bob10
9th May 2017, 05:24 PM
From VVAA.
Ethical test for Malaria
IMAGINE if you will a single dose vaccine which will give those who receive it permanent protection against all malarial strains.
Then imagine a drug of dubious reliability, tested under equally dubious circumstances taken daily or weekly at exorbitant cost per dose, with known adverse consequences.
Which would you prefer?
Griffith University researchers estimate there are approximately 3.2 billion people living in malaria endemic countries worldwide.
Of the 500,000 sufferers who die each year, 80 per cent are young children.
GU recently announced it had successfully tested a world-first whole blood-stage malaria parasite vaccine at its Gold Coast based Institute of Glycomics.
The vaccine, which the institute has registered as Plas-ProtecT was tested in collaboration with the Gold Coast University Hospital.
Researchers claim the tests showed the vaccine was safe and induced an immune response in humans.
Since the Gold Coast is not one of the world’s known malarial hot spots, researchers are now seeking funds to conduct further testing in malaria endemic countries.
That quest was recently launched by Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, under whose watch as commander INTERFET the Australian Army’s Malaria Research Institute now notorious trials of mefloquine and tafenoquine were conducted in Timor.
Nowhere are the disastrous effects of those trials felt more keenly than in Townsville from where most of the trial subjects emanated.
The GU malaria project has been led for many years by researchers Professor Michael Good and Dr Danielle Stanisic, who first started clinical trials in 2013 working with medical staff at GCUH.
Professor Good had so much faith in the vaccine that he was the first person to receive it.
“I wouldn’t ask people to do what I wouldn’t be prepared to do, and we couldn’t do this without the volunteers who give their time to us knowing they are helping further work towards a cure,” Professor Good was reported to have said.
As a study participant, he also had to step back from his usual research role in the clinical trial.
Eight medical specialists have instead provided medical oversight for the volunteers participating in the trial.
Volunteers for the trial who had to attend Griffith University’s Clinical Trials Unit every two days for a month, were administered with the vaccine which consists of inactivated human malaria parasites that prevent them from growing and causing a malaria infection.
When preclinical trials showed the vaccine was able to induce cross-species protection the next step was to develop a human version, which is now being trialled.
The next step is to test whether or not the vaccine protects people by immunising volunteers and challenging them with malaria parasites.
This is a very different, more ethical methodology than that employed by AMI in its mefloquine and tafenoquine trials.
On Monday the RSL announced it had begun negotiations with the Australian War Memorial to fund a memorial to “Veteran Suicide”.
It’s hard to imagine a more insensitive, useless waste of money when survivors of AMI’s trials are crying out for urgent, real assistance.
Ethical test for Malaria
IMAGINE if you will a single dose vaccine which will give those who receive it permanent protection against all malarial strains.
Then imagine a drug of dubious reliability, tested under equally dubious circumstances taken daily or weekly at exorbitant cost per dose, with known adverse consequences.
Which would you prefer?
Griffith University researchers estimate there are approximately 3.2 billion people living in malaria endemic countries worldwide.
Of the 500,000 sufferers who die each year, 80 per cent are young children.
GU recently announced it had successfully tested a world-first whole blood-stage malaria parasite vaccine at its Gold Coast based Institute of Glycomics.
The vaccine, which the institute has registered as Plas-ProtecT was tested in collaboration with the Gold Coast University Hospital.
Researchers claim the tests showed the vaccine was safe and induced an immune response in humans.
Since the Gold Coast is not one of the world’s known malarial hot spots, researchers are now seeking funds to conduct further testing in malaria endemic countries.
That quest was recently launched by Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, under whose watch as commander INTERFET the Australian Army’s Malaria Research Institute now notorious trials of mefloquine and tafenoquine were conducted in Timor.
Nowhere are the disastrous effects of those trials felt more keenly than in Townsville from where most of the trial subjects emanated.
The GU malaria project has been led for many years by researchers Professor Michael Good and Dr Danielle Stanisic, who first started clinical trials in 2013 working with medical staff at GCUH.
Professor Good had so much faith in the vaccine that he was the first person to receive it.
“I wouldn’t ask people to do what I wouldn’t be prepared to do, and we couldn’t do this without the volunteers who give their time to us knowing they are helping further work towards a cure,” Professor Good was reported to have said.
As a study participant, he also had to step back from his usual research role in the clinical trial.
Eight medical specialists have instead provided medical oversight for the volunteers participating in the trial.
Volunteers for the trial who had to attend Griffith University’s Clinical Trials Unit every two days for a month, were administered with the vaccine which consists of inactivated human malaria parasites that prevent them from growing and causing a malaria infection.
When preclinical trials showed the vaccine was able to induce cross-species protection the next step was to develop a human version, which is now being trialled.
The next step is to test whether or not the vaccine protects people by immunising volunteers and challenging them with malaria parasites.
This is a very different, more ethical methodology than that employed by AMI in its mefloquine and tafenoquine trials.
On Monday the RSL announced it had begun negotiations with the Australian War Memorial to fund a memorial to “Veteran Suicide”.
It’s hard to imagine a more insensitive, useless waste of money when survivors of AMI’s trials are crying out for urgent, real assistance.