HIV vaccine raised infection risk

Biological and lifestyle differences cannot fully explain infection spike among trial participants.

Evidence is mounting that an experimental vaccine to protect people against HIV increases the risk of infection, according to results presented on 10 October at the AIDS Vaccine 2013 conference in Barcelona, Spain

This is not the first report of problems with the vaccine made by pharmaceutical giant Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. In 2007, researchers prematurely cancelled two clinical trials after the vaccine — comprising a vector made from the common-cold virus adenovirus 5 (Ad5) modified to contain HIV genes — proved ineffective at preventing HIV. In the larger of the two trials, called STEP, the vaccine seemed to increase the risk of infection, especially in men. But the risk declined over time and narrowed further when the researchers accounted for factors such as circumcision, sexual activity and previous infection with Ad5.

The second trial, in Phambili, South Africa, was shut down after little more than six months, and its 800 participants were told whether they had received the vaccine or a placebo. When a team led by Glenda Gray, a pediatrician at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, followed up earlier this year, it found that 119 of those patients had contracted HIV. Overall, people who had received the vaccine were significantly more likely to be infected than those who had received the placebo.

“I spent most of this year trying to find a non-biological reason for these results,” says Gray. But when her team accounted for biological and lifestyle differences in their participants, it found that the vaccine recipients were still significantly more likely to have HIV. In a separate study, biostatistician Peter Gilbert of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle, Washington, analyzed the STEP and Phambili trials together and found that the vaccine seems to raise the risk of infection by 41%.

Gray says the findings are confusing, as the previous explanation for the increase in infection rate observed in the STEP trial had been that the vaccine briefly overstimulated recipients' immune systems, making them more susceptible to HIV.nature

I feel bad for the test subjects. They will be keeping watch on those who were administered the vaccine for some years. There has been some debate in the field about the possibility that those who were in the trials engaged in riskier behavior because of it however that doesn’t account for those with the placebo. It looks like it is back to the drawing board on this one.

Grimpachi
the findings are difficult to interpret because most of the patients contracted HIV after they knew whether they had received the vaccine.
People who received a vaccine might have been more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour.

Does not seem to be a very well thought out study.
I can't see the point in giving people a placebo or vaccine, if you're then going to tell them which one they got.
The second trial they refer to, Phambili, South Africa, was also conducted in 2007. Since people were told they got the vaccine, the data from the 2013 followup is compromised.

Now to be clear here, I'm not saying anything about cause or effect. Just that the followup data cannot now mean anything much.

reply to post by Grimpachi


Raises some questions. What does it mean when one tests HIV positive? If you don't die from the 'infection' ... did your body beat it? When we're vaccinated against the flu, we get a little bit of that virus, our immune system kicks in, we beat the bug they gave us, and dodge the problem until the next strain shows up. Is that the same thing that happens with HIV? Is that the same thing they're going to find out with these test subjects?

Why ... for the love of God ... is the scientific/medical community playing with this fire to begin with? Are these Frankensteins somehow able to prevent their monsters from going out and infecting other 'healthy' members of their communities? WTF???

ETA: Note to Axl Jones (below): Yeah ... me too, brother. Me too ...

Those test subjects probably thought the vaccine made them immune to HIV and had a lot more unprotected promiscuous sex as a result hence the increased risk.

I know that's what I'd do

What is a vaccine?
It's a virus.

What's the HIV Vaccine?
HIV codes.

Your body cannot "gain" immunity, it actually attacks your immune system if it starts replicating.
Avoid this at all costs.

Here is an older thread I wrote :
Will you take the HIV Vaccine?

Quoting myself :

With many vaccines, the practice is to infect those who are not infected so they can fight the weakened disease and grow immunity. However with HIV, almost all infected cases never recover from the infection and have to fight it for the rest of their lives.

So ask yourselves, do you really trust the Pharmaceutical Corporations? Do you really trust that taking a HIV-AIDS vaccine will be safe and will not cause you to contract it yourselves?

This may not be the headlines today, but soon it will be. Soon it will become the focal point of vaccine debates, maybe not this year or next year, but within 5 years it will. Once these vaccines start getting pushed around enough, and enough cases of adverse reactions or infections pop up, there will be a hailstorm of controversy.

Would you give your kid a HIV vaccine?
This is the question I really want to know.

Snarl
reply to post by Grimpachi

 

When we're vaccinated against the flu, we get a little bit of that virus, our immune system kicks in, we beat the bug they gave us, and dodge the problem until the next strain shows up. Is that the same thing that happens with HIV?

