A question about a possible future AIDS vaccine:

[hedgehog]

Here's the premise: an AIDS vaccine is developed that is as safe as other vaccines now in use. There is no possible way to get AIDS from the vaccine, although a very small number of people (maybe 1 in a 100,000) will get a reaction ranging from mild fever to major neurological complications. Maybe 1 in a million will die from complications. You can't predict who will react badly, or how badly they will react.

The vaccine will cost about $300 per person.

So , who should get the vaccine, and when?


I'll check back if I can to add other choices

[rucky]

1. Should only be mandatory for prison population?

Where there's a higher likelihood of contracting the virus.

[xchrom]

2. kick nt

[stray cat]

3. How effective is it?

30% effective - not interested. 100% (impossible) - you could potentially eliminate it as a disease with enough herd immunity.

2nd question - how much extra in taxes would you be willing to pay to ensure those at risk in less developed countries could get the vaccine? If we care about people - we all have to sacrifice to help others.

[hedgehog]

4. I didn't want to get into the issue of addressing the world wide epidemic.

I was more interested in addressing the issue of vaccinating people against a "life style" disease. The premise is that this would be a safe, effective vaccine. As far as I know, some recent vaccines such as the Hib vaccine have very few mild effects and no major effects. For the purpose of discussion, I suggested a vaccine with rare side effects ranging from serious illness to permanent disability to death. Some vaccines do have these rare side effects.

So, my question is, given a very minimal but very real risk of getting vaccinated for a disease that can reasonably be avoided, who should get vaccinated? Although the disease can be reasonably avoided, clearly many people fail to take proper precautions. It's too late to edit the poll, but I should have mentioned the possibility of having women of child bearing age vaccinated to protect potential offspring from HIV exposure in utero.

The vaccine against HPV also involves a life style disease. the difference is that it doesn't protect against all the viruses that cause cervical cancer and that cervical cancer can be cured.