Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

lji.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 325 posts

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#171

Post by shadowtree »

tempfile wrote: post #86
jonathanlydall wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about teen pregnancy being a practically solved problem, except there is still the problem of teen pregnancy. Or even something more mundane as driving consistently safely all the time to solve the problem of accidents. If everyone was disciplined all the time in regard to everything, many problems in the world would simply not exist. But we live in reality where for whatever reason, people don…

Right, but we know that HIV/AIDS essentially is a solved problem in rich countries, that the mentioned interventions are readily available in rich countries, and the only reason HIV transmission is high in poor countries is because, well, they're poor. We (humanity as a whole) have plenty of money, we could fund these things, we simply choose not to. I would caution against making an allusion to self control. It woul…

"the only reason HIV transmission is high in poor countries is because, well, they're poor."

This is factually untrue.

Being poor does not equal a HIV transmission rate. There is no 1:1 correlation.

A single protected (condom) sexual act between a male and female averages somewhere around 0.1-0.5% chance of pregnancy, and during the fertile window it could still be around 1% or more even with a condom.

Chance of HIV from one act of unprotected vaginal sex with an HIV-positive partner: ~0.08% male-to-female.

The high HIV transmission rates are NOT correlated with wealth, but social behavior. Unprotected anal sex with many partners? High risk. Now, Africa - the practice of dry sex contributes a ton to HIV transmission. Cultural belief that a dry vagina increases pleasure, hence woman use sand, chalk or bleach to dry out their vaginas, massively increasing HIV risk. Needle sharing of drug users? High HIV risk.

Not a class issue, no reason to punch down on poor people. Poor people have agency and many do not infect themselves with HIV in the first place.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#172

Post by Muromec »

cj wrote: post #65
jonathanlydall wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about teen pregnancy being a practically solved problem, except there is still the problem of teen pregnancy. Or even something more mundane as driving consistently safely all the time to solve the problem of accidents. If everyone was disciplined all the time in regard to everything, many problems in the world would simply not exist. But we live in reality where for whatever reason, people don…

Taking teen pregnancy as an example: we have the tools to avoid it. We have condoms, we have birth control, we have the morning after pill, we have abortion. We have all the tools -- are more tools really going to help? The fact that teen pregnancy is still an issue is not because we lack the tools to solve it. HIV prevention is similar. We already have the tools. We have condoms. We have PrEP. Sure, a vaccine would…

The hardest problems to solve that actually matter are in humanities.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#173

Post by sarchertech »

jimbob45 wrote: post #170
jonathanlydall wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about teen pregnancy being a practically solved problem, except there is still the problem of teen pregnancy. Or even something more mundane as driving consistently safely all the time to solve the problem of accidents. If everyone was disciplined all the time in regard to everything, many problems in the world would simply not exist. But we live in reality where for whatever reason, people don…

No, there will always be the threat of teen pregnancy. Conversely, we could wipe out HIV permanently if enough public will across the world was directed toward it. I fully believe that HIV wouldn’t exist if PrEP had come out in the 80s when public hysteria was at an all-time high and the will to eradicate it was present.

We haven’t even managed to wipe out polio, and that is a cheap, lifelong vaccine.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#174

Post by Muromec »

compass_copium wrote: post #26
est31 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For rich people (meaning the ~3 billion people that have some sort of access to medical infrastructure), it is a solved problem, but there are quite many people without any access to it. Even for those "solved problem" people, taking a pill every day to be protected is inconvenient. They might not take it every day, etc. Also, even if it were a solved problem, the methodologies developed here can probably help with o…

Again, inaccurate. You can get a PrEP shot twice a year now. Access is a valid point. Perhaps the money being used to fund a superfluous vaccine should be used to fund access to PrEP in the Third World.

Or maybe we should solve poverty which is a proxy to all kinds of solved problems that somehow still exist

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#175

Post by mrguyorama »

dist-epoch wrote: post #135
iandanforth wrote: post #20

The most interesting point of the article for me is that this vaccine appears to be a series of shots which act as a curriculum for the immune system. Each one slightly different and targeting a different stage of B-cell development. I've never thought of vaccine series working like that, so it was a new and impressive idea.

