PodcastDirectory.com's listings of the The AIDS Pandemic Podcasts

Taking Lessons from the CCR5Δ32 Mutation for Patient Treatment

I’m Lindsay Sween, and welcome to this installment of the AIDS Pandemic blog and podcast.Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) invades a CD4+ (T4) cell through the attachment of the viral protein gp120 to its primary cellular receptor, CD4, and to a transmembrane chemokine coreceptor, usually CCR5 or CXCR4. Agrawal et al. (2007) explain that the removal of 32 base pairs from the CCR5 gene results in the CCR5Δ32 mutation, which produces a shortened, nonfunctional protein that cannot ...

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I'm Paige Bates and this is The AIDS PandemicThe RV144 study was a phase III HIV vaccine trial conducted by the US Army and Thai government over seven years on 16,402 volunteers—all HIV negative men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 in parts of Thailand. For ethical reasons, all participants were taught HIV prevention behaviors, given condoms, and promised lifelong antiretroviral treatment if they contracted HIV. Half of the volunteers were given a prime-boost vaccine regimen and ...

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Hi, I’m Justin Eusebio.While tuberculosis is one of the world’s oldest surviving plagues and HIV-1 infection is one of medicine’s newest challenges, there is an undeniable relationship between HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Independently, Mycobacteria tuberculosis and HIV are formidable pathogens but in concert, the prospects for controlling either epidemic are jeopardized. TB-HIV coinfection and interaction complicate all aspects of each disease: pathogenesis, epidemiology, clinical pr ...

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Welcome to this installment of the AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dave Wessner of the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I am Sarah Bertram. This past summer, I traveled to Mwandi, Zambia through a Davidson biology and pre-medical program. Mwandi is a predominantly Lozi village of about 7,000 people and the catchment area totals about 25,000 people. We spent 5 weeks in Africa, 3 of which were spent working in the Mwandi Mission Hospital, the Mwandi AIDS clinic, the Orphans and V ...

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The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in certain high risk groups is on the rise today as government funding for prevention campaigns nears an all-time low in Thailand, a country once touted the ‘poster-child’ for HIV/AIDS prevention efforts. Hello, I am Devynn Birx-Raybuck and this is The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. Dave Wessner, associate professor of biology, and his students at Davidson College. Though Thailand’s initial response to the AIDS epidemic was weak in its early years, ...

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Momentum for the alternate HIV/AIDS explanation started in 1987 when Dr. Peter Duesberg, a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley and initial demonstrator that the influenza virus has a segmented genome, published a paper claiming that HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS. Four years later, a number of scientists formed “The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis” which later established itself as an official non-profit ...

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Myths and misconceptions about HIV and AIDS have been around since the very beginning of the pandemic. The first myths stemmed largely from the lack of information on this relatively new disease. One of the first myths, one that claimed that AIDS was a gay disease only, was strongly encouraged by the media. This exacerbated problems with prevention as misinformation was widely circulated. Since then, new myths have emerged. These myths have emerged despite the fact that there is now m ...

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On October 25th, 2007, AIDS activist Ron Hudson posted an entry on his blog describing three apparently fraudulent e-mails he had received over the past month. Each of these messages appeared to come from a prominent member or group of the mainstream AIDS establishment (Dr. Robert Gallo, Dr. Luc Montagnier, and AIDSTruth.org), but each also supported the unconventional view that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS. This disputed notion is the primary tenet of a controversial group of activi ...

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Welcome to this installment of The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. David Wessner from the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I’m Mike Neri.In this episode, I will talk about a topic that is gaining increasing interest from the AIDS community: cancer. This podcast goes over why cancer is becoming more of an issue for AIDS patients, why some cancers occur more often in HIV-positive people, the complications of treating people with AIDS for cancer, and what needs to be done ...

