20240428 Biden admin. slack on mpox, HIV vaccine trial halted for trivial reason. Grindr gave away HIV status. Gay art as always.
Preview of ArtFellows "gay-centric" art market place and instagram.
Subscriptions are free.
Pre-view of ArtFellows Gay-centric Art Showcase for next week.
Gay-centric is a term that needs to be more widely used.
There is a page where they explain their principles.
Empowering Artists.
In response to increasinly over-policed social platforms, we provide a space for atists to share their work without free of censorship.
A couple of the many artists represented.
https://fellowart.com/pages/artist/christopher-allen
https://fellowart.com/pages/artist/joshua-bradley
HIV mRNA vaccine development stupidly halted by Biden Administration.
The vaccine shows real effectiveness in generating the required anti-bodies, but some of the recipients of the vaccine are getting skin rashes, that aren’t a big deal and clear quickly.
From the article:
Most of these skin problems quickly resolved and weren't severe enough to stop any trial,
However, despite how urgently and desperately the Gay community needs an HIV, the mRNA vaccine program has been halted.
From the article:
One of the most promising attempts to reinvigorate the stalled quest for an HIV vaccine has hit a snag that might seem minor but has major consequences: delaying the larger trials needed to show whether the concept works.
And:
“We are taking this very seriously,” says Carl Dieffenbach, who heads the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded a recent phase 1 trial of the vaccine. Researchers want to understand the cause of the skin problems and how to minimize them before expanding tests of the vaccines, which are made by Moderna. “We would be moving more quickly if this finding had not been observed,” says Mark Feinberg, who heads IAVI, a nonprofit that is the vaccine’s major sponsor. [Boldface added.]
Further it is 11 out of 60 that get these rashes. I don’t know, but I think most Gay people would be willing to risk having a week of skin rashes in exchange for HIV immunity. Gays would take the vaccine even if it was the case where 60 out of 60 got skin rashes.
Some of the reasons given aren’t foolish.
Potentially more worrisome, however, would be if the problem is tied to a cumulative effect from multiple mRNA shots or the genetic background of the recipients, or if the HIV sequence itself were responsible for the welts and hives.
(Note: 3/15/2025, this following section is edited to be clearer as to intent and also I think my write up wasn’t well thought out.)
Again if the rash is tied to multiple shots, so what, getting a skin rash that isn’t serious and goes away in a few days, isn’t a reason to stop the project. Again, Gays would be quite willing to have rashes. They can figure out why there are rashes while or later after the HIV vaccine is released. [Edited or rewritten 3/15/20250
The explanation given in the article was somewhat vague as to why they are concerned. Given the urgency of this issue, we deserve a better explanation as to why this justifies a delay in getting an HIV vaccine. [Edited or rewritten 3/15/20250
The rashes aren’t serious. Gay people generally aren’t anti-vaxxers, and if anti-vaxxers don’t want to get vaccinated, then let them not get vaccinated.
But another reason give is just stupid and infuriating. Making this minor side effect seem important no doubt makes her research and hence herself seem important. Plus it is presenting herself as defender of public health.
However, the reason is just stupid. The health of the Gay community, the development of an urgently, desperately need vaccine is halted so that delulu anti-vaxxers won’t be alarmed.
Most of these skin problems quickly resolved and weren't severe enough to stop any trial, but researchers do not want to minimize them. “At a time when vaccine hesitancy is high, it is critically important not to dismiss urticaria as an unimportant side effect,” says Kimberly Blumenthal, an allergist at Massachusetts General Hospital. [Boldface added.]
So Kimberly Blumenthal wants the vaccine program slowed down so that anti-vaxxer cranks don’t worry. So the people who think vaccines make them magnetic and stick pennies to themselves before legislative committees don’t worry, so people who talk about being vaccinated in Christ won’t worry.
My feeling is that people who refuse to take vaccines can just die.
The Gay community needs this vaccination as soon as possible.
Grindr was sharing HIV status and other information to companies.
