Science

Clinical trials. Research findings. Data. Metrics. Numbers.

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February 29, 2012 | 9:55 AM | By

Global health researchers say global health research is critical

News analysis

That’s the gist of it anyway.

On Tuesday, a group of some 40 global health organizations that calls itself the Global Health Technologies Coalition issued a report that found global health technologies “are among the best investments US policymakers can make” and warned that budget cuts to global health threaten to undermine progress made to date — and also will threaten lives worldwide.

I’d generally agree with this, and have written plenty here on Humanosphere about the threat federal budget cuts pose to the global fight against AIDS, malaria and other diseases of poverty. But is it really about making the case for research, for new technologies?

I wonder how convincing it will be for these organizations that want more money for their particular projects to be issuing a ‘study’ that discovers what they do is incredibly important and invaluable. Unlike the American biomedical industry — which does the same kind of lobbying — these are not research projects aimed at addressing our problems.

This new advocacy group is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and “housed” at PATH, both of which are often criticized for taking too much of a ‘techno-fix’ approach to global health.

Global health research ideally is aimed at finding better ways to fight diseases many Americans either haven’t heard of or don’t think is their problem. This is, or should be, ultimately about fighting poverty and helping the poor overseas.

Perhaps the case that needs to be made is more fundamental than just clamoring for more funding of research.

Here are some media reports based on the coalition’s event in Washington, D.C., yesterday:

GlobalPost US Senator on global health – ‘Achievable stuff’

SciDev US Congress urged not to cut global health funding

PATH even enlisted noted global health and science advocate Whoopi Goldberg to help make the case in this video presentation:

FILED UNDER: Politics, Science, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, global health policy, PATH, research
February 27, 2012 | 9:47 AM | By

Seattle scientists to test world’s first vaccine against ‘black fever’ – leishmaniasis

WHO

Boy with kala azar, viscerial leishmaniasis

There are many neglected diseases out there but not many as prevalent or as ravaging as visceral leishmaniasis, also known as black fever or kala azar — the ‘parasitic version of AIDS.’

Scientists at Seattle’s Infectious Disease Research Institute will soon begin testing an experimental vaccine they have designed to work against the most deadly form of this common parasitic disease spread by the bite of sand flies.

Leishmaniasis, in both its cutaneous (surface of the skin) and visceral (internal organ) forms, infects an estimated half million people every year on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. It is the second most common parasitic disease after malaria, but has until recently gotten little attention as a major global health problem.

Because the parasite attacks blood cells, immune system cells and also invades organs and bone marrow much like HIV, visceral leishmaniasis is sometimes called ‘parasitic AIDS.’

“Visceral leishmaniasis is a persistent and deadly global health problem,” said Steve Reed, IDRI founder and Chief Scientific Officer, who led the over twenty years of preclinical vaccine work. “Our partnership with India will speed the development of an effective vaccine and accelerate its control.”

The vaccine against visceral leishmaniasis (VL) that IDRI has created will be tested first for safety on 36 volunteers in Seattle and then the Phase I study will be expanded to sites in India, which suffers from a disproportionately high caseload of the disease.

The non-profit Seattle-based research organization has been working on leishmaniasis for decades but received a major boost in 2006 when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded IDRI $32 million to find a vaccine against VL, kala azar.

As part of the grant, the Gates Foundation requires research organizations also develop a plan to make vaccines or drugs affordable in poor countries.

To reduce costs of the new vaccine, should it prove effective, IDRI is transferring its vaccine technology to an Indian drug firm, Gennova Biopharmaceuticals. Gennova has already opened a vaccine development center in Pune, India, where the company is based.

“With this clinical trial, we hope to launch a new era in the fight against Visceral Leishmaniasis,” said Franco Piazza, Medical Director at IDRI and leader of the vaccine’s clinical development. “For the first time, an advanced vaccine to prevent this devastating disease is being tested in people.”

U.S. Armed Forces Pest Management

A sand fly bite

While leishmaniasis is treatable today, the treatments are fairly toxic, cumbersome and often too expensive to use in poor communities. Some 500,000 people get infected every year, with an estimate 50,000 deaths per year, and the disease appears to be spreading.

Just as with mosquitoes, sand flies that carry the parasite appear to be expanding their range worldwide due to climate change, migration and other global changes.

FILED UNDER: Science, Infectious Disease Research Institute, leishmaniasis, Steve Reed, vaccine
February 22, 2012 | 3:08 PM | By

The battle for clean water subject of PLU symposium

Rick McKenney of Water for Humans assessing the threat to public health where raw sewage has been flooding homes.

The lack of clean drinking water and unsanitary living conditions widely affects communities stretching across the globe, and for Rick McKenney standing by idle while people die from water-related illnesses every day is not an option.

“In the States, water is there when you turn the faucet on and in a lot of places it isn’t,” said McKenney, founder of the Washington-based Water for Humans organization.

According to the World Health Organization 884 million people lack access to safe water — approximately one in eight people worldwide. Of that population 3.575 million people die each year from water-related diseases-cholera, typhoid, viral hepatitis A, dysentery, diarrhea and other diseases.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Science
February 17, 2012 | 10:23 AM | By

WHO says to use a condom if you use injectable contraception

Flickr, Jaume d'Urgell

Last fall, Seattle scientists issued some problematic findings indicating higher risk for HIV among women using the contraceptive Depo-Provera, a hormone delivered by injection popular in poor countries for its ease of use and reliability.

