[PHOTO] Inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City

The aura of St. Patrick's Cathedral was at the very least aesthetically pleasing, and often very impressive: ranks of lit candles, arrays of wooden pews, ceremonial vestments, mournful statues.

[LINK] "Cancer drug shocks HIV out of hiding"

Not Rocket Science's Ed Yong highlighted a pretty interesting new finding from the realm of HIV/AIDS medical research. The cancer drug vorinostat, it turns out, can disrupt the reservoirs of HIV contained in the white blood cells of infected people, reservoirs which can replenish the infection even after antiretroviral treatments clear the virus from the rest of the human organism. The ability to disrupt these reservoirs means that a drug treatment that could clear HIV infection entirely might be possible.

A team of US scientists led by David Margolis has found that vorinostat – a drug used to treat lymphoma – can [. . . shock] HIV out of hiding. While other chemicals have disrupted dormant HIV within cells in a dish, this is the first time that any substance has done the same thing in actual people.

[. . .]

To see if the drug could do the same for patients, the team extracted white blood cells from 16 people with HIV, purified the “resting CD4 T-cells” that the virus hides in, and exposed them to vorinostat. Eleven of the patients showed higher levels of HIV RNA (the DNA-like molecule that encodes HIV’s genes) – a sign that the virus had woken up.

Eight of these patients agreed to take part in the next phase. Margolis gave them a low 200 milligram dose of vorinostat to check that they could tolerate it, followed by a higher 400 milligram dose a few weeks later. Within just six hours, he found that the level of viral RNA in their T-cells had gone up by almost 5 times.

These results are enough to raise a smile, if not an outright cheer. We still don’t know how extensively vorinostat can smoke HIV out of hiding, or what happens to the infected cells once this happens. At the doses used in the study, the amount of RNA might have gone up, but the number of actual viral particles in the patients’ blood did not. It’s unlikely that the drug made much of a dent on the reservoir of hidden viruses, so what dose should we use, and over what time?

Vorinostat’s actions were also very varied. It did nothing for 5 of the original 16 patients. For the 8 who actually got the drug, some produced 10 times as much viral RNA, while others had just 1.5 times more. And as you might expect, vorinostat comes with a host of side effects, and there are concerns that it could damage DNA. This study could be a jumping point for creating safer versions of the drug that are specifically designed to awaken latent HIV, but even then, you would still be trying to use potentially toxic drugs to cure a long-term disease that isn’t currently showing its face. The ethics of doing that aren’t clear.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the affair of Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the Guardian, and Omar Khadr

This National Post article reports on a clutch of issues, all relating to the criticisms of Nazanin Afshin-Jam--an Iranian-Canadian human rights activist, most recently famous because of her marriage to Defense Minister Peter MacKay--of the politically contentious case of Guantamano-imprisoned Omar Khadr in Prince Edward Island's Guardian, criticisms that she made that seem to focus on journalist Jim Day highlighting her status as wife of the Defense Minister, not as a factor in her own right.

The two articles by Day in the Guardian are here, this the first one which does introduce her as the defense minister's wife on the 25th, followed by this one the next day that added Afshin-Jam's marriage to Peter Mackay to the end of a long list of achievements.

I'm inclined to agree with Day that Afshin-Jam's more mainstream fame of late is a consequence of her marriage to MacKay, a man who has had other high-profile relationships, including one with departed MP and auto parts heir Belinda Stronach. Without her marriage, I doubt very much Afshin-Jam would ever have addressed a Conservative party function on Prince Edward Island.

A more interesting thing is the criticism she made of the Canadian government's complicity in Omar Khadr's continued detention. What might this trigger?

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the human rights activist and author married to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, lashed out on Facebook Wednesday night after the P.E.I. Guardian published an article that quoted her calling for the immediate return of the lone Canadian imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr.

Afshin-Jam said she agreed to an interview with the Guardian for her new book The Tale of Two Nazanins, but instead “journalist Jim Day did not ask me a single question about the book and made an obvious effort to draw me into a discussion criticising the government.”

However, in an email to the National Post, Day said “Afshin-Jam was free to refuse comment on Khadr but she freely chose to answer my questions.”

In the article Afshin-Jam is quoted as calling for the immediate return of Khadr, who has been at the controversial military prison for 10 years.