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In 2006, official estimates put the number of HIV-positive individuals in China at about 650,000. This figure – reached by the World Health Organization – means that China, holding roughly 1/6th of the world’s population, contributes to only 1/60th of the cases of HIV/AIDS globally. However, it has also been estimated that if rising infection rates are not curbed, the HIV-positive population could breach 10 million by 2010. This has sparked a more liberal attitude from Party leadershi ...

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I'm Dominique Maietta. Mwandi is a relatively rural village in the South-Western corner of Zambia. The town is home to the Mwandi Christian Hospital, which has a catchment area of approximately 25,000 individuals. During the summer of 2006, I traveled to Mwandi in order to study the psychological and social components associated with HIV/AIDS there. Here I will talk about some of my findings. The incidence of HIV in the village is around 30-40% and the percentage of HIV positive people ...

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Historically, barbershops and hair salons have served as hubs in the African American community where people go to discuss issues in the community, politics, family, and life issues. Within these establishments there is a sense of community, and it provides opportunities for African Americans to develop ideas and form a sense of identity. African Americans usually build relationships with their stylists where they are comfortable enough to gossip and share personal information. As a result, ...

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In a recent installment of The AIDS Pandemic, Tamar Odle described the stigmatization of homosexuals and people living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. As she reported, the discrimination against homosexuals stems from deep-rooted cultural beliefs and values. And this discrimination against homosexuals has increased the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in this country.Recently, Kwame Dawes, a poet and professor at the University of South Carolina, reported in The Washington Post on the current stat ...

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“This week, Congress voted to expand a vital program that is saving lives across the developing world — the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR. I thank members of Congress from both sides of the aisle for working with my Administration to pass this important bill, and I will be honored to sign it into law next week.”With those words, President Bush on Saturday indicated his strong approval of the PEPFAR legislation passed last week by Congress. The bill provides an a ...

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Today marks the end of the 17th International AIDS Conference. 25,000 delegates were in Mexico City this week to discuss the current state of the pandemic. While I was not able to attend this year’s conference, I have been following the proceedings online. What were some of the major themes? The infection rate in the US is higher than previously thought. We need to do a better job reaching out to men who have sex with men. We need to develop an effective microbicide. We need to serve our ...

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In the United States and other developed nations, for many people, AIDS has become a manageable disease. With adequate care and lots of medication, HIV positive individuals can live with relatively few serious complications for a long time. In the US, 71% of HIV-infected individuals have at least started HAART therapy, decreasing deaths per infected individuals per year from 30/100 to 5/100 since the 1980’s. In developed nations, however, HIV positive individuals do not have the luxury of ...

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Welcome to this installment of The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. David Wessner from the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I’m Amy Jendrek.In fiscal year 2005, President Bush requested $270 million to fund abstinence-only education programs in the U.S. While Congress did not appropriate the full amount requested, they did allocate $167 million to support these programs. There are three principal programs that use federal funds to support abstinence-only education.The fi ...

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In 2000, the United Nations created a list of 8 Millennium Development Goals to help promote economic growth and development among developing countries. One of these goals is to combat HIV/AIDS by stopping and reversing its spread and providing universal access to drugs for those infected. While this is definitely a worthwhile goal, why is it included among a list of targets to support growth? Well it turns out, that the impact of HIV/AIDS on the economy can be substantial.The first imme ...

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Welcome to The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. David Wessner from the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I'm Ali Cundari.U.S. prison populations are at a record high today, with barely enough room to house incarcerated individuals. Due to the close proximity and high-risk behaviors of inmates, as well as a lack of intervention from authorities, the transmission of HIV in prisons is a major problem today. A combination of both pre-existing and new infections plague prison p ...

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I’m Bevin EnglishSince the early stages of the AIDS pandemic, doctors have known about an important neurological complication of HIV infection. This condition, known as AIDS-related dementia, AIDS dementia complex (ADC), or HIV-associated dementia (HAD), is a complex and poorly understood disease, and has the potential to greatly impact many people’s lives, including HIV-positive individuals and their families and close friends. In the United States, HIV-1 is the most common cause of de ...

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