Researchers looking at data from a large group of American servicemen have found that a genetic mutation which made people of African descent less susceptible to a now-extinct form of malaria also makes them more likely to contract HIV. That’s the bad news. The good news is that African-Americans with the mutation survive longer with HIV if they do get infected.

The paper is very dense, full of sentences like this:

“As there is extensive linkage desequilibrium around the DARC locus, we cannot exclude with certainty the possibility that the effects ascribed to the -46C/C genotype might be attributable to some other polymorphism(s)/genes in the LD near DARC”

But it’s been magicked into comprehensibility by Nicholas Wade, writing in the New York Times. Wade’s account of the research, a model of clear science writing, translates the DARCS and -46C/Cs into passages like this:

“The Texas-London research team is not certain how lack of the receptor promotes H.I.V. infection, but Dr. Ahuja said the red blood cells acted like a sponge for CCL5. Because CCL5 is known to obstruct multiplication of the virus, having lots of the hormone in the bloodstream may prevent infection. Conversely, people whose blood cannot soak up the hormone could be more vulnerable.”

While the people whose blood contributed to the study were all Americans, the paper suggests that the genetic modification is likely to occur also in the African populations with whom the African-Americans share ancestors. And it may explain some of the high HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa. Of course HIV is distributed unevenly throughout the continent and even within particular countries; it would be interesting to map the distribution of the genetic variation.

One of WHO malaria overlord Arata Kochi’s complaints was that the Gates Foundation is becoming a monopoly, squeezing out discussion and debate. Scientists are so desperate for Gates money, Kochi suggests, that they won’t speak truth to (purchasing) power. It happens that I am in Bangkok just now, at the invitation of the Gates Foundation’s HIV division, to talk about Foundation’s future contribution to HIV prevention. The handful of people invited are all independent thinkers with a lot of coalface experience researching and preventing HIV. None of us are shy, and none of us are after Gates funding. We chewed over our failure to deal effectively with HIV and spat out the unwillingness of governments from rich countries and poor countries alike to do helpful things on a large scale for sex workers, drug injectors and gay guys.

The Gates Foundation is not accountable to those pussy-footing governments, and it has lots of money. The WHO dances to the tunes played by the 192 governments that sit on its board, and it is skint. Which organisation do you think is most likely to be able to do what’s needed to stamp out HIV?

Update on the malaria debate: Kochi says Bill and Melinda Gates are unrealistic to call for the eradication of malaria. Setting unrealistic goals in not helpful, he maintains. I agree with him. But then I don’t work for an organisation that said (in 1977) that it would achieve “Health for All” by the year 2000.