Being called a medical breakthrough, an American funded study that was carried out on 16,000 individuals in Thailand says that a combination of two vaccines has cut HIV infections by 31.2 percent.
Some people with HIV produce the antibodies that have been identified and appear to neutralize a high proportion of the many types of HIV.
The research involved 16,402 volunteers at average risk of HIV infection. Half of the participants were given the vaccine combination and the other half received a placebo. Both groups received counseling on how to prevent becoming infected with HIV at the beginning of the study and every six months after the start of the study for a total of three and a half years. Of the 8,197 volunteers who received vaccine, new infections occurred in 51 people.
The protection given by the vaccine is far too low to distribute to the public, said Dr. Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. When all the information is analyzed the results should provide valuable information as to where to focus future efforts.
It is problematic to develop an AIDS vaccine since current vaccine’s bolster the immune system’s natural response where as the natural response to HIV is immune system failure.
The research also found that though some individuals were prevented from contracting the virus, the vaccine did not have an effect on the severity of contracted HIV infections.
What bothers me about this story is the media treating that 31.2% like a solid number with no margin of error. You are talking about 51 and 74 out of 16,000. You can’t assume that both halves of the 16,000 would get exactly 74 infections. Nor can you jump to the conclusion that *if* both halves got exactly 74 infections that the 23 who didn’t get infected in this study was due to the vaccines working as designed. For example, maybe those who got the vaccinations got flu-like symptoms from the shots which took them out of action for a while, reducing their chances of getting infected?
I’m not trying to throw a wet blanket on the study, I think it shows promise and prompts more studies. But, the sensational headlines are misleading, to say the least.