The way the HIV evades effective antibodies is by tricking the immune system to generate antibodies for fake decoy targets that the virus will immediately mutate. So each turn, B-cells are presented with the latest version of the virus, they generate various antibodies to the various parts, and are graded at the end by how well the generated antibodies bind to the virus. The problem is that you have 1 million cells w…

HIV isn't the only virus that generates decoys to trick antibody development, so having techniques that bypass that decoy strategy is very useful.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#176

Post by xenospn »

shadowtree wrote: post #171
tempfile wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but we know that HIV/AIDS essentially is a solved problem in rich countries, that the mentioned interventions are readily available in rich countries, and the only reason HIV transmission is high in poor countries is because, well, they're poor. We (humanity as a whole) have plenty of money, we could fund these things, we simply choose not to. I would caution against making an allusion to self control. It woul…

"the only reason HIV transmission is high in poor countries is because, well, they're poor." This is factually untrue. Being poor does not equal a HIV transmission rate. There is no 1:1 correlation. A single protected (condom) sexual act between a male and female averages somewhere around 0.1-0.5% chance of pregnancy, and during the fertile window it could still be around 1% or more even with a condom. Chance of HIV…

I’ve never heard that before. That explains a lot.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#177

Post by mrguyorama »

jimbob45 wrote: post #170
jonathanlydall wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same about teen pregnancy being a practically solved problem, except there is still the problem of teen pregnancy. Or even something more mundane as driving consistently safely all the time to solve the problem of accidents. If everyone was disciplined all the time in regard to everything, many problems in the world would simply not exist. But we live in reality where for whatever reason, people don…

No, there will always be the threat of teen pregnancy. Conversely, we could wipe out HIV permanently if enough public will across the world was directed toward it. I fully believe that HIV wouldn’t exist if PrEP had come out in the 80s when public hysteria was at an all-time high and the will to eradicate it was present.

>if PrEP had come out in the 80s when public hysteria was at an all-time high

You mean the time the US admin was intentionally neglecting the epidemic because "it's a gay disease"? Why do you think Reagan would have done anything to ensure such a medication was easily available?

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#178

Post by tallanvor »

cguess wrote: post #77
cj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking teen pregnancy as an example: we have the tools to avoid it. We have condoms, we have birth control, we have the morning after pill, we have abortion. We have all the tools -- are more tools really going to help? The fact that teen pregnancy is still an issue is not because we lack the tools to solve it. HIV prevention is similar. We already have the tools. We have condoms. We have PrEP. Sure, a vaccine would…

> but if someone is unwilling to go on PrEP, why would they suddenly be willing to get a vaccine? Because PrEP at even its best and most modern version requires an update every six months for life. If you're well-off and in SF or NYC or London that might be easy, but there's so many externalities such as: - People who misjudge the risk they're at, so don't go on the meds in the first place - People who live in region…

That's absolutely not correct. Truvada has had the same formulation since it was introduced in 2012. Descovy hasn't changed since it was approved in 2019.

You may be thinking of STD tests and bloodwork that is done every 3-6 months depending on your risk level to ensure that you're still HIV negative and that your kidneys are functioning normally, as kidney issues is a rare but serious side effect, especially for Truvada.

Now, what I believe is correct is that most people on PrEP would love to have a vaccine instead of needing a daily pill or even 2-6 injections per year as long as they remain sexually active.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#180

Post by saghm »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #44
RGS1811 wrote: post #3

While HIV vaccine research is an exciting field, it's worth pointing out that halting HIV transmission is, practically speaking, a solved problem with oral and injectable reverse transcriptase inhibitors. The ongoing loss of life and health due to HIV could be stopped if we cared enough to invest resources in wide-scale PrEP availability and public health education. Waiting for an HIV vaccine is the domain equivalent…

You could say the same about teen pregnancy being a practically solved problem, except there is still the problem of teen pregnancy. Or even something more mundane as driving consistently safely all the time to solve the problem of accidents. If everyone was disciplined all the time in regard to everything, many problems in the world would simply not exist. But we live in reality where for whatever reason, people don…

> You could say the same about teen pregnancy being a practically solved problem, except there is still the problem of teen pregnancy. Or even something more mundane as driving consistently safely all the time to solve the problem of accidents.

At the risk of derailing this conversation from the original topic, those two things are not remotely equivalent. There's no organized political movement trying to tell people that seat belts and speed limits are immoral, and you should only drive when you're willing to accept the responsibility that comes with the risks.

Post reply on HN