When asked why they wanted to participate in an HIV vaccine trial, two local men had the exact same response: Why not?
For Gary Wilson and Josh Edwards, the decision to sign up for the University of Pennsylvania’s current research study on an HIV vaccine was a no-brainer.
“If I can be a help to something that could end up working and help to prevent this disease, of course I would want to do it,” Wilson said.
Wilson and Edwards are two of 65 local men who’ve so far made the decision to join the HIV Vaccine Trial Network (HVTN) 505 study operating out of Penn, a trial that is also being conducted at a handful of other sites around the country.
The study is looking at HIV-negative men who have sex with men between ages 18 and 50. Trial participants receive what is known as a naked DNA injection comprised of some segments of the HIV virus once a month during the first three months of the study, followed by a booster in the sixth month designed to elevate the immune response.
The men, half of whom are given placebos, come in periodically for follow-ups and must monitor their temperatures for a few nights following the DNA injection. The researchers follow them for between three and five years.
Participants are compensated travel expenses and $35 for every study visit.
Dr. Ian Frank, with the Division of Infectious Diseases at Penn Medicine, said the area of vaccine research has grown organically as treatments have become more readily available.
“I’m an infectious-disease specialist, and when I finished my training in 1987, HIV infection was the most important infectious disease of the time,” Frank said. “Over the last couple of decades, we’ve made a huge amount of progress in our ability to control HIV replication and keep people living healthy, normal lives who have the disease. But we haven’t done a lot in terms of preventing new people from getting infected, and there are a number of different medical interventions being explored, with vaccine research being one of those. But the way we prevent diseases in our world is mostly through vaccines — it’s how we prevent measles, polio, influenza — and so if we had an effective vaccine, it’d be the simplest prevention strategy and the one most likely to be effective worldwide.”
Frank noted that in 2009, researchers in Thailand were able to find success and cut infection rates in a study that combined two former proposed vaccines, although much more research is still needed.
The field of vaccine research is reliant upon the participation of volunteers like Wilson and Edwards. Others may be hesitant to get involved because of the false impression that someone can contract HIV from the injections, which Frank said is not true.
Both Wilson and Edwards said they too had such worries when they were investigating the study, but the researchers at Penn assuaged those fears.
“They really reinforced the fact that this isn’t made from live virus, which would be risky,” Edwards said. “The fact that there’s no chance of actually getting it from this vaccine put my mind at ease.”
Some people are also put off by the fact that they could test positive for HIV in the future — based on the common HIV antibody tests — even though they don’t have the disease.
“One of the biggest obstacles to participation is that there’s a chance that they’ll develop antibodies against the vaccine, which would make them test positive for HIV through the kinds of testing that are routinely performed,” Frank said. “So people would rather not test positive because that could be an impediment to getting life insurance or other concerns people have, even though they don’t have HIV, but people want to avoid that potential scenario. But that’s going to be an issue with every vaccine.”
Edwards, 31, a West Philadelphia resident and an employee of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, said that possibility wouldn’t be enough to prevent him from participating.
Both he and Wilson, 24, were too young in the late 1980s and early 1990s to see the disease at its height, but Edwards said he appreciates that HIV is still a very real epidemic, whose impact on his own life motivated him to sign up for the study.
“Being slightly too young, I wasn’t a witness to the devastation of the ’80s, but even today I know a bunch of people living with HIV and I know people who’ve passed on because of complications from HIV and AIDS,” he said. “It may not be as devastating and prevalent as it was in the past, but it’s still around and it’s still a major issue. People just aren’t as attuned to it as they once were.”
Wilson, who moved to North Philadelphia from New Jersey seven months ago, said he first learned about HIV at the age of 9 or 10 and, as he grew older, he worked in the HIV prevention field in his home state.
“I always try to educate people and educate myself as well,” he said. “This is an epidemic and it’s killing people, and the older generation gets that more than the younger. We’re not sure this vaccine is going to work, but we’ve got to make the effort. It’s a start, and we’ve got to start somewhere.”
Penn’s HIV Vaccine Trials Unit will host the Mr. and Ms. Lady V drag pageant from 7-10 p.m. March 6 at Voyeur, 1221 St. James St., to identify two ambassadors for HIV vaccine research. The two winners, one who will compete in the men’s category and the other in women’s drag, will help the agency promote awareness about vaccine research and HVTN 505. The winners will be awarded $1,000 each — $400 of which will be presented at the crowning and $600 throughout the year for appearance fees. There are also cash prizes and gift cards for runners-up. For more information, visit www.phillyvax.org/v.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].