A Vaccine for AIDS?

"Scientists Hunting for an AIDS Vaccine May be Getting Close," The Washington Post, Alyssa Bothello, July 23, 2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-hunting-for-an-aids-vaccine-may-be-getting-close/2012/07/23/gJQA9TJt4W_story.html

The idea of a vaccine for AIDS is powerful in the context of vaccine controversy.

Vaccines against diseases perceived to be sexually transmitted have historically been controversial.  Elena Conis's brilliant 2011 article in the Journal of the Medical Humanities, "'Do We Really Need Hepatitis B on the Second Day of Life?' Vaccination Mandates and Shifting Representations of Hepatitis B" offers an extensive--and remarkable--history of hepatitis B vaccination regulations in the United States. But, even without access to JSTOR, you only need to read a few articles on controversies around Gardasil to know that, as much as it was marketed as a vaccine against cervical cancer, nearly all of the chatter that arose following its deployment related to its protection against HPV infection, which is of usually sexually transmitted. The argument that these vaccines should not be required because the diseases they prevent are avoidable and not communicable in a public setting has some validity (and is the basis for the Gardasil exemption in Virginia).

Yet at the same time, I don't know that, in the popular sense anyway, cervical cancer or hepatitis B are quite the same as AIDS. There isn't the same fear attached, the same seeming ubiquitousness, the same mystery of the virus to end all viruses. The same death toll, expenses, or community action. I grew up in the 1980's, so the full impact of AIDS was a bit before my time. Yet, even I have distinct memories of AIDS in ways that I don't have about other diseases--Ryan White, the child with AIDS; Pedro on The Real World; the loss of my uncle to HIV/AIDS in 2008. I imagine everyone has some combination of the personal and media experiences with AIDS that aren't quite the same as those we might have about cervical cancer or hepatitis.

So, what will the public reaction be to the AIDS vaccine in the United States, if it ever gets here? Will people clamber for it? Refuse and protest in droves? React with apathy? Rejoice? Will it make a difference? How will AIDS change culturally as a disease? Will it become like polio or rubella--something you get vaccinated for that you wouldn't even know you had if you came down with it?

Either way, in addition to having a potentially powerful effect on global health, the social implications of such a vaccine will be considerable, and fascinating to watch.