Imporant AIDS Research Meeting at NIH on April 19
It may seem like a fairy tale, but once upon a time much of the NIH's work related to HIV research was open to public scrutiny and involvement.
One of the most important HIV panels under the control of the NIH, the Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adult and Adolescents, which issues official government recommendations for people with HIV and AIDS and their doctor on how best to avoid contracting opportunistic infections and stay alive, adamantly refuses to allow PWAs or other members of the general public to attend their meetings. This panel also continues resisting my efforts to have their agendas and minutes released under FOIA and open to community sunshine.
But in a few weeks, one of the dwindling chances to publicly interact with the top NIH and National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases researchers and decision-makers will take place.
On April 19 there will be a one-day meeting of Office of AIDS Research in Rockville, MD, and I will be in attendance to both observe the proceedings, and speak as a person with AIDS who wants better treatment options.
If you're at all interested in AIDS treatment research and how it's conducted by the NIH and its many partners throughout the USA and around the globe, please join me at this very important meeting.
I believe 2007 must be the year in which more PWAs and AIDS activists not receiving Big Pharma money should demand more open meetings at NIH, release of the NIAID HIV treatment panel's agendas and minutes, along with opening their meetings to the public, and a renewed interest by everyone concerned with AIDS into NIH's research agenda.
Please make the effort to be at this meeting:
The next meeting of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council (OARAC) will be held Thursday, April 19, 2007. This one day meeting will be held at 5635 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852 in the Terrace Level Conference Center. The meeting will focus on HIV-Related Complications including Malignancies, Cardiovascular Disease, and Metabolic Complications. An update will be provided on the OARAC Working Groups for Treatment and Prevention Guidelines. Time will be allowed for public comment at the end of the meeting. For additional information, contact Christina Brackna at (301) 402-8655.
And click here for much more information about OARAC, such as its purpose and mandate, members of the council and agendas and minutes from previous meetings.
1 comment:
Michael,
Please take copious notes for us. One of the unanswered set of questions on HIV is both an epidemiological and harm avoidance one. Both the CDC and NIH seem to take a strict epidemiological approach (containment), choosing to ignore the "harm consequences," by simply blanketing-over the issue with "condoms always."
Sadly, European Public Health Officials, which DO include harm reduction, are equivocal on certain matters. The issue concerns: (1) primary v. secondary infection; (2) re-infection; (3) additional strains introduced, which technically is not re-infection, but certainly could complicate the host's immunity; (4) and use of the misnomer "superinfection;" and (5) being clear that co-infection is HIV with another health risk such as Hep C.
As Public Health Officials, their primary responsibility is epidemiological (containment). NIH is primarily a research conduit and facility. But all modern societies also adopt Mill's Harm Principle as a universal moral and legal principle (e.g., "do no harm"). Apparently, the silence on the latter is adding to confusion, not resolving it.
Gay men, just like all men, hate condoms. But we take our social responsibility seriously. If, as some claim, no re-infection occurs, and if secondary infection only occurs within six months of primary infection (if at all), and if additional viral strains do not compromise the host, and if the exchange of bodily fluids does not also create resistance to the "other's" antiretrovirals, (a lot of ifs), then serosorted barebacking is epidemiologically and harm-avoidantly sound. (I'm excluding venereal disease for the moment only insofar as it is technically treatable/curable. And I am not advocating unsafe sex practices.)
British Health Officials have urged caution on all of the above fronts, Our officials are silent, except for the epidemiological implications. Life entails risks, risks entail probabilities, and knowledge of both makes informed consent and social responsibility more viable, may keep individuals healthy and alive longer, while ignoring these issues only confounds and may lead to unintended harm(s) by breeding confusion or keeping silent.
Can we get a truthful, accurate statement from the NIH/CDC on the epidemiology, harm avoidance, and possibility/probability of antiretroviral resistance via exposure? In tandem, why are these meetings closed in a putatively open, free, and democratic society? These questions, coupled with secrecy, disserves the public's interest. Nobody has died from too much knowledge!
Thanks!
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