Setback in controlling HIV/AIDS

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Yea, but was that what they based their decision on? Doesn't seem like it, if it was then I wouldn't have an issue with it.

It's not so much whether I think staying on the drugs is the best course of action, of course the doctors know best. But it's whether the doctors advised the patients on a course of action they thought was the best for the patients' health or if they advised the patients something other than what they thought was optimal to gain knowledge at the risk of their health.

[NoraBrimstone]

You have to take risks to make progress. I'm sure it was all done with the patients' full consent, so what's the problem here?

[Chas]

Is it ethical to risk your patients' health for science?

I really don't think it is.

Informed consent.

The patients agreed to stop taking HIV medications to help researchers determine if the marrow transplant was responsible for the virus disappearing.

[Minimalist]

Who do you think they're "practicing" medicine on?

This isn't malpractice, this is deliberately conducting research that jeopardizes patients' health.

They have AIDS. Their health is pretty much in jeopardy anyway, no?

[Psykhronic]

AIDS and HIV are different, albeit connected.

[TaraJo]

You have to take risks to make progress. I'm sure it was all done with the patients' full consent, so what's the problem here?

Not to mention, it had ben done before. Sort of.

The Berlin patient was a man who was HIV positive but he got a bone marrow transplant for an unrelated illness. After being on the standard coctail for HIV treatmnt, he stopped of his own free will and still isn't showing any signs of HIV infection.

And both of these two patients had also gotten a bone marrow transplant as well, so they were the best opportunity to test the theory. Sadly, it didn't pan out. It's theorized that the difference was that the bone marrow doner for the Berlin patient has a rare HIV resistant gene.

If I'm a researcher looking for answers, I'm going to be studying that gene, figuring out how it resists HIV and how we can duplicate it in others. Still, part of me worries that there won't be as much support for curing HIV when pharmicutical companies can make more money by treating HIV by keeping patients taking their medication for the rest of their lives.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Ok I looked up a more detailed report. So apparently the patients went off the drugs because it was either they still had the infections and it was controlled by the drugs or they no longer had it. So they weren't taking risks of getting the infections again when they got off because either they had it or they didn't. And their blood was checked regularly.

The second guy insisted to stay off the drug after the first guy got his HIV back and that is his right, but if the doctors advised that he stayed off then that would be unethical. Informed consent is about the patients' rights to their own body. The doctors' treatments of patients however is still subjected to ethical constraints, and the oath to do no harm, which includes not giving advice that unnecessarily jeopardizes patients' health.

http://gizmodo.com/hiv-reappears-in-two-...socialflow

The two patients in the Boston study had battled HIV for years. They agreed to stop taking their HIV medications earlier this year to test whether the medicine was holding the infections in check, or whether it was the transplant of healthy donor bone marrow cells each received that was vanquishing signs of the virus in their bodies. Both had received the transplants after chemotherapy and other treatments had failed to stop their Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the blood.

For weeks, Henrich’s team carefully tested the patients’ blood, searching for signs of HIV. In July, with one patient off the HIV medications for seven weeks, and the other patient off for 15, the scientists reported their early, encouraging results: They could find no trace of the virus in their blood cells.

But in August, the scientists detected HIV in one of the patients, who then resumed taking medication. The other remained seemingly HIV-free. Concerned about the ethics of continuing the study, the scientists gave the patient the choice of going back on the drugs. The patient opted to stay off the medicine.

Last month, after eight months with no HIV detected, signs of the virus reemerged and the patient went back on medication, too.

Minimalist, I'm not talking about the transplant, talking about how they decided to stay off the drugs.

[Minimalist]

Ah, okay.

Lots of people volunteer to take part in medical trials, though.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Ah, okay.

Lots of people volunteer to take part in medical trials, though.

Yea but medical trials don't get to even begin if the design is unethical.

Well that's what they say, rules are lax if you recruit participants from africa or poorer places. That are a few studies they've done that looking at it you'd think, these people would get hell if they tried that here. That's why some researchers go there.

[TaraJo]

Ah, okay.

Lots of people volunteer to take part in medical trials, though.

Yea but medical trials don't get to even begin if the design is unethical.

How is the design unethical?

Well that's what they say, rules are lax if you recruit participants from africa or poorer places. That are a few studies they've done that looking at it you'd think, these people would get hell if they tried that here. That's why some researchers go there.

They actually do a lot of research studies like that here in the US.

I go to a pizza place down the street about once a week or so and they have a free local newspaper thing they give away out front and I'll skim through it while I eat. Know what? They always have ads where they're looking for volunteers for research studies.