Word: hiv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Twenty five years into the AIDS epidemic, how much have the public's attitudes toward the disease and toward HIV-positive patients changed...
That's the question that the MAC AIDS Fund, a philanthropic organization that supports HIV awareness and prevention programs around the world, was after. So the organization conducted the first global survey of people's perceptions of AIDS, polling people in nine different countries, including the U.S. The results were unexpected: Nearly half of the survey respondents thought that AIDS was not fatal. In India, where rates of HIV are rising, 59% of respondents believed that HIV is a curable disease. And 50% of people overall believed that most patients diagnosed with HIV are currently receiving treatment, when in fact...
...explanation might be that the scientists chose a cold virus as the delivery vehicle. Cold viruses do a good job of ferrying HIV genes for the same reason they do a good job of making us feel lousy: once inside the body, they infect cells very efficiently. But they are so common most people have some tolerance to them, and so the immune system waves them past without getting too excited by them--or by any HIV genes that might be riding piggyback...
...possible solution would be to stick with the cold virus but use different HIV genes and two injections spaced a few months apart. Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City, thinks the answer might be to abandon the cold virus and switch to another one, perhaps chicken pox. HIV won yet another round, but the game is long--and science is patient. How an aids vaccine could work [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine.] 1 A cold virus has been engineered to carry three synthetically produced HIV...
...recent months. In August he was widely condemned for dismissing the highly regarded Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge after she disagreed with her boss, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang--an Mbeki ally who recommends garlic and beets for treating AIDS. (The President himself is famously skeptical that HIV causes AIDS.) In late September, Mbeki outraged the country again by sacking the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Vusi Pikoli, who had issued an arrest warrant for another Mbeki ally, the country's top policeman, Jackie Selebi. A thumbs-down from the beleaguered President may just be the perfect endorsement...