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Guest Commentary: What’s driving the
decline in AIDS news coverage?
April 2011
SHARING OPTIONS:
According to a new study, media coverage of HIV/AIDS fell
more than 70 percent in developed
countries over the last two decades. The
Trends in
Sustainability Project—a joint project of the University of
Leeds,
Queen's University Belfast, the Berlin-based Institute for Futures Studies and
Technology Assessment (IZT) and Euromed Management School in Marseille—tracked
coverage of a
variety of sustainability issues in 115 leading broadsheet
newspapers in 41 countries from 1990 until May 2010.
Although it is true that newspaper readership has been
steadily eroding over the past decade due to the rise of alternative online
news
sources, this study is still a powerful indicator of the priority that
traditional news organizations assign to various topics. In the early 1990s, an
average of 1.5 articles about HIV/AIDS was found in every issue of these
newspapers; since 2008, that average has fallen to less than 0.5 articles.
As the researchers discovered, during the time interval
under study, coverage of HIV/AIDS peaked
at the end of 1991, after which
coverage then dropped to values between 0.5 and 1 article per issue from the
late 1990s onward—roughly one-third of the
levels of coverage observed in the
early 1990s. It is striking to note that among the set of 20
sustainability-related issues studied by the project—
ranging from climate
change to human rights violations—HIV/AIDS was the only issue that experienced
a substantial reduction in levels of public
attention through the last 20
years. As the authors of the study conclude: "A stark decrease of coverage towards
the end of the review period can be
identified, irrespective of the threat the
disease continues to pose."
What accounts for the
decline in newspaper coverage of
HIV/AIDS in developed nations? I believe it is a mix of complacency and
ignorance. Consider attitudes in the United
States. Segments of the American
public think HIV is a non-issue based on the fact that antiretroviral therapy
drugs can be effective and provide an
extended lifespan to those living with
HIV. What they fail to realize is that the current high cost and substantial
side effects of these treatments
are still problematic—not a long-term
solution, and certainly not a solution for developing regions of the globe.
Solid support for this point of view, I believe, comes from
a sifting of the media statistics for HIV/AIDS coverage gathered by the
sustainability researchers. When the coverage was broken down for six
nations—Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, the U.K. and the United
States—it was found that South African newspapers clearly show the highest
coverage levels throughout mid-2000 to 2010, ranging from 1.5 to 2.7
articles
per newspaper issue. Furthermore, South Africa, where HIV is a major crisis, is
the only of the six country subsamples that does not show a
marked downward trend
over time.
Meanwhile, the decrease in coverage is particularly
pronounced in French and U.S.-based newspapers, dropping from around 1 to 0.5
and from 1.5 to roughly 0.7 articles per newspaper issue in 2010,
respectively.
The Australian, French and U.S.-based newspapers reached their lowest levels of
coverage observed throughout the review period in 2010;
German and U.K.-based
newspapers showed coverage levels in 2010 that are very close to their overall
lowest values in HIV/AIDS-related coverage.
The residents of developed nations in 2011 may be tempted to
believe the HIV/AIDS crisis is a
problem for other parts of the world. Yet this
flies in the face of the facts. Note, for example, that in the United States,
there are 55,000 new HIV
infections every year, a number that has remained
unchanged since the mid-1990s despite the use of counseling, medications and
protective measures.
Over the last couple of decades, there have been many false
hopes and plenty of failures on the
road toward a resolution of the HIV crisis.
As a result, some doubt a cure or treatment lies on the horizon. These
individuals are not paying attention
to the positive news from clinical studies
that shed a very real ray of hope on finding a safe, cheap, universal
treatment.
