I only recently discovered that a friend of mine was a participant in a big, global AIDS vaccine blind trial.
And that they had to stop the trial and tell every participant whether they had the vaccine or the placebo.
Because people getting the vaccine were showing a higher incidence of sero-converting to HIV Positive status than those getting the placebo. Certainly not the expected or intended outcome.
My friend therefore discovered that he had been getting the placebo. Which, of course, doesn't mean he was bound to either get or not get HIV.
He told me this over a week ago, and somehow I didn't think that was a scoop or anything, but I only yesterday saw the story break on ABC News.com. (And confirmed yesterday seemed to be the day the news hit by checking Google News for additional mentions.)
Shows you that I am not a blogger who considers herself to be a journalist.
I don't know if they're back to square one on a vaccine effort, but it is disheartening.
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