Hepatitis C, drug resistance, and personalized medicine

A huge boost to treatment for the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is on the horizon, as two pharmaceutical companies are set to release new drugs to market.  And with development complete, the marketing war begins.

Forbes reports that Merck has won FDA approval for Victrelis, and the drug, which costs $35,000 for the course of treatment, will hit pharmacies’ shelves by next week, along with the company’s targeted marketing campaign.

But Merck is on the clock, since a favorable approval from the FDA expected on rival drug, Incivek, manufactured by Vertex Pharmaceuticals by the end of the month.

A quick look into the Phase III studies conducted by Merck and Vertex reveals that both HCV drugs are protease inhibitors intended to be given in combination with other currently available treatments. And a paper published this past February in Science Translational Medicine provides a plausible explanation why, going forward, choosing the proper drug cocktail for each patient will be crucial.

It seems that HCV can rapidly mutate, perhaps even faster than HIV or Hepatitis B, and successfully combating this disease will require substantial efforts in personalized medicine:

Overall, this study predicts that rapid emergence of HCV protease inhibitor resistance in patients, particularly those with genotype 1a infection and with high viral loads, is expected. Combination therapies of direct antivirals with/without IFN+/-RBV would be promising to combat drug resistance. However, as with HIV, they need to be chosen carefully and with regard to both preexisting and on-treatment generated drug-resistant variants.

  By Brian Mossop

Uganda Kill The Gays Bill May Become Fast Tracked Into Law

The Uganda Kill The Gays Bill, aka the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB) may be quickly on its way to becoming law, as the Uganda lame duck parliament’s session comes to a fast close, possibly on May 11 — just days from now. The bill, infamous around the world for its provision mandating the death penalty for anyone convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality, anyone convicted of same-sex rape, anyone who is classified as a “serial offender,” even anyone with HIV, may or may not include the death penalty provision, according to author of the bill, David Bahati, who claimed last week he would “concede” the provision if it would move the bill into law. Many believe that concession to be a ruse. Contrary to a published AP report, the death penalty provision has not been dropped.

“I know that the process of legislation is moving forward,” said Bahati, according to a report from Warren Throckmorton, who writes, “Today, public hearings on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill took place before the Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Committee, according to the bill author, David Bahati. In an interview, Bahati said that the Uganda Reform Commission and several religious leaders were on the list of those slated to provide testimony.”

“Bahati declined to say that the bill would be voted on next week, saying that the actual end of Parliament is not until May 18 when the 9th Parliament also begins. According to Charles Tuhaise, a researcher for parliament’s research office, most of the business will be concluded by the end of next week. He told me that the hearings for the Marriage and Divorce Bill have concluded and those for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill began today. Tuhaise said the antigay bill hearings will probably conclude on Monday."

No word yet from Uganda President Museveni, who recently stated he wanted the Kill The Gays Bill dropped, on whether he would sign it.

According to trusted reports, including Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin, the AHB’s chances may be growing, as Uganda is currently experiencing great citizen unrest, and parliament sees passage of the bill as an opportunity to create a “diversion."

“Uganda has been rocked in recent weeks with rioting and demonstrations against rising gas prices,” Burroway writes. “The government has been responding with extraordinarily violent crackdown on dissent. One opposition leader was seriously injured and fled to neighboring Kenya for treatment. The disturbances even spilled onto the floor of Parliament, which had to suspend its session temporarily on Tuesday."

Relying on information from GayUganda, Burroway adds ”that forces behind the bill see as an opportunistic diversion for the violence that is racking the country,” but adds that the “diversion also can work both ways. With most of the media’s attention focus on the ongoing violence and protests, it could also be that the bill’s supporters see an opening for it to be passed when nobody’s paying attention."

The Kill The Gays Bill also mandates jail time for those who know of homosexuals but do not report them to authorities within 24 hours and offers a maximum of seven years prison time for even renting a room to someone who is homosexual. Any assistance to a gay man or lesbian would be considered criminal.

The bill reportedly was shelved in March, but Bahati — who has said he wants to “kill every last gay person” — appeared defiant, stating at the time, “I think that the government is aware that 95 % of Ugandans do not condone homosexuality."

One week later, supporters of the bill, lead by right-wing zealot Pastor Martin Ssempa, presented to Speaker of the Uganda Parliament, Edward Ssekandi, a petition reportedly carrying 2 million signatures, demanding the “Kill The Gays” bill — also known as the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” — become law.

The “Kill The Gays” bill, which has also become known as the “Bahati bill,” is necessary — according to the team of Pastor Ssempa and David Bahati — because homosexuals are supposedly “recruiting children” in Uganda, and, the two claim, paying them large sums of money to have same-gender sex or to become homosexual. The petition reportedly came with a list of nineteen organizations that they claim are “promoting” homosexuality in Uganda.

But no one has ever provided actual proof. Bahati, who has a Cardiff University MBA, has been repeatedly asked in this country by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for any proof of these allegations. Bahati promised to provide it but never has.

Source: The Advocate, May 6, 2011


Gay activists’ petition against Ugandan ‘kill gays’ bill

Gay rights campaigners hope to collect enough signatures to ask Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni to refuse to sign an anti-homosexuality bill.

