posted on Sep, 29 2011 @ 12:56 PM
While the possibilities are exciting news, such studies don't have me doing the victory dance anymore.
It's all a big "might".
I often wonder about such studies and what kind of "at-risk of infection" people they use for their trials, instead of making sure such people
consistently use condoms or behavior change.
In SA we've had disastrous results with a vaginal gel tested on at-risk cohorts of women, and more of the women turned out HIV-positive during the
trial than those not getting it.
I'd also like to know what exactly this means for people who already have HIV/Aids.
There could be several reasons why 30 people who are from a high-risk group are not getting infected in a specific time-frame. Maybe the study itself
has made them hyper-aware of HIV, and they are using condoms or having more stable relationships?
How would they know it is the vaccine and not some other factor linked to the study?
We can't exactly test it on our closest relatives like the monkeys and apes, since they are immune to the effects of HIV.
How does one test this ethically on a human population without countless variables?