Blog Archive
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2009
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September
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- Sixty gun salutes fired marking China’s 60th anniv...
- China kicks off National Day extravaganza
- The60th anniversary of the founding of the People'...
- 60th anniversary of China's National Day
- News Today
- Rome: 10 Things to Do in 24 Hours
- Do-It-Yourself Translations Through Facebook Connect
- 1-800-Flowers Gets Analytics Tool for Measuring Fa...
- Mad Men Keeps Viewers Involved Through Interactive...
- YouTube Falls Short In Facebook Popularity Contest...
- Love, pleasure, duty: Why women have sex
- Plan your ideal walking workout
- Parents clueless when it comes to kids' growth charts
- 'Sorry I Haven't Written': A Scientific Explanation
- What You Need To Know About The H1N1 Vaccine
- News Today
- T-ara Celebrates Chuseok
- Rain’s Shanghai Concert Is A Scam
- Wonder Girls’ Diary in America Part 1
- Kris Allen Working With Adele and Duffy's Collabor...
- Rob Thomas' 'Someday' Music Video Debuted
- Radiohead's Thom Yorke Forms New Band With RHCP's ...
- Mitchel Musso's 'Shout It' Music Video Comes Out
- Lady GaGa Reveals Storyline of Her Joint Tour With...
- Mayday Parade Premiere 'The Silence' Music Video
- '90210' 2.05 Preview: Naomi Goes Green
- Preview of 'Melrose Place' 1.05: Canon
- 'Grey's Anatomy' Welcomes Sarah Drew as New Doctor
- A New Trailer of Epic Miniseries 'The Pacific'
- The Sue Storm of 'Fantastic Four' is in talks to j...
- Jessica Alba to Stir Things Up in 'Little Fockers'
- 'Whip It!': On the Set With Jimmy Fallon, Ellen Pa...
- Sylvester Stallone in New 'The Expendables' Photo
- 'Avatar' Sequel Could Explore Pandora Deeper
- Mandy Moore Talks Disney's 'Rapunzel'
- Emmy Rossum Reportedly Dating Counting Crows' Adam...
- Jon Cryer and Wife Lisa Joyner Adopt a Baby Girl
- Christina Milian and The-Dream Planning Another We...
- Private Memorial Service for Patrick Swayze Set fo...
- Scarlett Johansson: 'I Have Terrible Stage Fright'
- Karina Smirnoff Has New Boyfriend
- News Today
- The Obama Assassination Poll — Another Story About...
- New England Patriots Use Facebook As Primary Onlin...
- Taylor Swift’s Facebook Page Still Growing Fast, W...
- Miami: 10 Things to Do in 24 Hours
- Want to Lose Weight? Avoid Skinny Overeaters
- Scientists Announce Trove of Fragile New Species i...
- Miss Switzerland 2009 Linda Faeh
- News Today
- Giant panda twin cub
- T-ara And Supernova To Unleash TTL Listen.2
- What’s long, black and fits nicely in SNSD’s hands?
- Opening Dance Stage at Girl Groups Chuseok Special
- Sugababes' Amelle Reportedly Receives Death Threat...
- Snippet of The Queen Project's Debut Single
- Weezer Will Duet With Lil Wayne on 'Can't Stop Par...
- Lady GaGa Named Billboard's Rising Star
- 50 Cent Rushed to Hospital After Listening to Fat ...
- 'Camp Rock 2' Invites Fans to Join the Filming
- 'One Tree Hill' 7.04 Preview: Believe Me, I'm Lying
- Preview of 'Gossip Girl' 3.04: The Stars Are Coming
- Recap: Jive, Tango and Quickstep on 'Dancing with ...
- 'Wizards of Waverly Place' Receives More Episodes
- 'Heroes' 4.04 Preview: Tracy Is Back
- Oren Peli's 'Paranormal Activity' Expands to 20 Mo...
- Salma Hayek Gets a Vision in New 'The Vampire's As...
- 'New Moon' Unleashes Three Fresh Character Posters
- No 'Valentine's Day' for Joe Jonas
- First Look at Amanda in 'Saw VI'
- Plot Details on Robert Rodriguez's 'Predators'
- 'The Princess and the Frog': Extended Clip and Fea...
- Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush 'Totally Back Toget...
- Emmy Rossum's Husband Justin Siegel Files for Divorce
- Robert Pattinson Isn't an 'Attention-Seeker'
- Hayden Panettiere Denies Dating Kevin Connolly
- Fred Durst and Wife Divorcing
- Taylor Lautner Feels Uncomfortable With His Muscul...
- News Today
- Iran Says It Test-Fires Longest-Range Missiles
- Five insider strategies for avoiding a hotel billi...
- Chicago: 10 Things to Do in 24 Hours
- Cartoons of the Week, September 26, 2009 - October...
- How Can A Pregnant Woman Get Pregnant Again?
