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New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

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Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#241

Post by nerdjon »

UltraSane wrote: post #234
nerdjon wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am arguing that all sexually active people (except maybe those in a fully confirmed monogamous relationship) should at a minimum have a conversation with their doctor about it and their doctor should bring it up. Maybe it isn't worth it for you in the end after that conversation, but we should also not assume that the only way you get HIV is through "risky" behavior. That is irresponsible. At least you would know i…

In developed nations like the US, health economic models estimate that deploying PrEP across generalized heterosexual groups costs anywhere from $150,000 to over $1 million per single HIV transmission prevented.

I would be very curious if that cost was before or after Truvada went generic.

Through cost plus a month's supply is $14 (which means without insurance): https://www.costplusdrugs.com/medications/emtricitabine-teno...

Yes there is the additional costs of the tests on top of that, but people should already be doing regular STD testing if they are sexually active.

Regardless, nothing about that changes that you should still be having this conversation with your doctor if you are sexually active. I do not understand how this is an argument, a conversation about prep or doxy should be in the same conversation about condoms and your general sexual health.

The worst that is going to happen from that conversation is that you don't take it, but at the very least you are educated on its existence and that decision is made between you and your doctor based on your risk factors.

Edit:

In fact, the CDC backs up this opinion: https://www.cdc.gov/hivnexus/hcp/prep/index.html

> Inform all sexually active adult and adolescent patients about PrEP.

> Prescribe PrEP to anyone who asks for it, including sexually active people who do not report HIV risk factors.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#242

Post by wwweston »

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…

A fascinating everyday arms race I had no idea was playing out around me.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#243

Post by juliendorra »

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…

Teen pregnancy (or unwanted pregnancy at all) has been extremely low in several countries, and the factors are not discipline but was of access, focus on health instead of morality, and public service campaign. If it is high in an otherwise rich country, it’s likely not a lack of discipline from teenagers but a lack of free and easy access to contraception and abortive means, social pressure and morality campaigns, lack of sex education (often by design sometimes by negligence after some period of activity)

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#244

Post by vasco »

camphy wrote: post #189
vasco wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have missed the word likely.

Did I also miss the part where “likely” was shown to be grounded in anything other than a prejudice about people who have “risky” sex?

I dunno man if you want to answer claims about probability with single a data point that's up to you, but nobody can take that seriously, whatever the topic.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#245

Post by bottle_roket »

jonplackett wrote: post #218

Can anyone explain why the body doesn’t just naturally make lots of These broadly neutralising antibodies? It seems like they’d be so useful - so there must be a good reason there aren’t lots of them normally?

Because humans were designed by evolution, a process driven by random mutations and natural selection that can become stuck at local maxima rather than producing the best possible design.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#246

Post by reenorap »

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…

FYI teen pregnancy in the US is the lowest it’s ever been in the history of the country.

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#247

Post by jasonfarnon »

juliendorra wrote: post #243
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…

Teen pregnancy (or unwanted pregnancy at all) has been extremely low in several countries, and the factors are not discipline but was of access, focus on health instead of morality, and public service campaign. If it is high in an otherwise rich country, it’s likely not a lack of discipline from teenagers but a lack of free and easy access to contraception and abortive means, social pressure and morality campaigns, l…

" likely not a lack of discipline from teenagers"

You two might be using "discipline" pretty different. Your definition of discipline would encompass constant casual sex as long as contraceptives were used and any abortions were prompt, right?

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#248

Post by pazimzadeh »

mullingitover wrote: post #116
mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they kind of all work that way, it's just that most of the curriculum occurs naturally through interactions with wild pathogens

From what I understand, random interactions with wild pathogens can prime the immune system in the wrong way, leading it down the wrong path. This is why some people can get lucky with immunity and be super resistant to flu, because they happened to luck into a response that targets a common factor in most flu strains. Other people have bad luck and target some area that mutates frequently, and they proceed to get wa…

And every time you generate an immune response you are honing your natural receptors so although they are more specific to the specific virus at hand, they lose general response, so this can backfire for example if you over-vaccinate with the wrong strain of flu and this one year the flu changes direction, mutationally.

this is called “original antigenic sin”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin

Re: New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study

#250

Post by kazinator »

fluoridation wrote: post #136
kazinator wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following the points in the above thread. - people need to make the right decisions to take oral or injectable reverse transcriptase inhibitors - people need to make the right decisions to take HIV vaccines We are comparing two tools, not tools versus discipline. In some ways these reverse transcriptase inhibitors are like a vaccine, in that they can be taken by people who don't have HIV, for protection. They…

No, nothing is being compared. The question being posed is, if there are already tools to prevent HIV transmission (condoms, drugs, etc.) and someone doesn't use them, why would they use a vaccine?

Right; that's a better framing.

1. Some people don't use tools. (For instance, we have spellcheckers, but people don't use them or ignore them.)

2. So of what use is another tool? (Why develop a grammar checker?)

See the problem? For the people who do use tools, there are useful differences among them. Some users of spell checkers will welcome the grammar checker.

Some of those who would use drugs to prevent transmission will gladly switch to the vaccine, which is more convenient for them.

But there is also this: the inconvenient drugs that block transmission are mainly used by HIV positive people and people who are exposed to them. Someone not in that situation is not going to get on a train of injections every three months. (I've never even heard of these drugs until this submission and its discussion threads.) Whereas a HIV vaccine could be something more interesting to the general population. There will likely be some people who get the vaccine who ignored the transmission-blocking drugs.

Sometimes when you add a different tool to the arsenal, non-users of the tool arsenal come around.

E.g. lots of DIY tinkerers use USB oscilloscopes, who have never owned a big one. The invention and marketing of the USB scope turned them into users. The vendors of that could have axed the idea by saying, what's the use of this idea: we already have oscilloscopes? Those who don't have them already are not going to be interested in this.

There are right tools for the right job, but also the right tools for the right people in the right circumstances.

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