As the pace of AIDS research has quickened, new drugs are being tested in fewer and fewer people before they become available on a large scale. Clinical endpoint trials, once considered the gold standard in AIDS research, appear impossible in the new world of virological endpoints. And clinical trials themselves seem to offer over-optimistic estimations of a drugs' worth, perhaps because of the high motivation and the close supervision of volunteers. So how do you collect real world data on the progress of people taking many different combinations of drugs.
New York weekly The Village Voice explores these issues in a lengthy article by AIDS reporter Mark Schoofs, who investigates plans to establish HIV Treatment Data Project, an on-line database that will be used by people with HIV to log their progress on their current therapy. Will this offer a solution to questions like when to start, when to switch and which drugs to choose? Find out more at http://www.villagevoice.com/ink/news/34schoofs.shtml