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SOUTHERN VOICE
OCTOBER 21/1993
A better condom, not a vaccine
Two psychologists argue
that it would he more
cost effective to spend
vaccine research money
improving condoms
Washington, DC—The money and effort
spent to develop a vaccine for AIDS could
be put to better use by inventing condoms
that arc more sensitive, comfortable and
pleasant to use, two psychologists contend.
“The current program puts billions of
dollars into developing a preventive vaccine,
while a device exists for HIV which is 98
percent effective,” said Paul Abramson, a
professor at the University of California at
Los Angeles.
“We have to consider cost effectiveness,”
Abramson said.
Abramson and graduate student Steven
Pinkerton argue in an article that significant
obstacles will remain even after an AIDS
vaccine is developed. Their article was pub
lished in Evaluation Review, a journal for
researchers, planners and policy makers.
Abramson and Pinkerson also make their
case in a letter in the current issue of Sci
ence.
“We reject the notion that vaccinadon is
the simplest, safest and most effective form
of AIDS prevention,” Pinkerton said. “Addi-
Uonal funding for basic research, educadon
and treatment, and the development of stron
ger, more comfortable and more pleasurable
condoms, would be safer and more cost ef-
fecuve.”
If condoms were 90 percent effeedve in'
preventing HIV transmission, the psycholo
gists contend, 90 percent of the population
would have to be successfully vaccinated to
gain the same benefit as it would from the
conscientious use of condoms.
They argue that an AIDS vaccine would
provide a false sense of security because
many people would believe, incorrectly, that
they could not contract the disease. Abramson
said influenza vaccines are less than 80 per
cent effective.
It also would require booster shots, which
many people would not receive, and scien
tists might not be able to create a single
vaccine to be effective against all the exist
ing strains and new ones dial might develop.
“Will people who arc not vaccinated lie
to attract sexual parmers?” they ask. “Will
insurance be restricted to the vaccinated?
Will immigration?”
Asked for comment on the aniclc, Dr.
Jeffrey Laurence of the New' York Hospilal-
Comcll Medical Center, said no AIDS re
searcher will claim dial a vaccine can be
made 100 percent effective.
“We can either give up completely or
say we don’t have the best vaccine we can,
but there is some efficacy,” he said.
“People arc absolutely correct dial we
should not be spending money or testing
vaccines that people believe will be mini
mally effective when we could better spend
that money on basic biomedical research.”
And Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Dia
mond AIDS Research Center in New York
said that developing a vaccine is one of the
best ways to fight the epidemic.
Said Abramson: “We arc not arguing
that vaccines arc not helpful. In some cases
they are extraordinarily helpful. Our feeling
is that money should belter be spent in treat
ment. There is no curative treatment at this
point, only enormous suffering.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
False prophet
HIV mutant has been isolated dial can do
something that other HIVs can’t.”
Not quite. A number of researchers have
documented the effects of what arc called
syncytium-inducing (SI) strains, which arc
HIV variants that have die ability to cause
cells to clump together. This subject got a lot
of attention at the 1992 International AIDS
Conference. Not only is it clear that not all
HIV strains can do this, but it is equally clear
that people infected with SI strains do worse
than tiiose who arc not. Sometimes these
straias don’t show up until years after a per
son gets infected, but a Danish study re-
cendy published in the journal AIDS shows
quite clearly that people infected with SI
strains from the very beginning lose CD4
cells more quickly than those who arc not.
Other studies have also shown that when
specific HIV mutations show up, the patient
gets w'orse. Maybe it’s possible to explain
this and still believe the vims has nothing to
do with AIDS, but Duesberg doesn’t try. He
just claims it doesn’t happen, despite moun
tains of evidence to the contrary.
When he’s not telling flat untruths,
Duesberg simply ignores data that’s incon
venient. Jay Levy at the University of Cali-
fomia-San Francisco, for example, has shown
that people whose CDS immune cells arc
more able to combat HIV live longer with
undamaged immune systems than those
whose cells lack diis ability.
And many researchers have compared
HIV-infected drug users widi non-drug us
ers, with results dial don’t help Duesberg.
Several studies presented at diis year’s AIDS
Conference in Berlin, for example, showed
that HIV-infcctcd drug injectors did no w'orse
than non-drug users—rather difficult to ex
plain if drug use causes AIDS.
Alas, Guccionc didn’t ask about diese •
findings and let even the most blatant mis
statements go unchallenged. He, perhaps, can
be excused for not knowing any better. But
what is one to make of Professor Duesberg,
who surely must know belter? Why is lie
spreading a potentially deadly message—
diat you don’t have to w-orry about safe sex
because AIDS isn’t a sexually transmitted
disease—with arguments built out of what
look an awful lot like plain, old-fashioned
lies?
One researcher, who preferred not to have
her name associated in print with such harsh
language, offered a blunt assessment: “He’s
nuts.” Over time, that may turn out to have
been an excessively charitable view.
Did you know that you have the right to select
ijs ycVh choose your phar|hacy? You can
your insurance benefits to the provider who goes
you the quality care and reasonable prices you
deserve. You have the power to protect your policy
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