Episode 17: Links
Absolute Science Podcast, Episode 17
Click play to listen now
Adam Lowe interviews Dr. Mitch Katz, the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, about the new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), showing that the combination of drugs usually used to treat HIV/AIDS (tenofovir with emtricitabine - under the trade name Truvada) - can protect monkeys from getting the AIDS virus. Ongoing studies now may be testing the same drug combination in humans.
Here are some of the more clear and informative news stories that we found about the new data:
Interview Timeline
(1:20) Pre-exposure prophylaxis
(1:59) Post-exposure prophylaxis
(2:40) Why does it make sense from a scientific point of view?
(3:15) If you're preventing HIV before people are exposed, why can't people just keep from getting infected in some other way like practicing safe sex or safe drug use?
(4:23) What if the prevention isn't 100%
(5:15) Are prevention studies being done in a blinded way?
(5:38) Are these studies ethical?
(6:20) Is it a placebo trial?
(6:40) What types of patients are being recruited?
(7:27) How safe are the drugs?
(7:40) Would prevention be cost effective?
(8:09) Will the drugs be put into broad use if they are found to be effective?
(8:32) How did the idea of pre-exposure prophylaxis come into play?
(9:08) What do the animal studies show?
(10:03) How does this compare to other retrovirals?
(11:03) When will human study results be available?
(11:23) What effects will the new once-a-day HIV treatments have on people's lives and on transmission rates?
(12:24) Will single pill treatments become available soon?
(13:13) What effect will the lessening of fear of HIV/AIDS have on disease rates?
(15:30) Could the new therapies and prevention methods mean that we could now erradicate HIV/AIDS in the United States?
(16:57) Shout outs and wrap up.
Click play to listen now
Adam Lowe interviews Dr. Mitch Katz, the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, about the new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), showing that the combination of drugs usually used to treat HIV/AIDS (tenofovir with emtricitabine - under the trade name Truvada) - can protect monkeys from getting the AIDS virus. Ongoing studies now may be testing the same drug combination in humans.
Here are some of the more clear and informative news stories that we found about the new data:
Interview Timeline
(1:20) Pre-exposure prophylaxis
(1:59) Post-exposure prophylaxis
(2:40) Why does it make sense from a scientific point of view?
(3:15) If you're preventing HIV before people are exposed, why can't people just keep from getting infected in some other way like practicing safe sex or safe drug use?
(4:23) What if the prevention isn't 100%
(5:15) Are prevention studies being done in a blinded way?
(5:38) Are these studies ethical?
(6:20) Is it a placebo trial?
(6:40) What types of patients are being recruited?
(7:27) How safe are the drugs?
(7:40) Would prevention be cost effective?
(8:09) Will the drugs be put into broad use if they are found to be effective?
(8:32) How did the idea of pre-exposure prophylaxis come into play?
(9:08) What do the animal studies show?
(10:03) How does this compare to other retrovirals?
(11:03) When will human study results be available?
(11:23) What effects will the new once-a-day HIV treatments have on people's lives and on transmission rates?
(12:24) Will single pill treatments become available soon?
(13:13) What effect will the lessening of fear of HIV/AIDS have on disease rates?
(15:30) Could the new therapies and prevention methods mean that we could now erradicate HIV/AIDS in the United States?
(16:57) Shout outs and wrap up.
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