Controversy Over Thailand AIDS Trial Results
October 12th, 2009 at 6:02 am Posted by
The Dean’s always keeping his eyes and ears open to what’s going on in the world and lately there seems to be some questions as to the legitimacy of the results of the Thailand AIDS trial released last month. Sources such as Science Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and other sources have reported on the criticisms of the the trial results.
The study reportedly treated 16,395 Thai men but there’s a debate of whether or not all participants and their results should be included as part of the overall “success” of the trial.
The Dean has done his homework and found that not all trial participants received the same amount of doses of the trial vaccine and not all participants remained in the study full time.
The trial results are apparently inaccurate and also did not tell the world that the effectiveness of the tested vaccines is less significant when based on the participants who actually received all 6 vaccine shots at the correct time and followed other elements associated with the treatment.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institutes of Health, agrees that different analyses of the trial data shows a weaker effect of the vaccine used. The Dean knows there’s an HIV Vaccine Conference in Paris next week and the Army could’ve been looking for some attention prior to this meeting of medical minds.
Dr. Fauci also believes this is true but suggests these boasted results have apparently “backfired.”
As always, The Dean is willing to give credit where credit is due but a trial that was called a “scientific breakthrough” nearly three weeks ago but now sources like United Press International (UPI) has recently reported on the $105 million trial in Thailand calling it a “fluke.”
Scientist Jerome Kim was cited as a medical reference by both UPI and The Wall Street Journal and suggested that the report of 31% effectiveness of the trial vaccine could be even lower than The New York Times reported, much lower. In fact, the second analysis of the trial results “showed there is a 16 percent chance the study results were a fluke.”
The Dean believes that the Thailand AIDS trial will keep the world’s eye on the HIV/AIDS treatment market looking for an effective method of treatment for the growing infected population. If only there was a solution…
I wonder how this experiment was conducted. Do 16,000 poverty stricken males that need to make a buck sign up and receive the vaccination? If this is the case, how are they exposed?