In the past six months we’ve heard a couple grand and divergent pronouncements regarding two of the world’s deadliest diseases. David Baltimore recently waxed hopeless on the prospect of finding an HIV vaccine, in what amounts to a sober echo of Chris Rock’s resigned vision of the future:
"Yo, man, you weren't at work yesterday. What's up?''
''My AlDS is acting up."
''You know, when the weather get like this, my AlDS just pop up."
''But l took some Robitussin. l'm fine now!''
Conversely, opponents of malaria aren’t blinking as of yet. Indeed, they’re digging in for a fight. In October, in front of 300 of the globe’s leading malaria experts, Melinda Gates delivered a message of almost scandalous optimism: “The only way to end death malaria is to end malaria,” she boomed. The London Observer chronicles the response:
What she meant, and it provoked gasps from her audience, was 'end' as in 'eradicate' - known as the 'e' word in the malaria community because of its almost taboo status, so improbably, unscientifically dreamy does the task appear.
Through their eponymous foundation Bill and Melinda have channeled over $1 billion to malaria trials in Maryland, England, the Netherlands and numerous African nations including Tanzania, where doctors are currently testing the efficacy of RTS,S, a promising prototype vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline.
And now, within the next 18 months, the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, in conjunction with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, will conduct the newest round of trials. Seattle will differ from the African trials in that researchers are asking healthy volunteers to willfully contract the one of worst epidemics on the planet for a modest stipend of $2,000-4,000. In Tanzania, where 100,000 children succumbed to malaria last year, trialists don’t require a payout, just the will to live.
Inviting a batch of mass-murderous parasites into one’s bloodstream may give even the foolhardiest among us pause, especially considering the stark delivery method of holding a paper cup full of infected mosquitoes to one’s arm. However, the whole enterprise is far less dangerous than the average Jackass stunt and according to research head Dr. Patrick Duffy, volunteers won’t even miss a day of work. In fact, Duffy says it’ll be no worse than having the flu.
If anyone in the Seattle area is planning to take a day off circa 2009, here’s a golden opportunity. Calling in with the flu is so passé and face it, your boss usually suspects you of lying. So, just imagine handing him a doctor’s note saying you’ve come down with the same disease that killed Alexander the Great, Oliver Cromwell and Dante. You might get the whole week off.
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