“Omar Khadr was a child when he was involved in combat under the UN (United Nations) definition and so we should abide by the international laws and rules that we expect of other countries as well,” she said in the Guardian article.

“So I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be kept in prison but definitely I think it’s time to bring him back to Canada. He was a Canadian citizen and he can be tried here or looked after here in terms of how long his sentence is going to be or what is going to be his fate.”

Afshin-Jam also said she told Day she was bothered by seeing her name left out of print and often being referred to as “The Defence Minister’s wife” yet “this is exactly what he chose to do.”

The article, as it appears online, refers to her as the “defence minister’s wife” without naming her in both the headline and the story’s opening paragraph.

Her full name is referred to in the second paragraph.

[. . .] Day notes Afshin-Jam was in Prince Edward Island to speak at a dinner for the District 17 Progressive Conservative Association.

“I doubt this came about as a result of her title as former Miss World Canada or due to her admirable activism work. Most logically, the attraction of having Mrs. Afshin-Jam speak to the Tory faithful was due to her being the wife of one of the most powerful Conservative politicians in the country along with the fact that she has a book to promote,” Day said.

He also said the Guardian ran a second article on Afshin-Jam that focused on her activism but also voiced her concerns about being known as “the defence minister’s wife.”

The Conservative government has been heavily criticized for its failure to repatriate Khadr, 25, the last Western citizen left at the military facility.

One former Canadian diplomat called Ottawa’s inaction “unprecedented.”

“I don’t think there’s any enthusiasm by any of the people in the Canadian government to see him come back to Canada — they’re trying to drag it out in every way possible,” Gar Pardy told The Canadian Press last week.

[LINK] Two links on Sally Ride and the question of being out

The revelation that the recently deceased Sally Ride, the astronaut who was the first American woman in space, was actually a lesbian and involved in a long-term relationship has ignited a minor, but well-conducted, debate over the question of whether she should have been out. As the first American woman in space--and only the third woman at that point--Ride had a huge influence as a role model for young women interested in space. In life, what could she have achieved as someone out? The debateconducted at Joe. My. God. by the commenters makes for interesting reading.

I've come across two particularly thoughtful posts on Sally Ride and the question of being out. The first? Amy Davidson's blog post for The New Yorker, "The Astronaut Bride".

A few months earlier, about the same time as Tereshkova’s divorce, she, too, married a fellow astronaut, Steve Hawley, without any world leaders present. A brief story in the August 15, 1982, Times (“TWO ASTRONAUTS TELL FRIENDS OF THEIR MARRIAGE LAST MONTH”) included this line: “ ‘We didn’t want to make a big deal of it,’ Mrs. Hawley said. ‘We only told a few friends.’ ” Luckily, by the time she went into space, the Times had figured out that “Mrs. Hawley” was still Sally Ride.

And that is when she truly became Sally Ride—not just a scientist and athlete (she’d considered being a professional tennis player) but an icon. That meant more discussion of her personal life. A June 19, 1983, “Woman in the News” story in the Times said Ride and Hawley “were quietly married, making them the first astronauts to do so”—meaning, perhaps, the first Americans (or the first to do so quietly)—and that their house was “laced with mementos of the space age,” including “shuttle dishware.” Ride’s 1982 marriage is mentioned in her Times obituary, as is her divorce, in 1987. (The space decor comes up, too.) Then, at the end, there’s this:

Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy; her mother, Joyce; and her sister, Ms. Scott, who is known as Bear. (Dr. O’Shaughnessy is chief operating officer of Dr. Ride’s company.)

Bear Scott, Ride’s sister, and her company, Sally Ride Science, confirmed to reporters that no one should mistake “partner” for business partner: “We consider Tam a member of the family,” Bear Scott told BuzzFeed. She, too, is a lesbian (and a Presbyterian minister) but more open than her sister ever was. The listing of O’Shaughnessy as Ride’s partner was apparently the first time the relationship had been in the public record. Bear Ride talked about her sister’s “very fundamental sense of privacy.”

The reactions to what was referred to as a “posthumous coming out” were, on the whole, sympathetic, but rich with questions. USA Today referred to “the quiet, graceful way in which she revealed her love for another woman.” Would doing so, say, at a gay-rights rally, or by applying for a marriage license, or even just in an interview, have been loud and graceless? (The title of the article, which included understanding quotes from the Human Rights Campaign, was “FORMER ASTRONAUT SALLY RIDE CHOSE PRIVACY OVER GAY CAUSES.”) There was, as Bear Scott hoped there would be, happiness about having a new lesbian hero. Some commentators noted that, even if they had been married under state law, the Defense of Marriage Act would have kept O’Shaughnessy from receiving any of Ride’s federal benefits.

