Data Drought: As Treatment Euphoria Ebbs, Stubborn Uncertainties Resurface But Are Unlikely to Be Resolved
TAGline • 1999As Treatment Euphoria Ebbs, Stubborn Uncertainties Resurface But Are Unlikely to Be Resolved ‘Unacceptable collective evasion’ Paul Joseph Corser 1961-1999 Rod Sorge 1969-1999 With the prolonged demise of HIV eradication hypotheses and the growing appreciation of the various unpleasant realities of lifelong HAART, the issue of the optimal time to initiate treatment with antiretroviral therapy…
Vaccine Tug-of-War: Laboratory Purists and Renegade Empiricists Duke It Out Over How to Proceed with Vaccine Development Efforts
TAGline • 1998Laboratory Purists and Renegade Empiricists Duke It Out Over How to Proceed with Vaccine Development Efforts Current Products ‘Certain to Fail’ Although significant scientific hurdles continue to impede progress toward the development of an ideal HIV vaccine candidate, a number of HIV vaccine trials have recently been initiated in the U.S. (see also table). And…
Empyrrhic Victory: Jubilation, and Skepticism, Greet Announcement of First Phase III Trial of an AIDS Vaccine
TAGline • 1998Jubilation, and Skepticism, Greet Announcement of First Phase III Trial of an AIDS Vaccine Watershed — or Waterworld? This June, the FDA gave the go-ahead to VaxGen, Inc., a subsidiary of Genentech, the biotechnology firm, to conduct the first phase III efficacy trial of a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. The story made the front…
Talk About a Revolution: From Acting Up to Acts of Congress, AIDS Activist Reviews and Critiques a Decade of Social Change
TAGline • 1998From Acting Up to Acts of Congress, AIDS Activist Reviews and Critiques a Decade of Social Change Green light, red light at FDA At last month’s 4th International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection (Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.), TAG’s Mark Harrington was invited to speak at the opening ceremony which convened Sunday evening at the…
The Agenda Ahead: TAG Policy Director and Recent McArthur Fellow Warns Against Premature Declarations of Victory
TAGline • 1998TAG Policy Director and Recent McArthur Fellow Warns Against Premature Declarations of Victory Mark Harrington, propelled further into the limelight by his recent selection as a recipient of a McArthur ‘genius’ award, has been out on the lecture circuit of late. And as he tours the country he bears the burden of negotiating that ever…
Slicing Up the Pie: Congress Asks Watchdog Agency to Report on NIH’s Allocation of Scarce Research Dollars
TAGline • 1998Congress Asks Watchdog Agency to Report on NIH’s Allocation of Scarce Research Dollars Funding “frighteningly inadequate” In the face of criticism that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has unfairly favored certain diseases — particularly AIDS — in its yearly allocation of research dollars, TAG Policy Director Gregg Gonsalves traveled to Washington, D.C. early last…
TAG Takes on an Executive Director
TAGline • 1998On March 1, 1998 the Treatment Action Group (TAG) announced the appointment of Odell Mays as its first Executive Director. A Stanford and NYU alumnus and former director of the New York Peer AIDS Education Coalition, Inc., an organization dedicated to HIV prevention among street youth, Mays brings to TAG a background in both business…
Immunization to the Fore: Long Languishing in Shadow of the Antiviral Quick Fix, Immune Based Therapies Are Called to Center Stage
TAGline • 1998Long Languishing in Shadow of the Antiviral Quick Fix, Immune Based Therapies Are Called to Center Stage How to refortify the immune system The twilight of eradication may herald a new dawn for HIV immunology research, which has been largely overshadowed by advances in antiretroviral therapy over the past three years — and its now…
Use It. Lose It. Tantalizing Research Paper Contemplates The Restoration of HIV-Specific ‘T-Help’ After HAART
TAGline • 1998Tantalizing Research Paper Contemplates The Restoration of HIV-Specific ‘T-Help’ After HAART ‘An argument for immediate therapy?’ The hallmarks of HIV infection and AIDS are a gradual deterioration of the immune system and the subsequent development of opportunistic infections that debilitate and eventually kill those infected with the virus. The deterioration of the immune system in…
Worldwide Epidemic: Just When You Thought the Global HIV/AIDS Picture Couldn’t Get Any Worse — It Did
TAGline • 1997Just When You Thought the Global HIV/AIDS Picture Couldn’t Get Any Worse — It Did What could a vaccine do? As people in the North America, Western Europe and Australia begin to live longer with HIV and AIDS (and even begin to savor the first wafts of what might turn out to be a kind…