversy created by Andrew Wakefield and failure by European governments to properly enforce vaccinations as over 90% of cases where in unvaccinated people or people of unknown status. European governments have already begun responding to the outbreak, with France launching a high-profile campaign to drive up vaccination rates in reaction to 6 deaths and 14,000 cases experienced there.
These cases present a rather large set-back for the established goal of eliminating measles in Europe by 2015 and for world-wide eradication. Indeed, the European outbreak has also been tied to international outbreaks as a result of infected travelers to foreign countries. This just goes to show that the existence of a highly effective vaccine and even strong political will does not guarantee effective control of a disease.

-Zachary Herrera

BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15999492
Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8932117/WHO-Europe-must-act-on-measles-outbreak.html

US Reflection on HIV/AIDS Awareness

According to the Centers for Disease Control, only one quarter of Americans with an HIV infection have the infection under control. By "under control," they means that they have a suppressed viral load - less than 200 copies in the bloodstream per milliliter of blood. Contributing to this low percentage is the fact that an estimated 1 in 5 people with HIV don't realize they they are infected and of those that are aware, only 51% receive medical care and treatment. Modern day treatment, while not eliminating HIV, is very effective in controlling the virus - 77% of those on ongoing care and antiretrovirals have suppressed levels of the virus. [Although couldn't this be from the latent nature of the infection too?]

According to this article, not only are men who have sex with men are the population most severely affected by HIV in the US, they are less likely than other sex-groups to get tested and receive preventative testing. In response to this data, the CDC have launched a new national campaign to encourage black gay and bisexual men to get tested for HIV called Testing Makes Us Stronger. Research shows that black men do not engage in riskier sexual behavior than other LGBT communities, but that there is already a higher HIV presence in their population - so testing, behavior improvement (condoms, e.g.) and appropriate medical care are especially important in these communities. This is the latest campaign in the Act Against AIDS, the CDC's broad effort to fight HIV complacency nationwide.

read the full article here.

Emily Pollock

Hep C updates

The Montefiore Medical Center in New York is now urging members of the baby boomer population to get tested for hepatitis C, as they are more likely to have shared unsanitary needles because of tattoos, drug use, piercings or blood transfusions. Hep C can be asymptomatic for years, and the worry is that many people from this generation might be carrying the virus without knowing it. With a blood test and treatment from two new drugs that were released last May, doctors are seeing almost double the cure rate of the disease as they have in the past. There is still no vaccine to prevent the infection and, if left untreated, hep C can lead to liver failure or cancer, which is why doctors are pushing for people to get tested.

In other Hep C news, this week Delhi became the first city in India to offer Hepatitis C screening. Additionally, the government is offering to provide financial help to poor citizens who need a liver transplant as a result of Hep C.

-Emily Mitchell

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/babyboomers-most-at-risk-for-hepatitis-c-virus-2011-12-02

http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/delhi-is-first-city-to-launch-hepatitis-c-screening_14801.html