Laisand Kan
Seminal Event
What: Troy Masters becomes one of the first volunteers in New York City to participate in the first full-scale human trials of an AIDS vaccine.
Where: New York, NY
When: December 20, 1998
Summary
Troy Masters, who watched 15 of his friends died of AIDS in the last decade, is one of the 5400 volunteers who are willing to give themselves to science and participate in a three-year test of a genetically engineered AIDS vaccine known as Aidsvax. In June 1998 the Food and Drug Administration authorized full-scale testing of Aidsvax, a study financed by Vaxgen Incorporated of San Francisco. Aidsvax is the only vaccine that has gone into Phase-III testing. The primary objective of the the study is to determine whether immunization with Aidsvax protects high-risk individuals from contracting HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).
The risks of the vaccine are the moral and social challenges facing the subjects. The safety of the vaccine Aidsvax itself is not at issue since Aidsvax cannot cause HIV infection. Aidsvax is not made from live virus, so it does not contain HIV DNA. The major challenges facing the trial subjects are discrimination and privacy problems. People might think that the subjects are drug users or homosexuals. However, the volunteers believed that these risks are only a small price to pay for a potential cure of a fatal infectious disease.
AIDS Factsheet
What is AIDS?
AIDS (Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome), the end stage of HIV infection, is a collection of life-threatening diseases which are caused by microbes that usually do not cause infections in healthy individuals.
What causes AIDS?
AIDS is caused by a virus called HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). The virus is spread by infecting cells and replicating itself inside the infected cells. HIV weakens the immune system by destroying a type of white blood cells known as CD4+T cells. During HIV infection, an infected person's CD4+T cell count progressively declines, and if his or her CD4+T cell count drops below 200 CD4+T cells per cubic millimeter of blood, he or she becomes much more prone to a range of opportunistic infections.
Structure of HIV:
What are the main ways people become infected with HIV?
HIV is transmitted from one person to another through blood-to-blood contact and sexual contact. Infected pregnant women can also pass HIV to their baby during pregnancy, delivery, or breast-feeding. HIV is not transmitted through casual everyday contact between people.
Is there any treatment for AIDS or HIV?
The current most effective treatment for HIV infection or AIDS is a triple cocktail treatment known as the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). The drug combination suppresses HIV replication in some patients by interrupting different stages of HIV replication. However, the HAART treatment does NOT cure people of HIV infection or AIDS. The combination of reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors could only lower and not eliminate the viral load.
When and where did the very first case of HIV infection occur? 
Dr. David Ho and researchers from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York traced the very first case of HIV to a Bantu tribe member living in what was then the Belgian Congo in 1959.
What are the global estimates of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as of the end of 1999?
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reported that as of the end of 1999, an estimated 34.3 million people worldwide were living with HIV or AIDS.
Global
Summary of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic
Glossary
of HIV/AIDS-Related Terms
Key Researchers and Scientists
Dr. Seth Berkley: President of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci: Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Dr. Donald P. Francis: President of Vaxgen
and the leading investigator in the international vaccine research effort
