Who Should Get the HPV Vaccine and When? | Newsweek Health

MEDICINE
Hopeful News
Mary Carmichael 8/7/2008 12:00:00 AM
Last year the worldwide community of HIV researchers had a major disappointment—its leading potential vaccine, so promising in lab tests, had fallen flat in human trials. Today there is better news: in the new issue of Cell, researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center announce that a technique called RNA interference can dramatically suppress HIV's spread not just in a petri dish but also in mice carrying human immune cells. The findings suggest a new mechanism for treating HIV with drugs—and perhaps also preventing it with a vaccine. NEWSWEEK's Mary Carmichael spoke with Harvard's Priti Kumar, one of the study's leaders. Excerpts:
AFRICA
Disease Busters
4/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
Mozambique's Graça Machel has served on the front lines of African politics and activism for three decades. She fought for her country's independence from Portugal in the 1970s, became the country's first education minister, married the late president Samora Machel, embarked on a long campaign for African children's rights and is now the wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela.
HEALTH
Why Are HPV Vaccine Rates So Low?
Karen Springen 2/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
For Kari Lange, getting the human papillomavirus vaccine for her daughters, Erika, 16, and Darcy, 13, was a no-brainer. After all, the new vaccine is considered one of the most effective methods for preventing cervical cancer and genital warts. And the Lincolnshire, Ill., mom knew firsthand that even if the virus, which is transmitted through sexual contact, never progresses to cervical cancer, it is no picnic. She and her sister both contracted it when they were younger. "To me it wasn't even about sex," says Lange about having her daughters vaccinated. "It was just healthy for the kids."
HEALTH
2007: Another Year of AIDS
Jennifer Barrett 12/28/2007 12:00:00 AM
Late last month UNAIDS revised its estimate of the number of people living with HIV to 33.2 million worldwide, down from 39.5 million. But that's still millions more than many researchers expected would be infected 26 years after the disease was first reported. Worse, more than 2 million people are expected to die from AIDS in 2007. And despite millions of dollars in research, early signs of optimism and the lofty promises of politicians, there is still no vaccine that protects against HIV. In fact, Merck recently announced that its potential vaccine, one many considered the most promising candidate in the field, had failed miserably in trials. But there have been some recent successes in the battle against the disease, and there are promising innovations on the horizon. NEWSWEEK's Jennifer Barrett discussed both the successes and the failures with Dr. John Bartlett, chief of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins and co-chair of the national committee formed by the government and the Kaiser Family Foundation that drafted treatment guidelines for HIV-infected patients. Excerpts:
Medicine: Not A Cure For Cancer, But Close
Mary Carmichael
MEDICINE
'Good News, But No Cure'

Most vaccines are preventive and work by priming the body's immune defenses to ward off a virus if it does strike. But as far back as Louis Pasteur, researchers have speculated that vaccines might also be used therapeutically to bolster the body's defenses after infections occur. The concept is particularly tantalizing in AIDS research, since the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) appears to cloak itself from the body's natural defenses, eventually overwhelming them. Much current research has focused on prodding the immune system to recognize and defend against parts of the AIDS virus it doesn't usually see.