ArticleBMC medical ethics2015
The ethics of talking about 'HIV cure'.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- "Cure" Versus "Clinical Remission": The Impact of a Medication Description on the Willingness of People Living with HIV to Take a Medication.AIDS and behavior · 2020Trial
- Participant Perspectives in an HIV Cure-Related Trial Conducted Exclusively in Women in the United States: Results from AIDS Clinical Trials Group 5366.AIDS research and human retroviruses · 2020Trial
- Deep Thought on the HIV Cured Cases: Where Have We Been and What Lies Ahead?Biomolecules · 2025Review
- A scoping review exploring cure definitions and language for inherited hemoglobinopathies.Genetics in medicine open · 2024Article
- Perceptions of HIV cure and willingness to participate in HIV cure-related trials among people enrolled in the Netherlands cohort study on acute HIV infection.Journal of virus eradication · 2022Article
- Awareness of HIV functional cure and willingness in participating in related clinical trials: comparison between antiretroviral naïve and experienced men who have sex with men living with HIV.BMC infectious diseases · 2022Article
- Ethical and practical considerations for cell and gene therapy toward an HIV cure: findings from a qualitative in-depth interview study in the United States.BMC medical ethics · 2022Article
- Ethical considerations for HIV remission clinical research involving participants diagnosed during acute HIV infection.BMC medical ethics · 2021Article
- Ethics of HIV cure research: an unfinished agenda.BMC medical ethics · 2021Review
- Re-examining the HIV 'functional cure' oxymoron: Time for precise terminology?Journal of virus eradication · 2020Article
- Motivations and Decision-Making of Adult Sickle Cell Patients in High-Risk Clinical Research.Biology of blood and marrow transplantation : journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation · 2020Article
- The significance and expectations of HIV cure research among people living with HIV in Australia.PloS one · 2020Article
- Applying the Behavioural and Social Sciences Research (BSSR) Functional Framework to HIV Cure Research.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2019Review
- Revisiting the 'sterilising cure' terminology: a call for more patient-centred perspectives on HIV cure-related research.Journal of virus eradication · 2019Article
- The psychology of "cure" - unique challenges to consent processes in HIV cure research in South Africa.BMC medical ethics · 2019Article
- Navigating HIV citizenship: identities, risks and biological citizenship in the treatment as prevention era.Health, risk & society · 2019Article
- Indirect Benefits in HIV Cure Clinical Research: A Qualitative Analysis.AIDS research and human retroviruses · 2019Article
- Ethical considerations for HIV cure-related research at the end of life.BMC medical ethics · 2018Article
- Impact of an educational video as a consent tool on knowledge about cure research among patients and caregivers at HIV clinics in South Africa.Journal of virus eradication · 2018Article
- Use of 'eradication' in HIV cure-related research: a public health debate.BMC public health · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIn 2008, researchers reported that Timothy Brown (the 'Berlin Patient'), a man with HIV infection and leukemia, received a stem-cell transplant that removed HIV from his body as far as can be detected. In 2013, an infant born with HIV infection received anti-retroviral treatment shortly after birth, but was then lost to the health care system for the next six months. When tested for HIV upon return, the child (the 'Mississippi Baby') had no detectable viral load despite cessation of treatment. These remarkable clinical developments have helped reinvigorate the field of 'HIV cure' research. DISCUSSION: Although this research field is largely in a pre-clinical phase, talk about curing HIV has become a regular feature in the global mass media. This paper explores the language of HIV cure from philosophical, ethical and historical perspectives. Examination of currently influential definitions of 'functional' and 'sterilizing' HIV cure reveal that these conceptualizations are more complicated than they seem. Cure is often understood in narrowly biomedical terms in isolation from the social and psychological dimensions of illness. Contemporary notions of HIV cure also inherit some of the epistemic problems traditionally associated with cures for other health conditions, such as cancer. Efforts to gain greater conceptual clarity about cure lead to the normative question of how 'HIV cure research' ought to be talked about. SUMMARY: We argue that attention to basic concepts ethically matter in this context, and identify advantages as well as potential pitfalls of how different HIV/AIDS stakeholders may make use of the concept of cure. While concepts other than cure (such as remission) may be appropriate in clinical contexts, use of the word cure may be justified for other important purposes in the struggle against HIV/AIDS.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.