AIDS Treatment News, the world's first treatment newsletter for people with HIV, reports on mainstream and alternative treatment, access to care, Web resources, public policy, and political action.
A new protease inhibitor active against most HIV that is resistant to other protease inhibitors is likely to be approved in the U.S. soon, after an 11-3 vote of an advisory committee.
Ten government agencies are organizing a four-day clinical conference for physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals involved in HIV treatment.
This proposal, now introduced in Congress as HR 417, would replace current drug marketing with system better designed to reward effective innovation. All drugs would be treated as generics immediately when approved by the FDA, and patent holders would be rewarded from a $60 billion a year award fund for innovations that actually led to better health.
Is today's sheer multitude of biological patents (especially on genetics of human beings or human pathogens) killing medical innovation -- in addition to generating prohibitive prices for vital medical care?
On April 19, 2005 we spoke to Lisa Capaldini, M.D., an HIV specialist in San Francisco who alerted us to metabolic complications of HIV and antiretroviral treatment in 1997 (see AIDS Treatment News #277). We asked Dr. Capaldini for a brief overview of treating involuntary weight loss today.
Here are some of the real problems of cutting cost by denying care, instead of by improving the U.S. healthcare system, one of the most inefficient in the world.
The U.S. HIV treatment guidelines were changed to include new drug safety and interaction information, and to include a table on obtaining new antiretrovirals not yet approved but available through expanded access (which only includes tipranavir at this time).
The Clinical Care Options site now has six training modules summarizing practical information for physicians, from the Retroviruses conference in February.
The Institute of Medicine re-analyzed the key study that first showed prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission by single-dose nevirapine. The IOM released a 150-page report concluding that the study was properly conducted and its results are valid.
DHEA came close to being totally banned in the U.S. in January 2005, when a new law aimed at steroids in sports took effect. Even doctors would not have been able to prescribe DHEA, and medical research on its uses would have become far more difficult. A potentially important treatment could have been lost for a long time -- and could still be lost unless people are vigilant.
Here are places to look if you need to find out about HIV travel restrictions and testing requirements of countries around the world. For example, a database of all countries is now being maintained in Europe, and made available through the Web in English, German, and French.
At a one-day public meeting in Gaithersburg, Maryland (near Washington D.C.), the FDA will hear from experts and members of the public on tipranavir, an important new protease inhibitor expected to be approved soon.
Uganda has had a remarkable decline in HIV prevalence, and the question of what caused this decline is controversial. An intensive study of the Rakai region of Uganda from 1994 - 2003 found that much of the decreased prevalence resulted from death of people with HIV. But the incidence of new HIV infections was low throughout this study and did not change greatly, suggesting that the real cause of the success was a large reduction in new infections before the study began. The early data presented at the February 2005 Retroviruses conference also showed increasing use of condoms, and some backsliding on reducing the number of sexual partners. But neither change was big enough to greatly affect the incidence of new infections, at least in the aggregate data across the 50 villages studied.
A major U.S. study of sexually transmitted diseases in young people found that virginity pledges were associated with behaviors that would seem to be protective, and yet had no benefit in preventing disease.
An important potential target for antiretrovirals is the HIV protein Tat (produced by the virus and essential for infection, but is not used by the human body). Years ago, a Tat inhibitor worked well in the laboratory but failed in patients. Modern biotechnology may have shown why -- and how to screen for drugs more likely to work.
A bill to allow states to treat HIV early under Medicaid, instead of waiting for disabling illness, could prevent half of the HIV deaths in that program.
Two research articles and an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine recommend routine HIV testing for most of the U.S. population. The goal is to start treatment early when it can be more effective -- and also to reduce transmission from the hundreds of thousands of Americans who do not know they have HIV.
AIDS community groups have brought together background documents, explanatory writeups, and other information about the media stories that resulted from what is still a single, ambiguous case.
A study of liver and kidney transplants for persons with HIV, at 19 U.S. transplant centers, is open to new patients. Those who may need a transplant later might benefit by getting into the system in advance to avoid delays.
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.