But the deep appreciation and respect that welled up for a woman who was not only brave enough to blast off on a rocket but devoted her life afterward to encouraging girls to go into science and math was tinged, in some quarters, by muffled disappointment—not about her identity, but about that very quiet. Andrew Sullivan called Ride an “absent heroine.”

And she was a heroine, especially to many girls. She openly acknowledged that the women’s movement had made her trip to space possible—that it didn’t just happen. She told reporters at the time of her flight, “It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.” Again, that was her work; she had a sense of what it meant to be a role model, to be Sally Ride. Perhaps she thought that parents would not buy the children’s science books that she co-wrote with O’Shaughnessy, who helped run Sally Ride Science and was described on its Web site as her “friend,” if they thought the authors were lesbians. The more troubling question there is not for Ride but for the rest of us: If that was her fear, was she right? Have we, as a nation, not been ready to let a lesbian inspire our daughters to fly, if they want to, to the moon, and back?

We may, at least, have reached a moment where being a “private person” is no longer a satisfying answer to the dilemma of the closet. Ride was sixty-one, and so there is talk of the mores of a certain “generation.” No one wants to make anyone’s life harder. But at some point the line between quiet, and silent, and withholding becomes unclear. It is significant that the generals and admirals who came around to ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, talked, above all, about not wanting to ask their troops to lie.

The second is Natalie Wolchover's Space.com"Why Aren't There Any Openly Gay Astronauts?".

Three hundred and thirty American men and women have served as astronauts since the start of NASA's human spaceflight program. Only one is publicly known to have been gay or bisexual — Sally Ride — and she kept it private until her death, yesterday (July 23), when her obituary on the Sally Ride Science organization's website stated that Ride was survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her "partner of 27 years."

As the first American woman in space and a scientist, Ride served as a role model for generations of young girls. Now, she'll serve as a role model for LGBT youth as well, said her sister, Bear Ride. "I hope it makes it easier for kids growing up gay that they know that another one of their heroes was like them," Bear Ride, who identifies as gay, told Buzzfeed yesterday.

Gay rights advocates say Sally Ride's addition to the ranks of LGBT role models will make a tremendous impact. "Role models are incredibly valuable for everyone, but I think especially for LGBT youth, who may be born into a family where they don't have an LGBT role model. It is so important for them to look out into the world and see they could be welcome in that world," Stuart Gaffney, media director at Marriage Equality USA, told SPACE.com. "Sally Ride will be that for them now."

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin concurred, telling Buzzfeed, "The fact that Sally Ride was a lesbian will further help round out Americans' understanding of the contributions of LGBT Americans to our country." [Astronaut Sally Ride: In Her Own Words]

Ride's decision to keep her sexual orientation private reflects her very private nature, sources said. But the lack of even one openly gay or lesbian astronaut in the history of American spaceflight may reflect the culture at the NASA astronaut office. Although NASA does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, Michael Cassutt, author of five books and hundreds of articles about human spaceflight, said coming out would until recently have been "a career-wrecker" for an astronaut. "Not for any formal reason, but in the same way that any medical issue or even some kind of notoriety has been an astronaut career-wrecker," Cassutt told SPACE.com.

"Any issue that detracts from the mission is or has been the kind of thing an astronaut wants to avoid. It isn't NASA politics; it is NASA politics as practiced at the astronaut office," Cassutt said, adding that the office has often resembled a "military squadron."

[. . .]
Cassutt said even though he suspects there are or have been some other gay or lesbian astronauts, and in spite of the progress made on LGBT issues, "I don't expect anyone in the current corps to be 'out' any time soon, assuming anyone is gay."

The implication is that even in 2012, a same-sex orientation could still earn an astronaut unwanted notoriety that would detract from a mission. Robert Pearlman, space historian and founding editor of collectSPACE.com (a SPACE.com partner site), said the choice to shield one's sexuality "unfortunately cannot yet be labeled 'behind the times.' While there are a great many more people who are openly gay today, we are not yet to a point of universal acceptance," he noted.