U.S. Is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants, Officials Say

[Emboldened Chimp]

This may or may not have been posted already...sorry, mods, if it already was. I just thought some good news on Bloody Election Day was in order...


AIDS among infants, which only a decade ago took the lives of hundreds of babies a year and left doctors in despair, may be on the verge of being eliminated in the United States, public health officials say.

In 1990, as many as 2,000 babies were born infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; now, that number has been reduced to a bit more than 200 a year, according to health officials. In New York City, the center of the epidemic, there were 321 newborns infected with H.I.V. in 1990, the year the virus peaked among newborns in the city. In 2003, five babies were born with the virus.

Across the country, mother-to-child transmission of H.I.V. has dropped so sharply that public health officials now talk about wiping it out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/nyregion/30aids.html?hp&ex=1107147600&en=0f0a10483d880053&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[jdj]

1. How? I don't understand this.

Is it abortion?

I don't get how they can affect the rate of children born with it with a rising HIV rate.

[MadisonProgressive]

2. How can the possibly 'wipe it out' without an HIV vaccine?

[jdj]

3. Wow. It's AZT.

"Doctors suspected that AZT could be effective at reducing the presence of the virus in the bloodstream and significantly decreasing the chances of transmission, but there was reluctance to give the drug to pregnant women. Eventually, faced with thousands of sick babies, the National Institutes of Health allowed a test in which some mothers were given a course of AZT and others were given a placebo. Public health officials anxiously awaited the results.

"I remember the day," Dr. Mofenson said, recalling when the results were released in 1994. "It was absolutely incredible."

The study showed a 67 percent reduction in the risk of transmission."



This is one of the drugs that fucker Reagan refused to fund research for so I guess his karma was getting to die for lack of the stem cell research that his own buddies refused to fund. Karma is a bitch.

[MadisonProgressive]

5. That's great news.

It still can't wipe out HIV in babies completely, though. Not everyone that has HIV knows they even have it so why would they be taking AZT?

[ckramer]

4. I'd like to see a news headline says: "U.S. is Close to Eliminate

Homelessness in America, Officials say..."

Not that eliminating AIDS is a bad thing.