Abbie Smith is a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. She also studies epigenetic control of ERVs.
"The vote can only be explained by the lack of independence of the agency from financial and other powers," Doctor Lafeuillade adds, "because this is an absurd way to face the HIV pandemic."
'Absurd'-- the grown-up way to say 'stupid'.
1 - First, treat all those who are infected;
2 - then promote safer sex (if 56% of patients in the IPrEx study got HIV infection, that is the proof that they did not use condoms in a well controlled trial, with counseling... What will that be in real life with Truvada* available over the counter, in black market and on the internet? It is a blank check for other sexually transmitted diseases.
3 - European doctors in a vast majority, and patients' advocates in Europe do not agree with this kind of "trade off"
4 - However, they will have to face the public health consequences of such a decision.
Exactly. Condoms are 80% effective at preventing HIV-1 transmission, at worst. Some studies have no transmission events in their entire cohort when their subjects are extremely compliant. Truvada got 56% efficacy... even though they told their subjects to wear condoms. So even in a well controlled, well designed study, the patients werent using condoms as instructed. They werent taking the drugs as instructed. What is going to happen in the real world? A goddamn train wreck. And the entire world will have to deal with the negative consequences of the FDAs decision-- drug resistant HIV.
THUNDERSTRUCK!!!! It was a really weird last two minutes of Wednesdays Thunder game (was watching it with people from Argentina. it was very hard to explain wtf was going on the last two minutes 'well he tried to miss the freethrow on purpose...') Downtown OKC went nuts. Well, nuts by OKC standards.
Also, Metta World Peace might have elbowed one of our best players in the back of the head/neck, a potentially deadly bullshit move, but he just won me over:
"I didn't realize Oklahoma had so many, like, fine women . . . I felt really comfortable. I hit my first two shots, it was mainly because of how beautiful the women were."
"You don't need makeup to be beautiful. That's the American way of telling a woman she's beautiful. She can be beautiful without make up. And that's what I've seen in Oklahoma City."
*squint* I know saying women look pretty without make-up is guys ace-up-the-sleeve (chicks version), but Im on to you, buddy. Thats only going to work on me 30-40 more times.
Femai is now threatening to sue the newspaper which also quoted him saying 'women should always have bald heads, lose weight and dress shabbily as HIV is spreading at an alarming rate because men are finding it difficult to resist attractive and well-dressed women'.
Women's rights groups and HIV/Aids activists are demanding an apology from the senator for being 'reckless and irresponsible'.
But he says he will not apologize for something he did not say.
"People should wait and see whether I am wrong or right because I can't apologize for something which is still being investigated as I have told you I have handed the case to my lawyers to deal with it. So people will know the truth in the near future."
Dr. Lee Greer is currently employed by La Sierra University as a non-tenured Assistant Professor of Biology. His contract expires by its own terms on June 30, 2012. The University honors its contractual commitments.
Beyond confirming the status of employment, the University does not comment on specific details of personnel matters as a matter of policy. This puts the University at a disadvantage in responding to public criticism such as Dr. Greer's "press release," but it is the policy of most employers for sound reasons of human resource management and the law.
If it were just Dr. Greer, I would have to give La Sierra the benefit of the doubt here too. Contracts expire. People get fired. It happens.
Except it wasnt just Dr. Greer.
This involves Dr. Greer AND three board trustees. There was no 'contract expiration' to explain the firing of the three trustees, and those three women appear (to this outside observer) to be over qualified for the position.
Four people fired at the same time.
The only thing they have in common is that they all supported the statement making it clear the kids were going to be taught science. They are not BFFs, they are not lovers, they arent even professional colleagues. Four people with nothing in common (except La Sierra U) have the exact same hypothesis: They were fired for supporting evolution.
L. Lee Grismer, a field biologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, is gaga over a new species of forest gecko from Southeast Asia that he will present in the scientific journal Zootaxa in three months.
...
Grismer will test his hypothesis that the forest lizard is closely related to another new species he discovered last June. He will isolate the forest gecko's DNA and compare it to that of a similar reptile he tracked down in a cave at the Malaysia-Thailand border.
"We're still in the age of discovery," said Grismer, who is credited with detecting more than 80 new species of reptiles and amphibians during the past 35 years.
To us normal, sane scientists (well, as normal and as sane scientists can reasonably be expected to be) this is exciting, but pretty standard news. There is a guy who teaches at some university who is really friggen cool and has discovered over 80 new species of creatures. Thats friggen nuts! And here he found another one. Gonna figure out how the new one is related to all the other ones we know about. Huzzah!
