AIDS "vaccine"?

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Unfortunately a certain group of people might try to ban it's use or play down it's effectiveness, if it actually works.

I personally would doubt whether that would happen, but I am optimistic for a vaccine that would reduce the risk by 50% or more or even 100%, since AIDS/HIV is a serious issue. But I know that precautions should be taken to further reduce the risk of infection as well. So far, good progress with the developments but I feel 33% is quite small, though.

[Lackadaisical2]

Unfortunately a certain group of people might try to ban it's use or play down it's effectiveness, if it actually works.

I personally would doubt whether that would happen, but I am optimistic for a vaccine that would reduce the risk by 50% or more or even 100%, since AIDS/HIV is a serious issue. But I know that precautions should be taken to further reduce the risk of infection as well. So far, good progress with the developments but I feel 33% is quite small, though.

well, its certainly not that great, but 33% is good enough to me, if the alternative is 0%... Of course the price has to be right.

[Soheran]

Their studyies margin of error, given the lack of control,

There was a control. It was a randomized double-blind trial: half the participants were given a vaccine, half of them were given a placebo, but other than that they were selected and treated the same way.

would have been pretty high (well above 1%), so having a scew of only 00.3% in the data falls well below what-ever the studies margin of error was....

I'm quite certain that if the results were not statistically significant, this would not have been reported the way it was--at the very least, that fact would have been mentioned in the article.

They would need to vaccinate people and then purposely expose them to HIV in order to get an accurate result....

This would not get past anyone's ethics committee, for good reason (and you would still need a placebo control.)

Or at least show a study which exceeds a reasonable margin of error...

The number of people in the study (8,000) is large enough that despite the small percentage of people infected, these results being statistically significant is entirely plausible.

[SoWiBi]

Another thing gumming up the works is whether simple probability screwed up the results. E.g. the control group had less luck in finding uninfected partners/shot up on drugs, etc, etc.

I'm very interested in the significance as well. With such a large number of people per group, and such low numbers of infections, it intuitively feels like it's not an all too sound basis for drawing those conclusions - but then again, intuition and statistics mix about as well as fire and gasoline.

I am, however, both rather tired and more rusty in my statistics than I care to admit, so I'll leave it to tomorrow/someone else to do the math on this.

Thanks for the explanation. It's not as bad as I thought (still I don't like this kind of testing for vaccines against a disease we still can't cure).

Well, I think it's got nothing against it, as no one has been put at any more risk than they would have been anyway - quite to the contrary, the participants have been supplied with condoms and information, and those who did acquire the disease anyhow received free treatment.

[New Mitanni]

If this actually works, certain religious groups will be against it, because having sex is infinitely worse than people dying of AIDS.

And no doubt you'll be there to alert the world to their opposition.

Meanwhile, the 99.9% of responsible "religious groups" will hail the advance, along with all other people with IQ's above room temperature.

[Tekania]

how can you be sure the margin of error would be that large? Personally I'm interested in that part, but I've yet to see an such data. It was a massive study for a reason though, so I'm sure they must have thought of this, it reportedly cost over $100 million.

How can I tell? By the initial data... 99.1% of the non-vaccinated control group did not contract HIV... That placebo had a massive success rate...

[Tekania]

The number of people in the study (8,000) is large enough that despite the small percentage of people infected, these results being statistically significant is entirely plausible.

The plausibility of these numbers being statistically significant is somewhere between nil and none...

[Greed and Death]

Is it ironic, or poetic justice that this AIDS 'vaccine' has been developed in Bangkok, with the assistance of VaxGen, a pharmaceutical company out of SanFran?

It wasn't developed in Bangkok, it was developed in the US, we're just testing it there because its presumably cheaper to do so.

your leaving out the HIv infection rate.
The US had an infection rate of ~ .33%
Thailand has an infection rate of 1.4%. (or did while since I looked them up)
This produces an easier test sample.

[Lackadaisical2]

Is it ironic, or poetic justice that this AIDS 'vaccine' has been developed in Bangkok, with the assistance of VaxGen, a pharmaceutical company out of SanFran?

It wasn't developed in Bangkok, it was developed in the US, we're just testing it there because its presumably cheaper to do so.

your leaving out the HIv infection rate.
The US had an infection rate of ~ .33%
Thailand has an infection rate of 1.4%. (or did while since I looked them up)
This produces an easier test sample.

I knew theirs was high, but I didn't know the exact numbers and couldn't be bothered to look it up, that is another good point. Although, I believe there is a different strain of HIV that is more prevalent there than here.

The plausibility of these numbers being statistically significant is somewhere between nil and none...

right... based on your extensive experience in performing large-scale scientific studies?