I don't know of any cases where a human being fought off HIV and became immune as a result of their immune system adapting and overcoming it.

Wouldn't we use them to study ways to emulate it?

Maybe there are some people who became immune (who were not already to begin with).
I am open minded, I just don't know of any specific cases like that.

All I have heard about were people getting HIV and fighting it until they die from complications.
Some can last decades, if they are lucky.
Like Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jr. :

After announcing his infection in November 1991, Johnson created the Magic Johnson Foundation to help combat HIV,[147] although he later diversified the foundation to include other charitable goals.[148] In 1992, he joined the National Commission on AIDS, a committee appointed by members of Congress and the Bush Administration. Johnson left after eight months, saying that the White House had "utterly ignored" the work of the panel, and had opposed the commission's recommendations, which included universal healthcare and the expansion of Medicaid to cover all low-income people with AIDS.[147][149] He was also the main speaker for the United Nations (UN) World AIDS Day Conference in 1999,[148] and has served as a United Nations Messenger of Peace.[150]

HIV had been associated with drug addicts and homosexuals,[147] but Johnson's campaigns sought to show that the risk of infection was not limited to those groups. Johnson stated that his aim was to "help educate all people about what [HIV] is about" and teach others not to "discriminate against people who have HIV and AIDS".[148] Johnson was later criticized by the AIDS community for his decreased involvement in publicizing the spread of the disease.[147][148]
To prevent his HIV infection from progressing to AIDS, Johnson takes a daily combination of drugs.[151] He has advertised GlaxoSmithKline's drugs,[152] and partnered with Abbott Laboratories to publicize the fight against AIDS in African American communities.[151]

So Earvin has to take these drugs constantly, and I bet they are extremely expensive.

But hey that's over 20 years, it's "Magic".
Incredible actually.

Gray says the findings are confusing, as the previous explanation for the increase in infection rate observed in the STEP trial had been that the vaccine briefly overstimulated recipients' immune systems, making them more susceptible to HIV.nature

So having an "overstimulated" immune system causes me to get HIV easier?

Better more active immune system = weaker and more susceptible?

I am not confused at all by the studies findings.

How can this guy be so confused? What the hell are those degrees for anyways?

muzzleflash
I don't know of any cases where a human being fought off HIV and became immune as a result of their immune system adapting and overcoming it.

Wouldn't we use them to study ways to emulate it?

Maybe there are some people who became immune (who were not already to begin with).
I am open minded, I just don't know of any specific cases like that.

All I have heard about were people getting HIV and fighting it until they die from complications.

The HIV 'scare' cranked up in what ... the early '90s? Where's the pandemic? This crap's supposedly been infecting humans since the late '50s. By now, everybody and their brother should be dead from it ... except Magic Johnson. We've all got a lot of bugs/no-see-ums in our bodies, but I'm not buying into the hype. I did once ... not anymore.

When people start playing with fire is when I sit up and take notice. Grimpachi's post made me do just that. I guess whoever created HIV didn't do a good enough job on their first try and somebody may be out to improve on it.

Ever read that book by Frank Herbert called The White Plague? Fascinating ... and nothing like Dune.

Thanks for taking the time to address my previous post. -Cheers

HIV Vaccine???

Chances are if you don't sleep with skanks and stay away from intravenous drug use/users then you wont catch AIDS!

And stuff taking any vaccine that increases your chances of infection by 41%! That's nearly the same chance as flipping a coin for Christ sake!

Take their funding and put it to a good use like Cancer research or homeless shelters!

Snarl
The HIV 'scare' cranked up in what ... the early '90s? Where's the pandemic?

Eastern and southern Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is where about 70% of HIV infections occur. Ninety percent of women and children with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa. If you're talking about HIV, and you're not talking about Africa, you're doing it wrong. The developed world is trying to catch up, but it's not quite there yet.

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli


All going as planned if indeed HIV/AIDS is a Man made virus!

all those weasel words and mincing around
in order to blame these guinea pigs getting HIV
on ANYTHING but the lethal injection *COUGH!* "vaccine".

so they used a cold virus this time around?...

when they infected the gay community it was with a hepatitis "vaccine"
probably smallpox or polio for the african cases...

a fool, willing to allow a stranger to inject unknown substances into their bloodstream, and his/her life are soon parted.

just think of it as evolution, via eugenics, in action

Those who take the time to do the research will discover that vaccines at large are as ineffective as this one.
Stay away