A La Sierra University professor and three university trustees said they were dismissed for trying to resolve a years-long controversy over creationism and evolution that has threatened the religious institution's accreditation.
Lee Greer, an assistant professor of biology, said the Riverside university refused to renew his three-year contract.
...
The dismissals appear to be the latest chapter in a struggle by the Seventh-day Adventist institution to reconcile the church belief that God created the Earth in six days with the scientific consensus supporting the theory of evolution.
...
Greer said he initiated discussions that led to a statement proposing that creation be taught in university classrooms as faith, rather than science, and that students be told that it could not be proven with scientific methods.
They fired a biology teacher for making sure the kids will get taught... biology... in biology class...
*blink*
They also fired three of the four trustees who approved of his proposal
Last year, this school was *celebrating* yet another discovery made by one of their biology faculty. An amazing man who used evolution to increase the prestige of La Sierra University.
This year, they are firing 'not renewing the contract' of one of their biology faculty for wanting the schools position on evolution clear for the students... And firing 'dismissing' three trustees who supported him.
Curiously, three trustees who are female. Who wants to start a betting pool as to whether that fourth trustee, the one who was not fired, is a male? Considering the fundamentalist turn this university has taken regarding evolution, I assume their tolerance of educated, accomplished women has taken a similarly radical turn. Go on, click the hyperlinks in their names. *points up*
They were fired for supporting evolution.
La Sierra University, your message is clear.
Even the shittiests, hipsterish of musicians contributes more to positive to society than those two groups of people. Stephanie Meyer has contributed more positive to society than those two groups of people. The fictional characters on the HBO television show 'Girls' (I cant even hate watch that show) have contributed more positive to society than those two groups of people.
Politicians and 'people of god' are useless, stupid creatures that need to get real jobs and contribute to society like everyone else.
Maybe I am currently biased, living in a state where having an IQ <75appears to bea prerequisite for holding political office, but it really does appear to be a Universal Truth.
Example: Here are some politician in Zimbabwe giving their ideas on how to curb the HIV epidemic. Us hoity-toity scientists might say "Condom use", but not these folks. These folks are POLITICIANS, so they knows better:
Sithembile Mlotshwa, the MDC-T Senator for Matobo, recently suggested that Zimbabweans must be limited to one sexual encounter per month. Men, she said, should be administered a drug that reduces their libido.
During a seperate debate, she asked the government to provide prisoners with "sex gadgets" to discourage homosexual activity.
Morgan Femai, an MDC-T senator for Chikomo said the measures were required because men were finding it difficult to resist well-dressed, attractive women.
While addressing a parliamentary HIV awareness workshop in Kadoma on Friday, he said: "What I propose it that the government should come up with a law that compels women to have their heads clean-shaven like what the Apostolic sects do," ZimEye reports.
He added: "They should also not bath because that is what has caused all these problems."
Senator Femai also suggested female circumcision would help stop the spread of disease.
He told the workshop, which was organised in conjunction with the National Aids Council,: "Women have got more moisture in their organs as compared to men so there is need to research on how to deal with that moisture because it is conducive for bacteria breeding. There should be a way to suck out that moisture."
--Prescribing an antiretroviral to negative individuals to prevent HIV is a neat idea. When it comes to this particular antiretroviral, it appears to be a very stupid idea. It has life threatening side effects, it has been shown to have a positive effect on some populations in one study, it has been show to have absolutely no effect in others. And then its ridiculously expensive-- $11K a year.
Know what we *know* works, has no adverse effects, and is dirt cheap?
CONDOMS.
So we are going to give these drugs to people who dont need them (wear a goddamn condom), while people who *do* need them (HIV+ individuals) are having their coverage cut domestically and abroad, and then there is this minor thing we have to deal with with HIV... DRUG RESISTANCE.
You have to take drugs like this *religiously* for them to have the best chance of working (and even then, drug resistance develops). Ask any chick on The Pill, anyone who has to take blood pressure meds every day, or hell, even when you are on antibiotics for a week for a UTI or something-- everyone forgets a pill now and then. Lets imagine what happens if you forget a pill if youre taking antiretrovirals to prevent HIV infection-- you forget one pill, take one the next day, whatevs. Not whatevs. If youre exposed to the virus, it will be replicating in non-therapeutic levels of the antiviral. You will be selecting for variants of the HIV quasispecies that are resistant to the virus. In the mean time, youre thinking 'IM TAKING ANTIRETROVIRALS! IM FINE!!!' and not regularly getting tested for HIV. So HIV gets to thrive and have a great time, even in the presence of Truvada. And then you have sex with someone else "IM ON THE HIV PILL WE CAN TOTALLY BAREBACK IT!!! **HIGH-FIVE**" and you transmit a highly fit, drug resistant variant of HIV to someone else. And now they cant use some kinds of antiretrovirals because they wont work.