- Why Doctors Are Giving Heroin to Heroin Addicts
- News Today
- Follow Ivy Behind the Scenes
- Lee Hyori’s New Album is going to be off the hook!
- JQT Releases Teaser
- Brown Eyed Girls @ Circle Nightclub Teaser!
- Carrie Underwood's 'Cowboy Casanova' Music Video A...
- Artist of the Week: Mariah Carey
- Video: Jenny Slate Dropped the F-Word on 'Saturday...
- 'Amazing Race' Eliminates Two Pairs Early in Its S...
- Cloudy with a Chance' Sticks to Box Office's Top
- A 'Predators' Role for Danny Trejo
- Tickets for Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' On Sale
- Jaime Pressly Ties the Knot
- Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom's Wedding Is On, t...
- Justin Guarini Weds Fiancee Reina Capodici
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September
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Friday, September 25, 2009
Successful AIDS-Vaccine Trial Raises Hopes — and Questions
An AIDS vaccine has been shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection in humans for the first time, a significant advance in a field of research that has long been stymied by failure.The $105 million, six-year trial, which involved more than 16,000 people in Thailand — the largest AIDS-vaccine trial ever conducted — found that an experimental vaccine was 31% effective in preventing HIV infection. The volunteer group in the study was representative of the general Thai adult population, including low-risk, heterosexual adults. Calling the results of the trial a "significant scientific advance," officials at the World Health Organization said the results reinvigorated the stalled quest for a vaccine against AIDS, which is estimated to kill some 2 million people globally each year. The vaccine, called RV144, combined two older vaccines that had each proved unsuccessful in previous tests: ALVAC, from Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis; and AIDSVAX, originally developed by VaxGen Inc. and now held by the nonprofit Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.The vaccine was administered in two stages. First the ALVAC vaccine, which uses a Frankenstein virus of canarypox and HIV, was used as a primer dose, then AIDSVAX was administered as a "booster" to improve the body's immune response to the first shot. Half of the trial's participants received the combination vaccine, while the other half received a placebo. In the final analysis, 74 of the 8,198 placebo recipients became infected with HIV, compared with 51 of 8,197 participants who received the vaccine regimen."The efficacy is a modest one. But it's the first time we've seen a positive signal of efficacy in a human trial of any HIV vaccine. That's an exciting result in a field that has been characterized by disappointments for two decades," says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which provided major funding and other support for the Thai trial.The scientists working on the trial, led in Thailand by the U.S. Army and the Thailand Ministry of Public Health, said they were baffled as to why the two seemingly ineffective vaccines appeared to work together. Another mystery was that the people who became infected with HIV developed roughly the same amount of virus in their blood whether they got the vaccine or the placebo. Typically a protective vaccine would lower a patient's so-called viral load, a criterion that physicians use as the main indicator of HIV infection. The outcome of the trial of RV144 suggests that scientists do not fully understand what constitutes a successful immune response to the AIDS virus."We don't know whether our current measures of the human immune response are even relevant to the protection that we see in this trial. [That is] a humbling reminder of how little we know, and how much work remains to be done in our search for an optimal HIV vaccine," Fauci says.But Jonathan Weber, a professor of communicable diseases and an HIV expert at Imperial College in London, says the consistency of the viral load across the placebo and vaccine groups was not a surprise. "It's a fair assumption that this vaccine works through antibody production," he says. "We've known for years that antibodies don't seem to affect the course of an HIV infection. Antibodies can be preventive, but they can't modify the disease." Colonel Jerome Kim, who helped lead the study for the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, says other unknowns remain about the vaccine, such as the duration of its effect, the potential need for additional boosters, its efficacy in higher-risk populations like intravenous drug users and, most crucially, whether it might work on other subtypes of the virus. "The vaccine was tested in Thailand against types of HIV that circulate in Thailand," Kim says, pointing out that a different strain of the virus causes high infection rates in Africa.Both Kim and Fauci emphasize that it will probably be a "significant period of time" before the trial results lead to a vaccine that can be submitted for approval for use in the general public, if such a breakthrough occurs at all. Most licensed vaccines have an efficacy rate of at least 70%, although it's possible that an HIV vaccine with lower efficacy may gain approval, Kim says. "The efficacy threshold may be a consideration that is specific to individual countries, the nature of their HIV-AIDS epidemics and the performance characteristics of the vaccine," Kim says.Ade Fakoya, a London-based clinician and senior adviser to the British nonprofit AIDS Alliance, tells TIME that a 30% efficacy rate is still very low. By comparison, studies in Africa suggest that male circumcision can cut the risk of HIV infection in men by up to 60%. Still, in a field that has been beset by a series of high-profile failures in the past 20 years — in 2007, for example, two international trials of a promising Merck vaccine in about 4,000 people were stopped early, and later analysis suggested that the vaccine may have increased people's risk of infection — the results of the Thai trial are a turning point. "In terms of where the vaccine world was even a few weeks ago, this is huge news and a proof of concept, finally, that vaccines can work," says Fakoya.source: Time.com