[Greed and Death]

Is it ironic, or poetic justice that this AIDS 'vaccine' has been developed in Bangkok, with the assistance of VaxGen, a pharmaceutical company out of SanFran?

It wasn't developed in Bangkok, it was developed in the US, we're just testing it there because its presumably cheaper to do so.

your leaving out the HIv infection rate.
The US had an infection rate of ~ .33%
Thailand has an infection rate of 1.4%. (or did while since I looked them up)
This produces an easier test sample.

I knew theirs was high, but I didn't know the exact numbers and couldn't be bothered to look it up, that is another good point. Although, I believe there is a different strain of HIV that is more prevalent there than here.

When I visited in early 2000's for leave the army gave me a briefing on avoiding hookers because they had a 25% HIV infection rate there.

[Vrolondia]

Uh... Theres a reason HIV/AIDS is un-cureable... It mutates every 24hours or so so a vaccine cant stop it...

There like Lego. Each block fits into the block its meant to fit into, so if it mutates every 24 hours or so, they cant be sure the vaccine will work because it changes per person/ per day, and i doubt the "vaccine" is going to do the same...

[Surote]

We have been trying to do that for years and they did it in some years it sucks.

[Greed and Death]

Uh... Theres a reason HIV/AIDS is un-cureable... It mutates every 24hours or so so a vaccine cant stop it...

There like Lego. Each block fits into the block its meant to fit into, so if it mutates every 24 hours or so, they cant be sure the vaccine will work because it changes per person/ per day, and i doubt the "vaccine" is going to do the same...

The big problem has been it looks like certain immune system responses.
So the traditional method of inject a dead virus so the body builds antibodies to protect from it doesn't work.
We really had become arrogant about viruses before HIV. Prior to that once we had isolated a Virus and 90% of its strains we could make an effective vaccine. Basically the effort we put into the flu vaccine every year would be needed.
That's why in 1984 we had said we were a decade away from a vaccine.

It is doable they are isolating parts of the Virus that do not change and do not confuse the bodies immune response.

[Tekania]

right... based on your extensive experience in performing large-scale scientific studies?

According to that study the control group had a lower infection rate than the country they were in... If the statistics were had less than a 0.3% margin of error, the control group's infection rate should have been about 1.5 times greater than what was reported in the study... if I use that basis as a standard deviance, that sets the margin of error around 0.5%... Which means the 0.3% difference found with the vaccinated group versus control group falls within the margin or error.... Which means, chances are, this vaccine had no effect what-so-ever... which is no surprise since it is composed of vaccines which have proven to have no effect what-so-ever individually...

[Hayteria]

Unfortunately a certain group of people might try to ban it's use or play down it's effectiveness, if it actually works.

I haven't read the articles Lackadaisical2 linked to (not yet, anyway) but who are you suggesting would try to ban its use or downplay its effectiveness?

[The Norse Hordes]

Meanwhile, the 99.9% of responsible "religious groups" will hail the advance, along with all other people with IQ's above room temperature.

This sentence contains a contradiction.

[Soheran]

According to that study the control group had a lower infection rate than the country they were in... If the statistics were had less than a 0.3% margin of error, the control group's infection rate should have been about 1.5 times greater than what was reported in the study...

Nonsense. If it were reasonable to assume that the control group typically matches the infection rate of the country in question, there would be no point in having a control group. But control groups both start being somewhat unrepresentative (because the fact that they are volunteer-based introduces selection bias) and grow more unrepresentative over time (because their very participation in the study makes them atypical, for instance because they are typically regularly examined by medical professionals, and because they will be more aware of the health issue in question.)

[Tunizcha]

Meanwhile, the 99.9% of responsible "religious groups" will hail the advance, along with all other people with IQ's above room temperature.

This sentence contains a contradiction.

The room temp. in my house is 21 degrees. So the statement is quite inaccurate.

[SoWiBi]

Unfortunately a certain group of people might try to ban it's use or play down it's effectiveness, if it actually works.

I haven't read the articles Lackadaisical2 linked to (not yet, anyway) but who are you suggesting would try to ban its use or downplay its effectiveness?

I have yet to reserve my lodgings in Kobrania's head, but I presume that they're referencing certain - mainly religious - groups that see HIV/AIDS as an "immoral disease" and the suffering as "just punishment" for those who engage in practices they associate with it (homosexuality, promiscuity, etc.). These groups would oppose a vaccine because it could, in their twisted world-view, lead straight to unabashed and unrestrained spread of this "immoral behavior" once the threat of HIV/AIDS is taken away.