There is *one* instance where I think this is a good idea-- if you have got a genetically vain HIV discordant heterosexual couple who have threatened to kill themselves/everyone if they dont conceive a child together. And even then, only when they are trying to conceive. And even then, only with an antiretroviral that is proven to work for these purposes (the Truvada trials that were stopped were with heterosexual women).
"Truvada needs to be taken every day, 100 percent of the time, and my experience as a registered nurse tells me that won't happen," Karen Haughey told the panel. "In my eight years, not one patient that I've cared for has been 100 percent adherent."
...
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which opposes approval of Truvada, estimates that 20 HIV-positive patients could be treated for the cost of treating one patient with preventive Truvada.
Anti-vaxers are horrible people-- They refuse to receive the recommended/required vaccinations and put everyone else (not just the very young, very old, or otherwise immunocompromised) at risk of contracting preventable diseases.
Anti-vaxers are horrible parents-- They abuse their children with their own personal ignorance and fears, dooming the poor things to preventable diseases and their associated side-effects, and turn their children into little disease spreading monsters (see above, see this years Superbowl, see the day-care fraud story).
Anti-vaxers are also horrible pet owners-- Back when this crazy anti-vaxer chick visited OKC, we noticed several pieces of literature encouraging and instructing pet owners how to get away with not vaccinating their pets.
"If an unvaccinated pet comes in contact with a rabid or suspected rabid animal, the owner has two options," she said. "They can confine the pet in a 'no touch' double enclosure for six months to determine if the pet is infected with rabies or have the pet euthanized. Nobody wants that."
Imagine that your pet, your best friend, either had to be killed or locked in a box, isolated from all other human or animal contact for six months because you are either a) against vaccinations, or b) too goddamn lazy/stupid to keep your pets vaccines up to date.
See, "dogs dont get rabies in the US anymore". Like how "people dont get polio or measles or whatever in the US anymore". So its easy to forget, or to make excuses for not vaccinating.
Problem is, rabies isnt in dogs in the US anymore because we vaccinate dogs against rabies.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 55,000 people die of rabies worldwide each year, primarily in countries where pets are not vaccinated. WHO says that dog bites are the source of 99 percent of these cases and WHO credits widespread vaccination of domestic animals for preventing these deaths in the United States.
Rabies *is* present in the wild animal population. So this persons dog got into a fight with a rabid raccoon-- if the dog was vaccinated, *shrug* no big deal. But the dog wasnt. So the owner now gets to be scared that THEY were exposed to rabies (and go through all of the oh-so-pleasant preventative therapy) AND they get to choose whether they are going to kill their dog or have it potentially go nuts from 6 months of isolation.
The owner handled the dog's collar after the fight, which resulted in potential exposure. The dog was not current with its rabies vaccine, so he was brought to Animal Services until the raccoon could be tested. Today, the state lab confirmed the raccoon had rabies. The dog will remain at Animal Services for a six-month quarantine.
Integralmath, our Justicar, recently reposted my 'debate' with Steve Kern on his YouTube channel, and its gotten some fun comments. One was from someone making fun of Kern:
I CAN'T INTO SCIENCE, I HAVE THE DUMB.
I love it and literally loled*.
While the commentor was making fun of Kern, I also had to laugh because even though I am a scientist, I TOTALLY feel like this sometimes.
For instance, last Friday I was really busy. Experiment after experiment after experiment.
Not one thing worked.
Not one goddamn thing.
New stuff I was trying didnt work. Old stuff I have done a million times didnt work. And the best: When I was trying a new thing and I didnt think about a control I needed so I have no friggen idea if it worked (but it probably didnt). On top of it all, Bossman and I are editing a paper, and ironing out details is immensely frustrating-- Data 1 and Data 2 obviously overlap. OBVIOUSLY. But what is the right stat metric to 'prove' that they are 'statistically similar'? I dunno why 'WTF? THEYRE THE SAME DAMN THING!' isnt acceptable terminology for your results section. I get it. And then there is "Is this the right way to say that? Or will saying it that way hit someones hot-button?" "Do we even want to bring this up? Or is it just making the paper too long?" (section I spent over 9000 hours writing).
