AIDS Treatment News Millennium Plans
Any new year, especially this one, is an occasion to examine one's directions and activities and make changes. Here are some of our plans for AIDS Treatment News:
We expect to change the front page by adding an explanatory paragraph to most items in the table of contents, to help readers see quickly whether or not they want to read the full article. The new table of contents will usually fill the front page.
We are not planning to raise prices.
We want to focus primarily on practical information that readers may need in order to work most effectively with their physicians and other medical professionals--and also to obtain access to care, through private insurance or public programs.
Even though it seldom affects treatment now, we will continue reporting on some of the most important basic research, work which could lead to fundamentally new treatments in the future. And we will continue to report on public policy affecting drug development, or access to care.
We will also include "alternative" treatment information, especially for relief from symptoms of illness, side effects of medications, or other stresses of dealing with a major illness. The advantage of focusing on relief in the alternative/complementary world, where few trials are done and much less data exists than for mainstream, approved drugs, is that people can often know quite quickly whether or not a treatment is effective for them. Relief is subjective, so the individual is the authority; when someone says they feel better, there is no point in arguing that really they do not, or that we do not know since there is no proof.
A difficult issue for us is the great amount of "AIDS treatment news" which comes out in credible journals--and often in the newspapers also, when a pharmaceutical company or other large organization chooses to promote it to the press. We plan to follow the major journals more closely in the future. But most of these reports, even if technically important, have little relevance to patients' or physicians' treatment decisions now, nor to their understanding of future treatment possibilities and prospects. We do not believe our readers want us to summarize even important work, when its relevance is not apparent.
You can help; we welcome readers' suggestions on what is most important for you--including suggestions on particular treatments, tests, medical conditions, access problems, policy issues, or other areas we should cover. Write to us either at aidsnews@aidsnews.org or at AIDS Treatment News, P.O. Box 411256, San Francisco, CA 94141.
