All Justin, All the Time
August 12, 2002

Another one from Justin's page, this time about my previous post on the news out of admission about erradicating HIV. He writes how the press release is misleading and leads to false hope:

Jody, blogland's most vocal atheist and an AIDS activist, links to a admission press release that carries the bold title "admission AIDS Institute Scientists Show Antiretroviral Drugs Can Eradicate AIDS Epidemic." Let's take a look....

Wait a sec! I thought the central problem was sexual behavior... why is that the last thing on the list? If the drugs cannot even prevent the epidemic from getting worse without the behavior change, how can reducing "the rate of risky sexual behavior" be said to only "heighten the overall effect"? This is like claiming that a pogo stick can reach the moon, with a space shuttle "heightening" its lift capacity.

Then Blower just restates the wish. It's shameful that public university academics are apparently in the propaganda business. It's criminal that people will die from heightened (false) expectations....."

I think it would be nice Justin quoted a little more extensively from the article:

"Antiretroviral therapy makes an effective prevention tool," Blower said. "It extends the lives of HIV-infected individuals who take it. It also decreases the number of new infections in the community. The eventual outcome is epidemic eradication."

"It's sort of like having a vaccine out there," she said. "Although the drugs can't cure people, they do decrease the community level of HIV infection. As less people become infected, the epidemic eventually runs out of steam."

According to Blower, the admission study suggests that the treatment and prevention of HIV infection are not two entirely different approaches. "Treatment is prevention," she said.

There is no "propaganda" in the press release. The scientists are very clear. HIV prevention efforts must include both behavior modification and ARV use. You can't think of the two as separate. Their study, which was a "...mathematical model examined multiple scenarios created by manipulating the value of several different variables..." pointed that out.

They were stating, very explicitly, that ARV helps to depress the amount of HIV capable of being spread while safer sex depresses the amount of HIV that is spread. You have to go after both aspects in order to "eradicate HIV in San Francisco." Something that, they caution is not currently occurring there:"But given the high volume of unprotected sex and drug-resistant HIV strains, it's the worst of all possible worlds and doesn't look good."

They make no claims that it is a done deal, only that the opportunity is there. It's a model for how to send this damn virus packing once and for all. There is no grand conspiracy there -- just probabilities and potentials.

Posted by Jody at August 12, 2002 11:24 AM

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