SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Recruiters seeking volunteers to help stop the spread of HIV
Pair visit bars to enlist participants for vaccine trial
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
By CHERIE BLACK
P-I REPORTER
Jarred Lathrop and Patrick Carr walk into R Place bar on Capitol Hill and check in with the bartender.
He nods, and the pair split up, information cards in hand. Carr, 28, begins at one end of the bar, adorned with a decorated upside-down Christmas tree hovering from the ceiling. He chats up patrons and begins handing out information. Lathrop, 25, is on the other side doing the same.
On a brisk Thursday night in December, the men aren't at the bar to have a drink or shoot pool in the upstairs lounge. They are recruiting for an HIV vaccine trial.
Lathrop and Carr are among six recruiters involved with the Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit. They visit gay and straight bars throughout Capitol Hill, encouraging people to volunteer for trials testing an HIV vaccine. They have focused on Capitol Hill for now, because the community is young and has a large gay population.
Seattle is one of 27 sites on four continents testing for the vaccine. Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the trial is conducted locally through the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington's Division of Infectious Diseases.
Over nearly a decade, more than 20,000 volunteers in 94 clinical trials nationwide have tested more than 56 possible vaccines. None has been successful. While drugs are helping HIV-positive people live longer, they are expensive and often come with serious side effects. Some patients also develop a resistance to the drugs over time. Health officials believe finding a vaccine to prevent HIV in uninfected people is the best way to control and eventually end AIDS.
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Invitation to comment
This blog is for researchers, providers, users, community groups, policy makers, and others who are interested in reframing America's response to drug use using the approach exemplified by the 2nd National Conference. The conference is designed to be the "table" where the stakeholders and those most affected by methamphetamine can come together to create solutions that are based in science and compassion. We invite law enforcement and criminal justice professionals as well as treatment providers and harm reductionists because they all have a role to play, and by working together, we hope to reduce the harms associated with drug use and the harms associated with bad drug policy. We invite you to comment and send us news and information to post. Weclome to the table!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
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