Articles tagged with "aid"

There have been promising results from a recent trial of an HIV vaccine. An effective vaccine would be a useful part of our fight against AIDS related deaths. The new vaccine needs further trials, but in the study showed an 80% immune response, which is much better than previous attempts to create a vaccine. In brief, as I'm sure everyone knows, the HIV virus causes AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome - and it's this compromised immune system that can be fatal.

Pseudoscientific beliefs can be dangerous when they form the basis of government policy

The Prevalence of HIV disease has continued to increase across the African continent and is a major public health concern due to cultural attitudes to sexuality and a degree of poverty which precludes effective pharmacological interventions. A quack Nigerian surgeon has been charging patients US$1000-1500 for a course of his vaccine which he claims has successfully treated 900 patients for HIV/AIDS. The Nigerian Academy of Sciences deemed the vaccine "untested and potentially dangerous". The Surgeon's response has been to allege that "he has been the victim of a conspiracy by transnational pharmaceutical companies, in league with the Nigerian Health Ministry, to steal his 'wonder vaccine'...." This is the familiar paranoid conspiracy theories of the quack.

In issue 16, I reported on an AIDS treatment scam run by a British doctor, James Sharp, and an Iraqi vet. This had been exposed as such by an investigative journalist.