There is one phrase that sums up how I felt that day:
I CANT INTO SCIENCE, I HAVE THE DUMB.
And when you feel like this, there is nothing you can do but go home, go on a run/drink a beer/get a good night of sleep, and get up the next day and try again.
The only way you can do that, the only way you can get through the "I CANT INTO SCIENCE, I HAVE THE DUMB." moments, is if you love what you do.
So I recently gave a high school student wanting to know about being a virologist the following advice:
Modern science is all inter-connected. You can have cell biology, immunology, biochemistry, genetics, physics, mathematics, and computer science PhDs all working on the same project in virology. Do not force yourself to take microbiology courses if you end up hating microbiology and loving biochem (I never took a micro course until grad school-- micro was a 200-level easy A for premeds at my school, lol!). Do not avoid taking ecology classes because you think you have to stay in 'medical' classes (I learned 50% of what I know about evolution/population dynamics for HIV from my ecology courses).
You can pretty much do whatever you want and have a career in virology, so dont feel like you have to box yourself in to one thing or another :)
Science isnt a medical school list of prerequisites. You can do pretty much whatever the hell you love, and have a career is pretty much whatever the hell you want to study. Do what you love in science, and you will be fine**. Do what you think you are Supposed To Do To Be A Scientist, and you will be miserable.
You have to have something that makes you keep thinking about experiments after a bad day and YOU DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT EXPERIMENTS. Something to get you out of bed in the morning to try everything again, when nothing went right before.
Monday: Everything was coming up Millhouse. Beautiful data. Set up all my experiments right. Everything is going to be fine. I CAN INTO SCIENCE!
* Also the one responding to someone saying I should be more like Hitchens "I dont see why she should be drunk". lol!
Someone can give a talk in OKC on April 28th, and someone in Thailand can watch that talk while theyre doing the dishes on May 7th. LOVE IT! All the more reason skeptic/atheist/pro-science/pro-church-state-separation groups should be highlighting, encouraging, and supporting their local talent:
I mentioned this in my interview with Karl, and its a topic Im going to be speaking about at FreeOK2 this year-- hell, its something Ive mentioned over and over and over and over on this blog:
We arent Cave Men dancing around a fire chanting 'OOGA BOOGA VIRUS BAD!'
We are modern humans who can bend viruses to do our bidding, to *save* our lives. Viruses (and bacteria) are not something to be universally 'feared' anymore. We can domesticate and reprogram viruses to whatever we need them to do-- they are *tools*. This isnt maybe-one-day science, we are actually doing this in the lab and in clinical trials right now.
I just came across a fun idea from a group at Case Western-- Reprogramming plant viruses to treat human diseases!
The concept is not overly complex-- Take a plant virus (in this case, Cowpea mosaic virus). Force it to express a receptor that will interact with a diseased human cell. Pack it full of an anti-disease agent. Essentially turning plant viruses into anti-human-cancer suicide bombers.
Though this idea is new to me, it isnt new-- according to this paper, other scientists are trying a similar approach with Cowpea chlorotic mottle virus, Hibiscus chlorotic ringspot virus, Red clover necrotic mottle virus, and MS2 (a bacteria virus, not a plant virus).
What the folks in this paper did that was different was modify the virus a bit more to make it want to infect cancer (in this case, HeLa, a cervical cancer cell line) more. Common, its a plant virus-- its not adapted for human anything. But with todays technology, slowly but surely, we can figure out how to make these little guys do whatever the hell we need them to do!
And these are plant viruses-- depending on what you want to treat, we might not even have to inject them. Imagine you could eat a prescription salad full of anti-colon cancer plant viruses. Man-- what if you could get a prescription to eat this salad once a week, a month, whatever, to *prevent* colon cancer, if it ran in your family? Hell yeah!
I have no idea how these kinds of approaches would work in the real world. The environment plant viruses have evolved to operate in is very different than the human environment-- Plants do not have an adaptive immune system, they live at ambient temperatures (which can change radically over 24 hours) and a wide range of humidity. The list goes on.
But the *potential* this idea has-- it wouldnt be possible without overcoming a normal, but irrational, fear of all viruses.
Abbie Smith is a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. She also studies epigenetic control of ERVs.
