Four decades on, where's the HIV vaccine?

Since the late 90's, according to multiple sources such as the NYTimes, AP, Forbes, and other reputable sites, one of the biggest profits on the books for many pharmaceutical companies are AIDS and HIV treatment drugs. That is one of the primary reasons why there isn't that much of a rush to create a vaccine. It would be reducing one of their biggest profit channels.

Why cure a virus when you can treat it?

That is one of the primary reasons why there isn't that much of a rush to create a vaccine. It would be reducing one of their biggest profit channels.

Except that the efforts to create a vaccine consume a lot of time, money and human resources in every country that has research capabilities for infectious diseases. Antiviral drugs are not a good source of profit since more than a decade ago when political pressure made companies release the patents for more than a dozen antiviral drugs that can be produced now as generics.

Also, if you think the main producers of studies are the pharmaceutical companies themselves you would be mistaken, hospitals, universities, research institutes are the driving force for most of the developments in antiviral therapies in the last few years, obviously governments benefit much more from cures than from treatments and many companies that hold no patents for antivirals are extremely happy to make consortiums with researchers on public institutions to test and refine better drugs, one cure, even if it is extra cheap would not reduce their profits (since they don't make any from the treatments) and may even pull them to the first class of pharmaceutical companies.

The reality is that the disease is not susceptible of control by the immune system as explained in the article, so anything that relies on it to finish the infection is bound to have only minor success, vaccines being the prototypical treatment that does that.

Because when you cure someone you stop any chance of transmission. It's like saying why cure polio?

I read somewhere (Sorry, I cannot recall) that being circumcised reduced the risk of becoming infected by about 70% which is a far greater efficacy rate than any of the vaccines so far tried.

Because a HIV vaccine isn’t part of the narrative. Now, something like Covid-19, now that’s a different story

one of the biggest profits on the books for many pharmaceutical companies are AIDS and HIV treatment drugs. 

A number of HIV patients have realized that they didn't even need to take those drugs. They simply quite, and have been fine for years.

I read somewhere (Sorry, I cannot recall) that being circumcised reduced the risk of becoming infected by about 70%

The article below suggest there may be some benefit, but the overall risk reduction is put at 23%. Also, it seems the benefit applies mainly in low and middle income countries, which makes it a little difficult to interpret any cause and effect.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30567-9/fulltext

A number of HIV patients have realized that they didn't even need to take those drugs. They simply quite, and have been fine for years.

Um, no. No they have not. Even when the virus is suppressed to un-detectable levels, it is still in the body somewhere. If you stop taking the ARV meds, it begins to reproduce again and the patient will eventually develop AIDS and die.

This is a well known fact and it is what killed boxer Tommy Morrison.

I don't remember the details, but I had the impression it had something to do with a PCR positive result not equaling infection.

Thank you for the informative article.

How do these companies know the success rate of their vaccine tests? Do they really have 2600 women in a poor place in Africa engage in risky behaviors in order to see how many of them do not become HIV positive? Or worse, have them engage in sexual relations with known infected persons? After all, an effective test would be to compare against real world conditions. Hopefully the vaccine works wonderfully. But if it doesn't, will Johnson & Johnson provide these now-HIV positive women free antiretroviral therapy the rest of their lives?

I don't remember the details, but I had the impression it had something to do with a PCR positive result not equaling infection.

Then you need to remember better, because that is not true nor it is related to the reality of HIV integration into the genome. Why don't you search for the reference for your claim? reading it again can dispel your misunderstandings.