Staff Reporter
The country needs to embrace the burgeoning field of bio technology in the way it embraced information technology, said David Ho(
Speaking at a celebration of 10 years of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) use in Taiwan, Ho told the audience that Taiwan has what it takes to be an "innovation-based society" but needs to focus on encouraging development and stemming brain-drain.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Taiwan introduced HAART or "cocktail" treatment in 1997 after hard lobbying by then Department of Health head Chang Po-ya (
Before the new treatment arrived, being diagnosed as HIV positive was considered a death sentence, said Wu Shiow-ing (
"We used to hear about patients killing themselves after learning that they had HIV," Wu said. "Such incidents are much rarer since cocktail treatment was introduced because people now have hope."
Some of the patients who received the first batch of pills that department employees worked overtime to divvy up and send to hospitals are still alive, she added.
Ho, a Taiwanese-American, was chosen as Time magazine's man of the year in 1996. He now conducts research in the US and Taiwan.
"Taiwan must do more to develop industries of the future," Ho said. "So far, Taiwan has done a fabulous job developing its IT sector, but so far it seems to have missed out on biotech."
"There is no doubt in my mind that Taiwan has the capability to do the kind of clinical trials [required for further research into HIV]," said Ho, citing Taiwan's "remarkable" work with hepatitis B in support of his statement.
Ho is currently working on vaccines for HIV and several influenza viruses.
"We have entered stage two trials for our HIV vaccines," he said. "Tests show that with three doses of the vaccine, 90 percent of participants display a response."
However, whether or not the immune system response means that the participants have developed protection against HIV is still unknown, said Ho.
"The vaccine will not be ready in the near future," said Ho.
Ho said that Taiwan's isolation from the international health community makes internal biomedical development even more important.
"Of course, it is very harmful that Taiwan is not a part of the WHO," he said. "We are denied access to a lot of information. We have to make up for that by being more independent."
"Ultimately, however, the WHO does not hold the solution to the problems of the world," Ho said. "That is up to research done in individual countries."
The non-profit Taiwan AIDS Foundation, however, yesterday criticized the government, claiming that the number of people contracting AIDS in Taiwan has not decreased despite use of Ho's therapy treatment.
Foundation Chairman Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲), a former minister of health, said at a separate news conference that the foundation had found that the government was implementing a "biased" anti-AIDS policy -- concentrating most resources in medical treatment and checks.
Twu blamed the situation on the fact that some people wrongly believed that the cocktail therapy can cure the disease after it proved successful in prolonging the lives of AIDS patients.
Shi said the therapy allows AIDS patients to lead a normal life by reducing the HIV virus load in their bodies. However, with more and more AIDS patients needing the treatment, the department has been forced to spend more money on providing the cocktail and conducting medical examinations.
Additional reporting by CNA
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater