By Richard Jefferys Since the late 1980s researchers have recognized that HIV isolates (viruses sampled from infected individuals) can be divided into one of two categories based on their ability to replicate in particular cells in the laboratory. Originally, a…
Squandering Public Goodwill and Scarce Research Funds to Boot -- But to What End? By Richard Jefferys Altruism Betrayed On September 23, 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee held a hearing to…
A Timeline for the Initiation of the RV144 Prime-Boost Trial By Richard Jefferys 1995-2001: U.S. Military HIV Research Program/Thai Ministry of Public Health collaboration tests various combinations of ALVAC prime/Env protein boost vaccines, eventually choosing to move ahead with the…
PHS Panel Embraces Treatment Interruption "[Single episode treatment interruption] may be offered to patients with immune reconstitution, although participation in a controlled trial would be preferred. ... The long-term safety and efficacy of this approach are not known." Source: Guidelines…
Tangle of Interests and Disclosure Omissions Cracks Authors' Case for Early, Aggressive Treatment By Mike Barr "Treatment Perfected" Parallel realities, of sorts, presented themselves last month to medical literature news junkies -- which includes a goodly share of the TAG…
Brown University Clinician Leads the Way in Providing Competent Care to Coinfected Injectors By Tracy Swan Directly Observed Peg-IFN? A majority of the estimated 4 million hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in the United States result from injection drug use…
Mike Barr and Rob Camp -- The article on the HIV Web sites and how their sponsors might influence their reporting is groundbreaking. TAG could do a great Sunday New York Times Magazine piece using these tables as the essential…
Does Gilead's Famed 903 Study Really Show You What They Tell You It Shows? By Steven Miles, M.D. Betting on Holy Water "Tenofovir/FTC Is Superior to Combivir!!" Is this really believable? Or how about "AZT/3TC equals ABC/3TC"?? Of course not.…
By Mike Barr Even the researchers admit any definitive conclusions must await more rigorous investigation. But on the eve of World AIDS Day the news of a possible novel, less onerous, and much more affordable approach to the treatment of…
Why the Tap 'n' Drainers Have Always Been Wrong; Plus, a New Theory About MDR HIV By Richard Jefferys The Primacy of Immune Activation Project Inform, the country's longest serving community-based AIDS treatment information organization, has been sponsoring scientific think…