| There is a lot of progress being made on HIV/AIDS. How to tell? Speak to any gay man who lived through the 80s and early 90s. In every reasonable sized gay ghetto, there were funerals every week for people dying of AIDS-related diseases. Now there are far more treatment options: if one knows they've been exposed, a month-long PEP regimen can stop one from becoming HIV+. Truvada has been approved by the FDA, which can reduce the risk of transmission by between 44% and 73% - this can be used to reduce the transmission rate for highly sexually-active MSM populations, and can also be a second line of defence for (both heterosexual and gay) HIV negative partners of HIV+ people (because condoms can break). That there is new development on a possible route to reduce mother-infant transmission is exciting. And the other day I saw this story - http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/could-... - redesigning needles could dramatically reduce transmission among IV drug users. There won't be a grand announcement of "AIDS cured". What there will be is lots and lots of little things: improved public health messaging, improved drugs, more prophylaxis/vaccine research, lower prices for drugs and so on. We've come an enormous way already on HIV/AIDS. That there are people who were diagnosed in their 30s who are now living into their 60s or 70s is a huge improvement from people being diagnosed and dying within a year or two. |
There might be if DRACO succeeds, and I would be surprised if some future medical advance doesn't cure it eventually.