PHM-Exch> Canadian AIDS researcher's ‘crazy' crusade gains support

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel at gmail.com>
crossposted from: "[health-vn discussion group]" health-vn at anu.edu.au

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadian-aids-researchers-crazy-crusade-gains-support/article1225229/

Canadian AIDS researcher's ‘crazy' crusade gains support

The controversial notion of treatment as prevention has suddenly become one
of
the hottest issues in the science of the disease
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Geoffrey York

Cape Town, South Africa — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Tuesday, Jul. 21, 2009 08:33AM EDT
A lot of people thought Julio Montaner was a little crazy when he first
suggested that the best way to eliminate the AIDS epidemic would be a
massive
scheme to give AIDS medicine to every infected person.

What about the huge financial cost? What about the moral issues, the
human-rights issues, the overwhelming number of tests and drugs that would
be
required? Wouldn't it undermine years of lecturing on monogamy and
abstinence?
Wouldn't it promote “condom-free sex,” as some critics said?

Faced with a host of objections, the Canadian scientist was a lone voice in
the
wilderness for the past three years, unable to win support from the global
AIDS
establishment.

But this year, Dr. Montaner's solitary crusade – the controversial notion of
“treatment as prevention” – has suddenly become one of the hottest issues in
AIDS science.

Yesterday, at the International AIDS Society conference in Cape Town, his
once-ridiculed idea was endorsed by experts from around the world.

Among the latest support for his proposal is a model by World Health
Organization researchers that predicts a 95-per-cent reduction in new HIV
cases
within 10 years if his idea is adopted.

The proposed new strategy – universal voluntary testing for HIV, combined
with
immediate anti-retroviral drug treatment for those who have the virus, even
in
its earliest stages – could save more than seven million lives by 2050, the
model says.

The WHO, which had resisted the treatment-as-prevention concept for years,
is
now organizing a special conference this November to discuss the
“feasibility
and acceptability” of the concept.
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