Grindr has admitted sharing HIV status with the firms but stressed that it wasn't for advertising purposes and pledged to stop sharing that information. The sharing of HIV status came to light in 2018 thanks to the work of independent researchers. At the time, Grindr said it "has never sold, nor will we ever sell, personal user information—especially information regarding HIV status or last test date—to third parties or advertisers."
Grindr was also fined in December 2021 by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, which found "that Grindr has disclosed user data to third parties for behavioural advertisement" without valid consent from users. "The data shared was GPS location, IP address, Advertising ID, age, gender, and the fact that the user in question was on Grindr. Users could be identified through the data shared, and the recipients could potentially further share the data," the ruling said.
New Mpox strain appears to be ten times deadlier.
The following are two reports the two most authoritative science magazines on the planet.
This new sexually transmissible strain is of a sub-group of mpox classified as Clade II. The previous wave of mpox infections were of the Clade I group. If you have been vaccinated for mpox you are protected. If you haven’t been vaccinated, what are you waiting for?
The articles talk about the lack of vaccination in Africa, due to lack of resources and the real possibility of this new strain spreading all over Africa. At that point, it becomes a real risk to spread to the United States.
There isn’t a real serious program by the Biden Administration to take aggressive steps against mpox. I wrote a letter to my local congressional representative Jasmine Crockett and didn’t get a reply. This is the link to the post about the letters sent to her.
From Nature Magazine.
A virulent strain of the monkeypox virus has gained the ability to spread through sexual contact, new data suggest. This has alarmed researchers, who fear a reprise of the worldwide mpox outbreak in 2022.
Evidence from past outbreaks indicates that this strain, called clade I, is more lethal than the one that sparked the 2022 global outbreak. Clade I has for decades caused small outbreaks, often limited to a few households or communities, in Central Africa. Sexually-acquired clade I infections had not been reported before 2023.
Later in the article.
This cluster especially concerns researchers, as it has been spreading largely among sex workers, suggesting that the virus has adapted to transmit readily through sexual contact.
This could lead to faster human-to-human spread, potentially with few symptoms, says Nicaise Ndembi, a virologist at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention who is based in Addis Ababa. “The DRC is surrounded by nine other countries — we’re playing with fire here,” he says. [Boldface added.]
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01167-5
From Science Magazine. Link below.
Now sexual transmission has been shown to occur in the DRC as well. The outbreak in Kamituga, which started in October 2023, involved 250 suspected cases in the first 5 months, and of 108 people with a confirmed infection, 85% had genital lesions and 29% were sex workers, according to the medRxiv preprint. Just over half were women, and only 15% were children.
That’s particularly worrisome because the DRC has an mpox strain called clade I, which is estimated to be 10 times deadlier than clade II, the strain that went global in 2022 and that primarily affects countries in West Africa.
The United States needs to wage a battle against mpox in Africa and not wait until it reaches the United States.
African homophobia seems to be a problem also.
Offering shots to sex workers and MSM may seem an obvious choice, but stigma and antihomosexuality laws make it difficult to target those groups. “This requires a nuanced and culturally sensitive approach,” says Jean Nachega, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh of C[Boldface added.]ongolese origin who co-authored the preprint about the Kamituga outbreak.
Moderna Progress Update.
Highlights in the article are.
· Expects two more Phase 3 readouts in 2024, including combination vaccine against flu and COVID-19, and vaccine against CMV. (You won’t have to get two vaccinations for flu and Covid-19, just one shot for both.)
· Announces positive clinical trial data from three new vaccines against viruses that cause significant burden (Epstein-Barr virus, Varicella-Zoster virus, norovirus) and advances programs toward Phase 3 development. (Varicella-Zoster is a herpes virus. Also known as VZV for Varicella Zoster Virus.) [Commentary in parentheses.]
This is their report on Herpes simplex virus HSV which cases genital herpes. Basically they have just started the first testing. Phase I is to see if the medicine itself is harmful and how much you can safely test. Phase 2 is to see if it works.
Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infects approximately 13% of adults globally and is the primary cause of genital herpes. There are an estimated four billion people globally infected with HSV, of which 491 million cases are HSV-2. Recurrent genital herpes causes a reduction in quality of life, which antivirals (current standard of care) only partially restore. Moderna expects that if an HSV vaccine candidate could deliver similar efficacy as a suppressive antiviral treatment, compliance with recommended therapy and associated quality of life would improve. There is currently no approved vaccine to treat HSV-2.
The first in human, fully enrolled Phase 1/2 trial of mRNA-1608 is designed to test safety and immunogenicity and to establish a proof-of-concept of clinical benefit in adults 18 to 55 years of age with recurrent HSV-2 genital herpes. The randomized 1:1:1:1, observer-blind, controlled study is fully enrolled with 300 participants in the U.S.
An interesting artist. Herman Gordijn
He lived from 1932 to 2017. It makes me wonder how we are going to preserve Gay art for the future. Is there any plan at all?
https://hermangordijn.com/works/painting
Science magazine discussion of the challenges of finding an HIV cure.
It seems to be about the virus lurking in reservoirs. You need to get it all or have a means of keeping it reduce with the body’s immunity.
There is a graph comparing rebound of a person with no reservoir reduction and a person with it reduced by a factor of 100,000. Result is largely the same.
This is a very challenging article to read, but my limits shouldn’t be your limits.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk1831
There are a lot of junk science websites out there.
I live in Texas. Fighting homophobia in Dallas, at History conference again.
The Dallas Fort Worth area is infested with Evangelicals pushing conversion “therapy”
I have already multiple reports and will have more. Somehow this doesn’t seem to be important to our local LGBTQXYZ leadership.
Think twice before moving to Texas. Right wingers are now prying into the private lives of teachers.
Though it seems that most right wingers realize that such type of snooping would go into their own lives. Further, who would want to teach in Texas if they faced the problem of right wing crazies trying to get you fired for your private life not being what delulu Evangelicals think it should be as a teacher.
I sill have another major investigative breakthrough on Dallas conversion delulu “therapists” to do today.
Words to watch in reading medical articles.
“progress,” “might,” “potential,” etc. The scientists have done some study and they have learned something or accomplished something, the journalists make it seem like a cure or effective treatment will be here shortly.
Sometimes it is that the title doesn’t have the whole story. They cured HIV, but in cells in a test tube.
For studies in mice, it has been a common joke that it is easy to cure cancer in mice. In the popular press always be very critical of science and medical articles. They can be important sources of information, but they also tend to hype it up.
This is a Gay issue because I am finding Gays with no sense in critically evaluating some medical articles. Also, Gays really need to understand medical reporting when reading news about STDs.
A Spa isn’t a trusted place to get blood infusions. People got HIV infected with “vampire facials.”
So far they have found five people with HIV infections linked to a Spa in New Mexico. They are still testing, there might be more people found that got HIV from the spa.
I doubt that anyone among the readership does “vampire facials” but you might know someone who does.
There is a subsegment of the Gay community that does stuff for their face and doesn’t have sense.
Not a Gay item, but to just let you know.
Our local right wing anti-Gay paper is also alarmed, so we don’t have a differential advantage over homophobes. But I think it is important you don’t die.
So far they haven’t detected any viable virus, so don’t go off the deep end with panic. On the other hand is there was a pateurization unit that is malfunction and the milk isn’t fully contained, it goes into the human food supply.
I worked as a process engineer for decades. If the pasteurization unit malfunctions, when will it be detected, and will it be effectively isolated from the sold milk and how will it be disposed of?
I really wouldn’t use dairy products now. I am not saying there is a problem, I just don’t want to be a victim when they say, “Surprise, surprise, we found that a milk processor was incompetent and it went into your ice cream.”
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced that genetic fragments from the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 have been detected in the pasteurized, commercial milk supply. However, the testing completed so far—using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)—only detects the presence of viral genetic material and cannot tell whether the genetic material is from live and infectious viral particles or merely remnants of dead ones killed by the pasteurization process.
In the announcement Tuesday, the FDA also highlighted that multiple studies have shown that the pasteurization process for eggs, which uses lower temperatures than what is used for milk, is effective at inactivating H5N1.
The world is moving fast !!!