Scientific research can be painfully slow. It needs to be meticulous and cross-checked for odd findings that aren’t real. The researchers are under pressure to publish, to justify the money with which they’ve been entrusted for the work. The newspeople want their soundbites. People who are ill want help. Those pressured run counter to the need for accuracy. Almost by definition, long term side effects take time to uncover, if and when they exist.
There’s a story known to some in business. It goes like this. A customer walks into a print shop with an idea in his or her head for a fancy new poster for advertising at a convention coming up. The owner, standing behind the counter, listens to what the customer wants. “OK, I get it. Now tell me, do you want it cheap, fast or high quality? Pick one.”
That’s the problem with virtually any kind of research.
The flip side is that when progress happens, it tends to run in groups or spurts.
We have two remarkable announcements on the HIV front in the last few weeks. While not in the news, globally there were 1.3 million new HIV infections in 2022. The US has 31,800 new infections that year, so it is very much still around.(1) Progress matters.
- Patients with active HIV infections can have the disease put into remission by means of stem cell transplants. Until now, successes have involved donors with genes with two copies of the “CCR5 delta 32” gene mutation. The technical term for the double copy is “homozygous.” Now we have a patient whose HIV infection has been put into remission for six years after a stem cell transplant with a single mutation — a heterozygous transplant. While there are still some issues to work through, this greatly expands the population of eligible donors and the number of patients suffering from this disease who could be cured.(2)
- Lenacapavir is a medication used to treat patients with highly drug resistant versions of HIV. A new trial trial shows that it extremely effective in the prevention of HIV infections in women who are at high risk of developing the disease. In the study, NONE of the women treated with Lenacapavir developed HIV. The trial was so successful that it was stopped early to allow patients in the control group to have access to the drug. A trial among men is underway with results expected in late 2024 or early 2025.(3)
The beauty of Lenacapavir is that it is a twice-a-year injectible that appears to function much like a vaccine for HIV. This is a big deal for sufferers and their families.
We’ve come a long way since the movie, “Philadelphia.”
It’s also a big deal for taxpayers. Early detection, prevention and cure are crucial to reducing health care spending and health insurance costs. This is how we win, individually and as a society.
Sources:
- https://whttps://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statisticsww.hiv/
- Richard Mark Kirkner, “Latest HIV Cure Case Comes With a Twist”, Medscape Medical News, Conference News, April 2024. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/latest-hiv-cure-case-comes-twist-2024a1000dvr?ecd=WNL_confwrap_ID_IAS-SPON_240817_MSCPEDIT_etid6751604&uac=446438BR&impID=6751604
- Brian Owens, “No HIV Infections After Twice-a-Year PrEP”, Medscape Medical News, 05 July 2024. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/no-hiv-infections-after-twice-year-prep-2024a1000cgp?ecd=WNL_confwrap_ID_IAS-SPON_240817_MSCPEDIT_etid6751604&uac=446438BR&impID=6751604
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