NIH announce dangerous changes to clinical trial protocols in search for HIV vaccine.

[Minuteman]

...and will continue advocating for more circumcision regardless.

Link: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Pages/HVAD2011.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aidsgovnews+%28AIDS.gov+News+and+Events%29

Excerpt:

"To speed the pace at which promising HIV vaccine candidates become viable for evaluation in large clinical trials, NIAID is exploring the use of innovative or adaptive clinical trial designs that let scientists quickly modify ongoing trials in response to data acquired during the study. Such flexibility in trial design will allow the research community to maximize efficiencies in studying vaccine candidates.
...
No matter how effective a preventive HIV vaccine is, however, we will need to evaluate and administer it in combination with other biomedical and behavioral HIV prevention tools. No single HIV prevention strategy will control and ultimately end the HIV/AIDS pandemic. That is why it is important for NIAID to continue supporting promising research on vaginal and rectal microbicides, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and expanded HIV testing with linkage to care. That is also why public health workers will continue to advocate and implement scientifically proven HIV prevention strategies such as condom use, medically supervised adult male circumcision, harm-reduction strategies for injection drug users and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV."

[sosurreal09]

SOB I wonder why $$$$$

[vachi73]

Sigh.

Well, on the "brighter" side of things:

1. "No single HIV prevention strategy will control and ultimately end the HIV/AIDS pandemic." -- that's a positive recognition that circ alone isn't the solution.

2. "That is also why public health workers will continue to advocate and implement scientifically proven HIV prevention strategies such as condom use, medically supervised adult male circumcision, harm-reduction strategies for injection drug users and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV." -- at least it says medically-supervised, as well as ADULT circ; not RIC and not non-medical circ ...

On the downside, obviously I am sad to see "scientifically proven" used in conjunction with circ as an HIV-prevention strategy." I guess this reflects the media attention given to those RCTs in Africa (accepting ONLY the "reported" female-->male transmission rate reduction while ignoring the male-->female INCREASE in transmisison rates ...)

[jenP]

The standards for "scientifically proven" sure are getting loose.