Spread of HIV stopped in mice

Some worry that the
studies will undermine
safe-sex practices.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS

DALLAS — After 25 years of researchers around the globe being confounded by HIV, scientists in Dallas have shown that the virus’s transmission can be stopped with medications.

The scientific first, though performed only in lab mice, bodes well for a future when people at high risk for HIV infection would have a convenient way to protect themselves from the virus.

Even though the experiment — which involves two commonly prescribed drugs for AIDS — could represent a breakthrough in AIDS prevention, experts who have long advocated safe-sex practices are worried that people will seek these drugs without waiting for scientific proof from human studies.

“This has the potential to undermine years of safe-sex reinforcement and risk reduction,” said Bret Camp, associate executive director for the Resource Center of Dallas, which operates several AIDS programs.

One of the drugs, tenofovir, is reportedly being sold at gay dance clubs on both coasts as a protection against HIV. Camp said he didn’t know if the drug is also being used that way in Dallas, but he said it was likely.

“I’m sure it’s happening everywhere, maybe to a lesser extent here than in other places,” he said. But as word of this and other similar studies gets out, “there’s a huge potential for abuse.”

J. Victor Garcia, the UT Southwestern Medical Center microbiologist who led the study, said he does not want the study to be misinterpreted.

“This is a mouse experiment,” he said. “It cannot, under any circumstances, be extrapolated to humans directly.”

Government-funded studies to see whether a similar approach will protect people from HIV infection are incomplete. Results are expected as early as 2009. About 40,000 Americans become infected with HIV every year; more than a million are living with AIDS.