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PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS
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"Ambitious Clinical Trial Stirs Debate"
Science (09/24/99) Vol. 285, No. 5436, P. 2039; Cohen, Jon
"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
will fund a massive trial of an AIDS treatment during the next
five years.
The $43 million study has been thoroughly reviewed
and rejected once previously, and many researchers still believe
its results will not be helpful in developing HIV treatment.
NIAID director Anthony Fauci holds a patent on the treatment,
which proposes to use genetically engineered interleukin-2 (IL-2)
to boost the CD4 levels of HIV-infected individuals.
To avoid any conflict of interest, an ad hoc "study section" of peers was convened by the National Cancer Institute, instead of NIAID.
The so-called Esprit trial hopes to determine whether an increase in
CD4 cells creates longer, healthier lives for HIV patients.
Participants in the study will be HIV-infected people who are
fairly healthy with at least 300 CD4 cells per millimeter of
blood. Critics of the study point out that IL-2 is quite
expensive, costing at least $5,000 for three cycles of treatment."
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Fauci seems to be coming around to 'real' immune control of HIV, in addition to HAART although he is not abandoning IL-2. I did not realize that that Fauci holds the patent for IL-2. If that is not a conflict of interest, what is?? In one of my recent SI posts I was going to say that it looks like a conflict of interst, even tho I did not know then that he held the patent. I figured I'd probably be criticized for questioning the motivation of such a 'well-respected scientist and I refrained. However, the journal "Science" does it for me: They raise the conflict of interest and discuss the controversy over the new $43 million study funded by the NIAID, a 10 year multi-site study to study IL-2 and HAART.
IL-2 acts like a copy machine, making copies of cd4's or what is present, and the value of those has been questioned, (quality vs quantity) but IL-2 doesn't bring back the specific anti-HIV immune response required to keep HIV under control. And it has many side effects.
Although IL-2 will probably have a place in immune therapy at some point, possibly due to it's well connected inflential sponsorship, why stiffle other research that may be better? There is little doubt that immune therapy for HIV treatmet was scorned not too long ago. From what I've learned here and and on other boards and in articles, many scientists, (but Fauci was the most vocal) were critical of Salk's therapeutic vaccine against HIV, and were highly critical of it and any attempts to involve the immune system in HIV treatment. Fauci is Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and kind of like the old EF Hutton commercial: When Fauci speaks...........
But Remune is making a comeback, and immune therapy is becoming the hot topic in HIV research as hopes for eradication dim.
I'll give some references next time. Just one though, released yesterday at 5:00 pm and posted on Yahoo. Thanks, Yahoo posters, Th1helpers and Newdaydons
pnas.org
<<PNAS Vol. 96, Issue 21, 11986-11991, October 12, 1999
Spontaneous and antigen-induced production of HIV-inhibitory-chemokines are associated with AIDS-free status.
Alfredo Garzino-Demo,, Ronald B. Moss, Joseph B. Margolick, Farley Cleghorn, Anne Sill*, William A. Blattner, Fiorenza Cocchi, Dennis J. Carlo, Anthony L. DeVic, and Robert C. Gallo*
Institute of Human Virology, The Immune Response Corporation, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, The Johns Hopkins University
"The beta-chemokines RANTES, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1, and MIP-1 suppress infection by macrophage-tropic strains of HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) by binding and down-regulating the viral coreceptor, CCR5. Accordingly, we have examined whether higher levels of CCR5 ligands are associated with a more favorable clinical status in AIDS. A cross-sectional study of 100 subjects enrolled in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study at the Baltimore site was conducted to measure chemokine production and lymphocyte proliferation by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Statistical analyses of the data revealed that the production of HIV-suppressive-chemokines by HIV antigen-stimulated PBMC was significantly higher in HIV-positive subjects without AIDS compared with subjects with clinical AIDS. Increased chemokine production was also correlated with higher proliferative responses to HIV antigens. Both parameters were significantly lower in the AIDS versus non-AIDS group. Notably, significantly higher levels of MIP-1 were also observed with unstimulated PBMC from seronegative subjects at risk for HIV infection released as compared with seropositive and non-Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study seronegative subjects. The association of chemokine production with antigen-induced proliferative responses, more favorable clinical status in HIV infection, as well as with an uninfected status in subjects at risk for infection suggests a positive role for these molecules in controlling the natural course "
Full text: ihv.org
EMBARGOED UNTIL: 5pm EST on Monday, October 11
New Evidence Found for Role of Beta-Chemokines in Protecting Against AIDS: Excerpt:
"Baltimore, MD-Evidence supporting a new potential link between molecules of the immune system, beta (b) chemokines, and protection against development of the clinical signs of AIDS is reported in the October 12 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
This work has "implications for engineering a vaccine for AIDS or for developing therapeutic agents or diagnostic tools," says Robert Gallo, Director of the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) and an author on the paper. The IHV is a center of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and affiliated with University of Maryland Medicine.
The paper, "Spontaneous and antigen-induced production of HIV-inhibitory beta-chemokines are associated with AIDS-free status," is a collaborative effort of the IHV with the School of Hygiene and Public Health at The Johns Hopkins University and The Immune Response Corporation, a California-based company. >>
Remune increases chemokine production and also results in anti hiv specific antibody responses etc.... |
