Research News

By Rev. Elaine Blanchard

To cure AIDS, we will need a lot more money, a revolution in AIDS cure research, and the courage to get as many new promising treatments out of the lab—and safely into the bodies of people living with HIV as we can.

The gap between groundbreaking scientific discoveries and a game-changing cure has never been greater. And yet researchers say we could be closer to a cure than many have dared believe. To close that gap, and increase the chances we’ll see the end of AIDS in our lifetimes, we need more advocacy, a lot more money and the courage to get as many viable options out of laboratory mice and into humans.

Cure. It’s a word few have been willing to pair with AIDS since we thought we had the virus kicked in 1996. For nearly 15 years, talk of a cure has been verboten. Those who have dared utter it were dismissed as dreamers. Since the late 1990s, research, advocacy and funding around HIV/ AIDS have focused almost exclusively on prevention and treatment. And yet it has become clear that we can neither treat nor prevent our way out of the pandemic. The ethical, logistical, sociological and financial barriers to trying to end AIDS with pills and awareness campaigns are proving too great.

This article, “From Mice Into Men” has been copied into this blog and it was written by Regan Hofmann with Tim Horn. Read the entire article in POZ Magazine/ October and November, 2010. Page 21.