The legislation, in its current form, calls for harsher punishments for homosexuality. For “aggravated” case, such as those involving disabled people, those with HIV or minors, it calls for the death penalty.

Landlords, teachers and family members could also be prosecuted for failing to report gay people to police.
The status of the bill has been unclear for months, with conflicting reports about its progress through the legislature.

Late last year, it appeared to have been scrapped. However, campaigners say that parliament may vote on it this week and are urging people to sign a petition against it.

The petition, started by Allout.org, says: “Our best chance at stopping the bill is each other – if thousands of us spread the word we can make clear that the world is watching and we will not allow this to stand.”

The appeal adds: “Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has shown himself to be sensitive to international pressure. Last year, a massive response from people around the world pushed him to stop the bill in its tracks.”

President Museveni has not given his opinions on the bill but ethics minister James Nsaba Buturo said last January that the leader did not agree with killing gays and lesbians.

The anonymous blogger GayUganda wrote last week that parliament’s return to the bill was a “diversion” tactic to take attention away from riots and the fear of more civil unrest.

Source: PinkNews, May 9, 2011

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In Africa, homosexuality emerging as hot-button issue

In Kenya, Prime Minister Raila Odinga recently told supporters in the Nairobi slum of Kibera that he would order police to arrest gays. In Uganda and Malawi, debate is rising over the legality of homosexuality.

Long seen as a fringe societal taboo far from the realm of African politics, homosexuality is emerging as a hot-button issue throughout much of the continent. Kenya, East Africa's economic hub, joined the trend in late November when Prime Minister Raila Odinga told supporters in the Nairobi slum of Kibera that he would order police to arrest gays.

"We will not tolerate such behavior in the country. The Constitution is very clear on this issue, and men or women found engaging in homosexuality will not be spared," Mr. Odinga said in Swahili, in comments that were taped by several news organizations. "Any man found engaging in sexual activities with another man should be arrested. Even women found engaging in sexual activities will be arrested."

The statement -- which brought cheers in the Kibera slum -- has created a sharp divide between Christian conservatives, who argue that homosexuality is against religious laws and "the law of nature," and human rights activists, who argue that stigmatizing any minority is illegal. It serves as the latest example of an outlook driven by the growing political assertiveness of powerful Christian churches that bolster existing social stigmas against gays.

"Normally, we judge a country's development by its tolerance of minorities," says Njeri Kabeberi, executive director of the Center for Multiparty Democracy in Nairobi. "We've seen this same issue come up in Uganda, in Zimbabwe, in Malawi, where gays are assaulted, arrested, jailed. Anything like that, the prime minister should condemn, but instead, he's encouraging it."

Ms. Kabeberi encouraged the prime minister to retract his statement, if only because Kenya's newly enacted Constitution does not, in fact, make homosexuality illegal. (Kenyan law merely states that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman.)

If the statement was Odinga's attempt to become popular with Kenya's powerful churches, she adds, "the wrath of the civil society is going to make him wish he wasn't popular on this issue. He should be urging Kenyans to be tolerant, instead of himself being intolerant."

While recordings of Odinga's speech have been made public online, Odinga's spokesman Dennis Onyango issued a statement saying that Odinga was misquoted.

Odinga said he intended to clarify that the Constitution was not, as alleged by opponents, going to legalize same-sex marriages.

Yet even this statement stops short of retracting the statement attributed to Odinga of calling for the arrest of gays.

A regional trend

In Uganda, where homosexuality is already illegal under British colonial-era laws, the parliament briefly debated and then withdrew a proposed bill that would have imposed lengthy sentences, and in some cases the death penalty, for homosexuals.

In Malawi, an openly gay couple was convicted in May under a colonial-era law banning "unnatural acts" and sentenced to 14 years in prison, before international pressure prompted the government to set the sentences aside.

And in Kenya, as the country prepared to vote last summer in a referendum to establish the new Constitution -- an attempt to prevent a return of the leadership crisis that followed ethnic clashes after the December 2007 elections -- it was conservative Kenyan churches (urged on by the Pat Robertson-funded American Center for Law and Justice) who opposed the Constitution, arguing incorrectly that the new Constitution would have legalized abortion and same-sex marriages.

Converging reasons

Wanyeki Muthoni, executive director of the independent Kenya Human Rights Commission, says that the tumult over homosexuality is the result of three converging trends.

First, Kenyan gays are becoming more politically active and vocal, lobbying hard for "basic equality and nondiscrimination." Second, the global debate over the ordination of gay priests, increasingly accepted in Europe and the United States, has caused a conservative backlash here in Africa, with African churches largely rejecting those reforms. Finally, African churches have been radicalized by what Ms. Muthoni charges is "the ever-increasing influence of homophobic American Evangelicals in Africa."

For Kenyan gays, Odinga's statement means tough times ahead.

"Harassment has been going on. Yesterday, two people were arrested by cops for homosexuality; three people were arrested the day before, but they managed to get out of jail," says Zawadi Nyongo, an independent social justice activist. "I have been receiving hate mail myself, through e-mail, and I'm not even on the front lines."

"We're all baffled by this," she adds. "How can a government that is trying to help people to get tested for HIV and to seek treatment, how can thatsame government talk about arresting gays?"

Source: Christian Science Monitor, December 9, 2010