text_1: Encouraging clinical results for an antibody drug to prevent or treat HIV
text_2: While this study of a clinical trial of a new biologic agent called 10-1074 is understandably exciting for HIV researchers — it involved just 33 people (19 individuals who were infected with HIV and 14 who were not) — and lacked important detail which would have made it more meaningful for the rest of us. We give the release credit for acknowledging that the biologic drug is still preliminary and needs to be tested in a larger trial, but that caution seems overshadowed by the other premature projections made in the release. The stated purpose of the research was “to determine whether the antibody was safe and whether it had antiviral activity in humans” but the news release didn’t tell us the actual results of the trial and what this might mean in the larger context of HIV treatment. We know that antiretrovirals — the current therapy  — can cause severe side effects and require lifelong treatment. But highlighting a new approach without talking about its potential drawbacks seems to be premature. We hope that “broadly’ neutralizing antibodies is part of an alternate treatment strategy, but without more detail, is it too soon to be getting HIV-infected patients hopes up?