Today, experts at the World Health Organization, which contends the evidence for this hormone-HIV risk is equivocal, said women should continue to use the hormonal contraceptive method but also use condoms to prevent against HIV.

As a result of this apparently mixed message, we are getting news stories with equivocal headlines or reports heading in quite different directions:

The Guardian HIV warning to women using injectable contraception

PSI WHO upholds guidance on hormonal contraceptives and HIV

IRIN WHO clarifies guidance on hormonal contraception and HIV

So, is that clear? Not really.

Still, one of the Seattle scientists involved in the original study, Jared Baeten at the University of Washington, told IRIN news that he felt the WHO statement struck the right balance:

“I think the [WHO] statement really reflects what was an extremely thoughtful deliberation and detailed evaluation of the evidence,” Baeten said.

“They made a clear statement by issuing a strong clarification and I think that what’s important in the context of delivering family planning service is that we strongly remind women at high risk of HIV that contraception does not protect against HIV and that condoms are the HIV preventative measure.”

FILED UNDER: Health, Science, condoms, Depo-Provera, HIV, Jared Baeten
February 17, 2012 | 9:37 AM | By

Health experts say controversial bird flu research should be published

Flickr, 4BlueEyes

A blue-ribbon panel at the World Health Organization has decided that two controversial bird flu studies should go forward and be published in full.

Just not yet — not until the public has been inoculated against premature anxiety and hysteria. Here’s WHO’s press release on the meeting.

“The group felt that one of the things that would be important to do is to increase public awareness first,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO director general for health and environmental security.

“There are lots of concerns about whether this (research) has created a super virus, whether it might escape from laboratories,” Fukuda said.He said the panel recommended full publication and ongoing similar studies on the bird flu virus, H5N1, but not until the public is better educated about the true risks and benefits of the science.

“So that there isn’t a new wave of anxiety created by the manuscripts coming out,” Fukuda said.

Meanwhile, the editor of the journal Science, Bruce Alberts, said today he intends to publish the bird flu study they have in hand if the scientific community can’t agree on a workable alternative that adequately balances the need for free and open exchange of information against biosecurity concerns. Alberts told the BBC:

Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, he said: “Our position is that, in the absence of any mechanism to get the information to those scientists and health officials who need to know and need to protect their populations and to design new treatments and vaccines, our default position is that we have to publish in compete form.”

 

FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, superbug, World Health Organization
February 15, 2012 | 11:32 AM | By

Bird flu cockfight: Secrecy vs Science

Flickr, 4BlueEyes

There’s a heated scientific debate going on right now between those who fear the terrorist use of chickens versus those who fear the slippery slope of secrecy in science.

Starting on Thursday, a blue-ribbon panel of invited experts will meet behind closed doors at the World Health Organization to discuss whether or not two controversial experiments done on the avian influenza (bird flu) virus H5N1 should be published.

Chickens are right now the primary means by which bird flu gets transmitted. The concern is that terrorists will use it against humans.

“Biology has never done this before,” said Dr. Samuel Miller, head of the NIH’s Northwest Regional Center for BioDefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases in Seattle.

This could be a critical moment for the biological sciences, Miller said, which has — like most of science — operated according to the fundamental tenet of the free exchange of information, transparency of methods and open, public debate as to the findings.

UW

Samuel Miller, director UW Center on Biodefense

“What we are talking about here is really a fundamental change, about basically classifying a portion of biological research,” he said. Much of the physics community was forced into secrecy during World War II, Miller said, but nothing like this has ever been done for biology.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to get consensus on this,” he said.

The debate stems from two teams of researchers which, reportedly, have made the bird flu virus more easy to transmit in mammals. The virus in nature rarely infects humans but when it does can be very deadly. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, influenza, science, World Health Organization
February 15, 2012 | 11:29 AM | By

Timeline on the bird flu virus research debate

One of Humanosphere’s contributors and a leading global health blogger, Jaclyn Schiff, has prepared this excellent — and beautiful — timeline of news reports on the H5N1 research debate:


FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, Jaclyn Schiff, meda, science
February 7, 2012 | 12:51 PM | By

Five reasons not to panic about the bird flu experiments

Flickr, hugovk

News analysis

The scientific community is in serious kerfuffle right now about whether or not to publish the details of certain bird flu virus experiments.

Angry words are flying back and forth between experts – much like the proverbial behavior of chickens with their heads cut off.

One commentator for Scientific American has even suggested banning all such research.

It’s all a bit much, and probably not good for science or for our global health. I would like to offer five reasons not to panic, but first the background:

The fear among some experts is that terrorists could repeat the experiments, in which genetically altered bird flu viruses, H5N1, were made more easy to transmit in mammals, presumably also in humans.

Based on this, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has suggested censoring some of the research — redacting key portions of it. A few weeks ago, the scientific community agreed to a temporary moratorium on this research while the issues got hashed out.

There are persuasive arguments on both sides of this debate weighing the goal of reducing risk vs. the need for open exchange of knowledge.

But in some ways it’s not a fair fight. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Science, bird flu, Jon Cohen, Laurie Garrett, science, Scientific American, virus