|
|
Activists, doctors pursue AIDS cure together, for a change
October 25, 1996
Web posted at: 930 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Dan Rutz
ATLANTA (CNN) -- Forty of the world's leading authorities on AIDS are meeting in Atlanta this weekend to brainstorm towards finding a cure for the disease.
This is not the typical medical conference, however. You won't see activists standing on the streets, chanting insults at the medical establishment and demanding more government funding for AIDS research. And you won't see headlines in which doctors belittle the research of others.
Rather, this research consortium, organized by the often-provocative San Francisco AIDS group "Project Inform," aims to jump-start research outside of the media spotlight.
Where journalists' attention is normally solicited, here, reporters will be barred from the brainstorming sessions. The idea is to let scientists frankly criticize one another's failures as they plot new strategies for saving people who are dying of AIDS.
"I think it's unprecedented," said Dr. John Dwyer of the Prince of Wales Hospital in Australia. "I think that the jealousies, the secrecies, the things that have not done science much of a favor in the past, in many situations disappear with HIV. I've never seen such an environment of international cooperation."
The idea of transplanting baboon cells into an AIDS patient grew from an earlier gathering of the Project Inform think tank. That experiment was carried out late last year on patient Jeff Getty. Getty is alive and doing well nine months after the transplant, although it isn't clear whether the baboon's immune system actually helped him.
The mood at the town meetings is one of cooperation and interaction, its participants say. Activists hope their cooperation will move even more experiments beyond the lab to where they matter most -- at the patient's bedside.
Related stories:
- Activists clash over AIDS research vs. animal rights - June 18, 1996
- Baboon marrow transplant patient survives- Dec. 15, 1995 -
Related sites:
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
Tell us what you think!
You said it...
© 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.