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U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention • International News

Better Drugs Encouraging AIDS Complacency: Nobel Doctor

March 12, 2009

Robust HIV/AIDS treatment options mean "some people in my country, France, and other Western countries have become complacent -- they see HIV/AIDS as a chronic disease -- not as one that can kill," Francoise Barre-Sinoussi said on the sidelines of recent medical conference in New Delhi. That false sense of security has led in part to the "frightening" rate of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Western nations, said Barre-Sinoussi, a co-discoverer of HIV as the virus that causes AIDS.

Between 2001 and 2006, male-to-male sex represented the largest transmission category in the United States, and the sole category for which diagnoses increased, according to CDC. Gay and bisexual men accounted for 53 percent all new infections in 2006, CDC said.

"We should tell the truth about HIV/AIDS, that new treatments can be very effective, helping them live years longer," said Barre-Sinoussi, who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Dr. Luc Montagnier for their 1983 identification of HIV. However, HIV/AIDS patients are also prone to other illnesses, particularly cancers, and patients can become resistant to the antiretroviral drugs, causing "major complications," she said.

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In the 1980s, gay community leaders mounted grassroots HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, and infections among MSM fell dramatically for a decade. But with advances in treatment, "the voices that spoke for safe sex are often silent" said Professor Mark Wainberg, head of Montreal's McGill University AIDS Center. But the drugs themselves can be toxic and data show alarming rates of cancer among those with HIV, Wainberg said.

"The data from our studies indicate the average age of people getting HIV/AIDS is 35 -- these are mature individuals, not kids," Wainberg said. "Some people are throwing caution to the wind."

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Adapted from:
Agence France Presse
03.12.2009; Penny MacRae

This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
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Reader Comments:

Comment by: Mary (New Jersey ) Tue., Mar. 31, 2009 at 11:35 am EDT
Shame on the medical and research community; Condemning millions of people to a lifetime of drugs. Their complacency are causing so many to sufferer in silence. The psychological anguish of having this disease, the pain and suffering of watching your body waste away slowly. It is so unfair and such a disservice to people for researchers to be content with the treatment regimen and not fight and search for a cure. It is such a tragic set of circumstances. I pray everyday that there will be one brave and noble soul that will bring the fight with this modern day plaque to an end.

Comment by: Paul (Sydney, Australia) Fri., Mar. 27, 2009 at 9:20 am EDT
I think it's important how specialists speak about these kind of issues when HIV+ people are part of the audience. It is most upsetting to hear them proclaim that positive people are doomed to become the victims of yet another killer - cancer. Undoubtedly it's statistically true, but I think it's not very helpful for HIV+ people to hear such things voiced in such a negative manner. There are not many silver linings in being positive - one of very few is modern treatments. I realise it must be difficult for doctors - trying to warn HIV- people of the dangers without upsetting HIV+ people. Perhaps it's yet another thing we positive people have to live with.

Comment by: harvett ellington (Cleveland, OH) Thu., Mar. 26, 2009 at 2:33 pm EDT
You are not joking, I have had people tell me that if they would contract HIV, there is medicine for it. People are very complacent about HIV. I personally knew a man who actually had men and women wanting him and I would warn them, Hey he has got the package, but they didn't care.

Comment by: Robert D. Meek, Jr. (Loris, South Carolina, USA) Wed., Mar. 25, 2009 at 8:52 pm EDT
Complacency? That is an understatement! I still have heard, in these last few years, people mumbling that you can "tell" if someone "has it" or not by "how they look," and they "know" that this one they're going with does "not" have it because he "looks healthy"! How many times, hour after hour, have I watched men leave the bar, and no one, absolutely NO one AT ALL, reach into the basket on their way out, and get any free condoms? That says a lot. Logic dictates that if the majority there was using safe sex, that some of them would bite on the freebies!

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