For example, one notable advance was publicized in September
2009 by the U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP), which is focused on
developing an
effective HIV vaccine for use in Southeast Asia. In a
six-year-long, community-based, Phase III clinical trial known as RV144,
researchers demonstrated
that a combination of two vaccines—based on HIV
strains that commonly circulate in Thailand—was safe and modestly effective in
preventing HIV
infection. Specifically, the treatment consisted of a
prime-boost combination of ALVAC HIV and AIDSVAX B/E vaccines. More than 16,000
adult volunteers
in Thailand were involved in the study. Executed by the Thai
Ministry
of Public Health, the study included a team of leading Thai and U.S.
researchers. The trial was funded by the U.S. government, specifically the
Division of AIDS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Army Medical Research
and Materiel Command, Department of Defense.
According to the trial sponsor, the U.S. Army Surgeon
General—via the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity—the results
showed that the combined
vaccines lowered the rate of HIV infection by 31.2
percent (a statistically significant amount) in a heterosexual population
compared with placebo. For
the first time ever, the ability to reduce the risk
of HIV infection in humans was demonstrated. This news was presented by the
lead clinical
investigator on Oct. 20, 2009 at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 symposium
in Paris and subsequently
published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In 2010, more
than 30 U.S. and international
collaborators initiated lab studies of the patient specimens in an effort to
define the immune responses mediating the
vaccine-induced protection against
HIV infection. These efforts are ongoing, and further work is required to
develop and test a vaccine suitable for
licensure and worldwide use.
In separate news from July 2010, researchers from the
NIAID's Vaccine Research Center (VRC)
reported in two Science papers on their discovery of
three human antibodies
that neutralize HIV. Two of these antibodies were shown to target a broad range
of HIV strains. Nearly everyone infected with
HIV produces some antibodies to
it; the newly identified antibodies are unique in their breadth of neutralizing
activity.
The VRC scientists screened blood samples from HIV-infected
people around the globe for antibodies against nearly 200
strains of HIV to
determine how many strains the antibodies of each patient could neutralize.
Blood from one particular patient, known as "donor 45,"
was found to include
broadly neutralizing antibodies specific for HIV envelope proteins. The screen
identified three antibody-producing cells with the
desired activity. Two of the
cells, named VRC01 and VRC02, were found to neutralize 91 percent of the HIV
strains tested, while a third, named VRC03,
was found to neutralize 57 percent.
This finding lends support to the principle that it is possible for the human
immune system to generate broadly
neutralizing antibodies. However, as noted by
the authors of these Science papers, the
design of a vaccine that can induce antibodies with
similar specificity will
require significantly more effort.
Prominent headlines aside, it is
possible to get a true
sense of the scope of current efforts to create an HIV vaccine by attending any
one of the numerous research conferences in the
field—such as those sponsored
by the Global HIV Vaccine
Enterprise, a unique global alliance of independent
organizations working together to accelerate the development of safe and
effective HIV
vaccines. For example, at the AIDS Vaccine 2010 Conference, which
was held in Atlanta last September,
one had the option of attending close to
two dozen sessions covering everything from novel immunogen delivery
strategies, to animal models of HIV
transmission, to recent advances in B-cell
and protective antibody responses. Numerous smaller symposia, such as one held
at the New York Academy of Sciences in May 2010, attracted speakers who
addressed the challenges
of developing HIV vaccines to prevent or control
infection, the genetic diversity of the virus and mechanisms that can be used
to reduce HIV
transmission in conjunction with a future vaccine.
According to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
(IAVI), funding for a preventative AIDS
vaccine research topped $868 million
during 2008 alone. While the investment is significant, so are the strides that
are being made.
In conclusion, I believe that AIDS news coverage in developed
countries ought to reflect the very real urgency of finding preventative and
therapeutic vaccines, the state of ongoing research and the breakthroughs that
are being made today, such as the studies I have outlined above. If
newsgathering organizations in these countries had a deeper understanding of
the current state of the field, the result would be a level of newspaper
coverage similar to that marking the earlier years of the crisis.
Dr. Robert T.
McNally is president and CEO of GeoVax Labs
Inc., an Atlanta-based
biotechnology company that creates, develops and tests
innovative HIV/AIDS vaccines. He
can be reached at rmcnally@geovax.com.
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