Australian COVID vaccine cancelled after Phase I trials produced false positive HIV test results!

[thewayne]

Not exactly something you want to see in a vaccine!

From the article:
"The (vaccine's) molecular clamp is made from a HIV protein, which on its own is harmless. The molecular clamp stabilizes the coronavirus spike protein and presents it to the body in a way that promotes a good immune response. This is why the clamp technology is so vital," Taylor said.

He added that the clamp model vaccine had shown "good safety and immune response" against the coronavirus in early clinical trials, and the possibility for generating an HIV positive result had been thought to be low.

Yeah. Apparently not as low as they'd thought!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/australia/australia-vaccine-hiv-intl-hnk/index.html

Comments

[lxe]

I am in the US and I'd buy it, other factors being favorable.
Exposure to COVID is a daily real issue while exposure to AIDS depends on unusual circumstances and/or lifestyle.

[silveradept]

Would you define "unusual", please? Because, intentionally or no, it sounds like you're saying "you only have HIV risk if you're queer, kinky, polyamorous, or you are in a situation where someone is bleeding profusely on you", and that's not at all true.

COVID is a much more immediate and constant risk, yes, but a false positive for HIV would carry significant mental health damage, since HIV infection and positivity is still highly stigmatized, even if treatment options are better now than they were before.

[lxe]

1/ "Queer" is redundant here (compare: "you only pay a lot of income tax if you are a business owner or have a lot of income"; not all business owners are rich, and vice versa; the inference is itself a misleading stereotype).

Other than that, I'd love to know how much relevant exchange of bodily fluids with other people is neither emergency circumstances (rape victim, blood transfusion, etc.) nor a behavioral risk. When I was young, learning (*) that HIV doesn't transmit e.g. via air/droplets or brief indirect skin contact was a part of destereotyping and destigmatizing AIDS ("you won't be at risk of infection just because you get in the same room; it's safe to be in the same room").

Was (*) wrong?

2/ "Some technology might mistakenly assume A or B about you" is exactly a stereotype away from "our, or someone else's, technology will make you A or B".

I-131 radiosurgery produces false positive alarms at airports. The solution, for
all the "air terrorist" stigma, is giving affected people proper warning and documentation.

[lxe]

P.S. Compared to "queer", the contribution of "poliamory" to the risk is technically nonzero, but still both qualitatively misleading and quantitatively exponentially lower than the contribution of frequency of *changing* partners.

A stable polyamorous relationship (e.g. a polygamous traditional Muslim family) is only marginally at a greater risk than a stable 1-1 relationship.

Again, would be curious to hear counter-evidence; until then it's the CDC AIDS fact sheet + basic arithmetic and statistics.

[silveradept]

Thank you for the additional context. My workplace wants us to treat fluid incidents and accidental needle stick as being potential bloodborne pathogen carriers, neither of which necessarily are behavior risks nor things that happen only in emergency contexts, and depending on the location and the surrounding community, may or may not be more likely. So no, the starred bit isn't wrong at all, and documentation and information is very helpful to people who might be affected by a false positive. All the same, people's biases, judgments, and behaviors change based on what they believe to be true, so it would be better to avoid unnecessary suffering from a false positive if possible.

I disagree with you about queerness being redundant, but I'm satisfied that you're not coming from a place of categorizing anything that's not cis-het as "unusual," which was my primary concern about the statement as it was.

[lxe]

Yes, absolutely, firefighters are at a greater risk of fire harm.
It's not exactly lifestyle, so I stand amended.
I would, at the same time, expect that judgments about fire are more evidence-based among firefighters than among the general public.

PPPS. Informed consent, I still believe, solves all of the above (not just the post, but the entire discussion), provided vaccine administration is voluntary.