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Questionable herpes vaccine research backed by tech heavyweight Peter Thiel may have jeopardized $15 million in federal research funding to Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. That's according to documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request by The State Journal Register.
In August, Kaiser Health News reported that Thiel and other conservative investors had contributed $7 million for the live-but-weakened herpes virus vaccine, developed by the late SIU researcher William Halford. The investments came after Halford and his private company, Rational Vaccines, had begun conducting small clinical trials in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. With the off-shore location, Rational Vaccines' trial skirted federal regulations and standard safety protocols for human trials, including having approval and oversight from an institutional review board (IRB).
Experts were quick to call the unapproved trial "patently unethical," and researchers rejected the data from publication, calling the handling of safety issues "reckless." The government of St. Kitts opened an investigation into the trial and reported that health authorities there had been kept in the dark.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday November 16 2017, @07:13PM (2 children)
Herpes is, or appears to frequently be, a factor tending to lead to cancer. I wouldn't say it's "no big thing". That said, IIUC it hides inside neurons sometimes for decades before emerging. And, of course, it comes in multiple varieties. *Some* of them probably actually are "no big thing". Others are delayed action explosives. And one vaccine probably won't handle all the varieties.
Google got me to:
http://justherpes.com/facts/how-long-does-herpes-lie-dormant/ [justherpes.com]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4353788 [nih.gov] --Javascript required
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday November 16 2017, @08:43PM (1 child)
I think the herpes link may have been discredited - your pubmed paper is from 1973, and everything more recent I found with a quick search says there is no such link.
HPV on the other hand has a solidly confirmed link to cancer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:21PM
i would hazard to suggest that it was HPV back then that caused the cancer, but herpes is what was blamed.
HPV had only recently been discovered as both an STD and known causation of cancer in people. More populary, such cancers were attributed to different lifestyle choices--but choices that sadly very much coincided with the spread of the hpv virus.
The morality view quick to blame the drinking and partying and smoking as the causes as opposed to what happened during those drunken smoke filled parties.