For background, read Federal Government Reports Majority of New HIV Cases from Homosexual Behavior and also read Planned Parenthood Says Plan to Get Sexual Disease as well as Abstinence Education Effective, Federal Study Shows
UPDATE 7/30/12: HIV/AIDS conference experts admit talk of cure is hype
(These experts NEVER admit that the "cure" is sexual abstinence, until life-long marriage.)
-- From "Activists Issue Report on HIV Cure Research" by Enid Vázquez, From Test Positive Aware Network - July/August 2012
Activists from the AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition (ATAC), Project Inform (in San Francisco), and the Treatment Action Group (TAG, in New York City) issued a report summarizing the talks presented at the Community HIV Cure Workshop, which took place in March in Seattle before CROI. The report received funding support from Bionor Pharma, Gilead Sciences, and Merck.
"A cure for HIV will be essential to ending the AIDS pandemic, but science that is focused directly on a cure is still in early stages and will likely require the support of multiple stakeholders to proceed at the fastest pace," the report begins. "Among recent signs of progress, researchers have contributed new insights into where and why HIV persists despite potent ARV therapy."
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "The Conversation: HIV cure in works, but issue is time, money" by David Lesher, Special to The Sacramento Bee 6/17/12
[Paula Cannon, a microbiologist at USC,] is working with a team of scientists . . . with funding from the $3 billion stem cell bond passed by California voters in 2004. It's going well. It has proved to be safe and to eliminate HIV in humanized mice. And in coming months, scientists hope it will receive federal approval to begin human trials.
None of the research under way will reach patients until long after the 10 years of funding by the [California] ballot measure runs out. With the HIV project, researchers hope to be in human trials by 2014, but it is likely to be at least 10 years before they can show it might work in humans. And in the case of a stem cell cure for AIDS, it would be many years after that before a treatment is widely available.
Even with rapid scientific advance, it also shows how much is still unknown.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Evidence That Man Cured of HIV Harbors Viral Remnants Triggers Confusion" by Jon Cohen, Science Magazine 6/11/12
Only one person ever has been [believed to be] cured of an HIV infection, and a presentation about the man at a scientific meeting in Sitges, Spain, last week has caused an uproar about the possibility that he's still infected.
Timothy Brown, initially referred to as "the Berlin patient" until he went public about his cure, received unusual blood transplants 5 years ago to treat his leukemia. The blood came from a donor who had mutant cells resistant to HIV. Following the procedure, Brown stopped taking antiretrovirals (ARVs), the virus never returned, and his doctors reported that he had been cured.
But new research presented on 8 June at the International Workshop on HIV & Hepatitis Virus "challenge[s] these results," asserts Alain Lafeuillade of the General Hospital in Toulon, France, a well known HIV/AIDS cure researcher. Lafeuillade issued a press release, "The So Called HIV Cured 'Berlin' Patient Still Has Detectable HIV in His Body," that questions whether Brown was reinfected and may still be infectious to other people. Lafeuillade also posted a blog item, "The Weird Story of the Berlin Patient," raising similar questions.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "New optimism about stemming spread of AIDS virus" by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press Medical Writer 7/7/12
. . . more than 20,000 international HIV researchers and activists will gather in the nation’s capital later this month with a sense of optimism not seen in many years — hope that it finally may be possible to dramatically stem the spread of the AIDS virus.
The big new focus is on trying to get more people with HIV treated early, when they’re first infected, instead of waiting until they’re weakened or sick, as the world largely has done until now. Staying healthier also makes them less likely to infect others.
Now, as the International AIDS Conference returns to the U.S. for the first time in 22 years, the question is whether the world will come up with the money and the know-how to put the best combinations of protections into practice, for AIDS-ravaged poor countries and hot spots in developed nations as well.
About 34 million people worldwide have HIV, including almost 1.2 million Americans. It’s a very different epidemic from the last time the International AIDS Conference came to the United States, in 1990. Life-saving drugs emerged a few years later, turning HIV from a death sentence into a manageable chronic disease for people and countries that can afford the medications.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "FDA approves new home-use HIV test" by Ian Duncan, Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau 7/3/12
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter HIV test Tuesday, allowing people to test themselves in private at home and get preliminary results in less than 30 minutes.
"Knowing your status is an important factor in the effort to prevent the spread of HIV," Dr. Karen Midthun, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. "The availability of a home-use HIV test kit provides another option for individuals to get tested so that they can seek medical care, if appropriate."
The FDA emphasized that any results from a self-administered test, which works by detecting antibodies in a swab from the gums, should not be considered final. In trials, the test failed to detect HIV in 1 in every 12 patients known to be infected . . .
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Also read Gay Agenda Lacks Power Against AIDS Reality as well as Anal Sex is Main Cause of HIV Pandemic: Study
UPDATE 2/25/15: Anal Sex Pill Pushed in Gay Men Study to Stop HIV
