Letter Opposing a Proposed Low-dose Stavudine Trial
14 December 2011
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Gates, We write as people with HIV and community activists with serious and unresolved concerns about the proposed clinical trial comparing stavudine at 20 mg to tenofovir. Although we are broadly very supportive of dose optimisation strategies, we do not support this trial; we do not think that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should support it; nor do we think it should proceed. Several of us have discussed this with your representatives both formally and informally over the past months. Those of us who met with your representatives on 19 July 2011 at the International AIDS Society conference in Rome received no response to the concerns we raised. We summarise our objections as follows:
HIV Cure-Related Research Workshop Report
October 2011 - The meeting, sponsored by the AIDS Policy Project, amfAR, Project Inform, and TAG, featured an overview of HIV latency, persistence, and eradication research; lessons from past clinical trials; a review of current or impending trials; and a full discussion of issues including trial design, appropriate markers and endpoints, and development of better assays. Participants heard a presentation on the ethics of clinical trials and discussed the federal regulatory process and how best to engage the several branches of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a coordinated and collaborative way to work together to ensure that cure-related clinical trials proceed expeditiously, ethically, and safely.
HIV, Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), and Tuberculosis Drugs, Diagnostics, Vaccines, and Preventive Technologies in Development
September 2011 - As this i-Base and TAG 2011 Pipeline Report, Second Edition, makes clear, medically, the prospect for people with HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and tuberculosis (TB) to live long and healthy lives—and in the cases of HCV and TB, to be cured rapidly with safe, effective, oral combination therapy—has never been better.
July 2011 - The HIV treatment research landscape is changing. Thanks to recent treatment scale-up and prevention science breakthroughs and the new global treatment target of 15 million by 2015, there is real momentum to bring the epidemic under control and ultimately end it. To capitalize on these scientific gains, continued investment and innovation are necessary to prevent new infections, to ensure people currently on treatment are able to continue, and to scale up treatment to reach all those who will benefit from earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy. This report from TAG, UNAIDS, and the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition documents $2.46 billion in HIV-related research investments.
