rburns@uunet.UU.NET (04/29/91)
I've seen a lot about research on vaccines and treatments for AIDS, but I see less happening on more accurate(and available) tests for HIV. It would seem to me that for those of use that are uninfected, better tests would be one of the most significant developments in the prevention of AIDS-and an area in which it would seem possible to make rapid progress more easily than in treatment and vaccination. Does anyone have some good references for the educated layman about what is happening in this area? Thanks
dobson@prodnet.la.locus.com (Peter Dobson) (04/30/91)
In article <1991Apr29.014430.22977@cs.ucla.edu> portal!cup.portal.com!rburns@uunet.UU.NET writes: >...., but I see less happening on more accurate(and available) >tests for HIV. It would seem to me that for those of use that >are uninfected, better tests would be one of the most significant >developments in the prevention of AIDS... How does a better HIV test help in the prevention of AIDS? It seems to me that safe sex needs to be practiced as long as there is any chance that your partner has HIV, and no matter now good the tests are they will never provide complete confidence. It concerns me to see people saying better tests will help prevention, because it fits too well into the AIDS terrorism model... "If we can just find out who these AIDS carriers are, we can get rid of them and stop the spread of AIDS" Effectively holding HIV infected people responsible for the problem, as if they coluded with the virus to cause problems for the innocent (read HIV-) members of society. I do think a better test may be useful in speeding research, although this is problematic, because if you change the tools you use to measure things in reasearch, then you can't compare results from last years tests, with results using the new measurement tools. I guess this should be posted to an AIDS-politics list, but I'm not sure what list that would be at this point. Let me know if there's a more appropriate place for this posting. --- Peter Dobson | ACT UP/LA Newsgroups: sci.med.aids Subject: Re: More Accurate HIV Tests Summary: References: <1991Apr29.014430.22977@cs.ucla.edu> Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Locus Computing Corp, Los Angeles Keywords: In article <1991Apr29.014430.22977@cs.ucla.edu> portal!cup.portal.com!rburns@uunet.UU.NET writes: >developments in the prevention of AIDS-and an area in which it >would seem possible to make rapid progress more easily than in >treatment and vaccination. Does anyone have some good references >for the educated layman about what is happening in this area? > >Thanks