Personalized HIV + Vaccine Shows Promise

Courtesy of POZ.com:

An experimental treatment strategy involving a vaccine that is tailor-made from an HIV-positive person’s virus and immune system cells can reduce viral load and improve the function of the immune system, according to a presentation at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference in Paris on October 21 that was announced by the vaccine’s developer, Argos Therapeutics.

Preventive vaccines work by stimulating the immune system so that when it encounters an infectious pathogen, it will quickly respond and keep the infection from taking hold. A therapeutic vaccine is also designed to provoke an immune response, but in people already infected with a virus or bacteria. Its aim is to help the body better control the infection. A number of therapeutic vaccines have been tried in HIV disease, but have not proved successful until now.

AGS-004, a therapeutic vaccine being developed by North Carolina–based Argos, customizes immune system cells from each individual, using HIV fragments known as messenger RNA, to maximize an HIV-positive person’s immune response to the virus. To do this, dendtritic cells are removed from the body and combined with mRNA taken from the same individual’s HIV.

Jean-Pierre Routy, MD, from McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, gave one of two presentations at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference on AGS-004. Routy presented data on 16 people with HIV who interrupted their antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for 12 weeks after achieving undetectable viral loads and then receiving the vaccine.

Thirteen of the 16 patients had a viral load at the end of their 12-week treatment interruption that was lower than their viral load before starting ARV treatment. The average reduction in virus was about 80 percent. No signs of significant side effects were reported.

“The level of viral load control in response to AGS-004 has been unexpectedly strong compared to what has been reported for other immunotherapies tested in similar patient populations,” Routy said.

A second presentation involving the same group of study participants showed strengthened CD8 cell responses—long believed to be vital to the immune system’s response to HIV—after vaccination.

A larger Phase IIb study is planned to start in 2010 based on funding from the National Institutes of Health.

In a Changing Era, a Reminder of AIDS

there’s a great article in The New York Times by Robert Caplin about Sean Strub, the founder of
POZ Magazine.

Below is an excerpt:

By the fall of 1995, Sean Strub was near death from AIDS.

He’d already lived longer than he was supposed to. He was sure he’d experienced the first symptoms while a student at Columbia in 1979, though by the time he was tested and his disease formally diagnosed it was 1985. “The doctor held my hand, looked into my eyes and said, ‘Sean, these days you can have a good two years.’ He was trying to cheer me up.” That doctor, Nathaniel Pier, died of AIDS, as did another who treated Mr. Strub, Dr. James Nall.

Five of the six men he had roomed with in New York City during the 1980s, including Andre Ledoux, Michael Misove, Bob Barrios and Paul Friedman, died of AIDS.

Early on, Mr. Strub helped support himself by building mass mailing lists of people involved in gay causes. (“If a gay travel agency went out of business, I’d buy that list.”) In those pre-Internet days, his lists made him invaluable for fund-raising and political activism as he joined groups like the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Act Up. He lived, worked and protested in the heart of the epidemic, was arrested for civil disobedience several times and knew hundreds of gay men who died of AIDS. He once had to choose from three memorial services held on the same day. When visiting a friend at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, he would walk the halls, read the names on the doors and discover others he knew who were dying.

In 1994, he started POZ, a magazine for the H.I.V.-positive. The idea was to give people hard facts, but realistic hope, although by 1995, his appeared to be running out. He normally was thin — 6-foot-1, 156 pounds — but by then weighed 124. The Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions, which started on his body in 1994, spread to his neck, face and, by 1995, his lungs, making him a “90-9” club member: 90 percent died within 9 months. That year, 51,373 Americans died of AIDS, the epidemic’s high point, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Click here to read the entire post!  It’s a great story of hope, courage and reality!

FDA Approves Abbott’s New HIV Test

From Poz.com:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Abbott Laboratories’ new HIV test, which can detect HIV types 1 and 2, The Associated Press reports. While type 2 is mostly found in West Africa, type 1 is comprised of various HIV subgroups found primarily in both the United States and West Africa.

According to the article, the Abbott Prism HIV O Plus test runs on Abbott’s Prism system, which is an automated instrument typically used to screen blood for hepatitis. This new test will be used to test blood and organ donations for HIV.

Should Boys Receive HPV Vaccine?

From POZ.com:

Should the federal government pay for the Gardasil HPV vaccine for boys and young men covered by government-funded health programs? The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is holding a public hearing October 21 and 22 in Atlanta to discuss this important question and would like to hear from concerned community members, both in person and in writing.

Gardasil was approved in 2006 to help protect young women from the strains of human papilloma virus (HPV) that are most likely to cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Current guidelines recommend treating girls before they become sexually active, because a majority of women become infected with HPV within a short time after sexually activity has commenced.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now poised to approve the same vaccine to protect men from the same HPV strains that cause anal and penile warts and cancer. The FDA is expected to approve the vaccine’s use in preteen and teenage boys who have not yet become sexually active.

FDA approval is more scientific than political. The same is not true, however, when it comes to government decisions to pay for certain components of medical care. When ACIP recommended that government funds be used to vaccinate girls and young women, conservative activists objected strongly, claiming that the vaccine promoted promiscuity.

HIV and gay men’s health activists anticipate similar controversy at the ACIP hearing to determine whether the government should pay for the vaccine to protect men.

The mobilization of HIV and gay health activists is due, in part, to the fact that men who have sex with men have the highest rates of HPV infection and are likely to need the vaccine the most. Conservative groups are also expected to advocate against the government recommending payment for the vaccine, suggesting that it will promote both promiscuity and homosexuality.

Information about the ACIP hearing, which is open to the public, can be found on the CDC website. Written comments can also be submitted to the ACIP by e-mail at acip@cdc.gov.

Jay-Z Designs Athur Ashe Charity T-Shirt

According to a posting on POZ.com:

As part of his Rocawear clothing line, rap superstar Jay-Z has designed a T-shirt featuring late HIV-positive tennis great Arthur Ashe, to be sold for charity at the U.S. Open, The Associated Press (AP) reports.

The shirt commemorates the 40th anniversary of the USTA National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) network, which Ashe founded in 1969. Proceeds from sales of the shirt will benefit the NJTL as well as the Arthur Ashe Endowment for the Defeat of AIDS.

Ashe’s widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, told the AP she is “thrilled that someone of Jay-Z’s stature would take part in this project.”

Ashe will be inducted in the U.S. Open Court of Champions on September 10. The U.S. Open takes place in New York City until September 13.

I realize this isn’t about a gay man, yet it is about a disease that affects the lives of so many, I felt it should be mentioned.  HIV/Aids is not an issue only the gay community suffers from, but so many others.  This is one of the most serious issues of our times.  Whatever we’ve been doing is obviously not enough.  I urge all of you not only to become educated about HIV/Aids, but do your part to help educate others, gay or straight, so that they in turn, can do the same thing.  Dialogue is key.  Start a conversation.

To learn more about HIV/Aids, visit TheBody.com and POZ.com