“HOUSE OF NUMBERS” NOW AVAILABLE ACROSS NORTH AMERICA ON VIDEO ON DEMAND

Los Angeles, CA – June 3, 2010 – It was announced today that the acclaimed HIV / AIDS documentary House of Numbers is now available in over 50 million North American homes with access to video on demand (VOD) offerings. Cable, satellite and telco operators playing the film in the United States include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Verizon, Cablevision, DIRECTV, DISH Network, RCN, Insight, Mediacom, and Suddenlink. 

In Canada the film will be available to digital subscribers of Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco, Shaw and Telus. House of Numbers will also be available through Apple iTunes and on Amazon VOD.

One of the most buzzed about independent films of the year – the critically acclaimed and divisive HIV/AIDS documentary premiered theatrically in January 2010 but began making waves over a year earlier as it screened on the film festival circuit to tremendously curious audiences around the world, wanting to see a film that showcases how the HIV/AIDS story is being rewritten.

House of Numbers presents the uncensored POVs of virtually all the notable players in the HIV / AIDS world; in their own settings, in their own words. It rocks the foundation upon which all conventional wisdom regarding HIV/AIDS is based. The documentary raises new questions -- presenting global and conflicting viewpoints from an unprecedented array of over 30 of the most prominent and influential figures in the field, among them Nobel Laureates, the co-discoverers of HIV, Presidential advisors, the former Executive Director of UNAIDS, as well as survivors and activists. Surprising revelations and stunning contradictions are the result.

Commented director Brett Leung “We’re are very excited that audiences across North America will have easy access to experience ‘House of Numbers’. We believe Video on Demand is a great medium to further the ongoing discussion around the film.”

About the film:

What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? These questions sent Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung on a worldwide journey, from the highest echelons of the medical research establishment to the slums of South Africa, where death and disease are the order of the day. In this up-to-the-minute documentary, he observes that although AIDS has been front-page news for over 28 years, it is barely understood. Despite the great effort, time, and money spent, no cure is in sight.

The film unveils candid conversations on several key points: Why does the definition of AIDS change from country to country and over time? Why do esteemed scientists debate over the HIV virus? Are HIV tests reliable globally? Are the worldwide statistics correct? What are the dangers of the drug treatments?

Scientists and prominent figures featured in House of Numbers include: Professor Luc Montagnier MD, 2008 Nobel Prize winner for discovering the HIV virus, David Baltimore PhD, 1975 Nobel Prize winner; Kenneth Cole, Chairman of AMFAR; James Curran MD, who began his career with the CDC and held leadership positions for the CDC's HIV/AIDs research; Anthony S Fauci, Director of NIAID; Robert Gallo MD, PhD, co-discoverer of the HIV virus; Michael Gottlieb MD, credited as first doctor to diagnose AIDS; and Peter Piot MD, PhD, Director of Institute of Global Health and former Executive Director of UNAIDS.

First-time filmmaker, Brent Leung, grew up as part of the "AIDS generation" - he's never known a world without it.  Yet with all of its notoriety, he realized the average person did not know that much about HIV and AIDS. What began as a 15-minute film project built around the simple question "What is HIV/AIDS?" revealed itself to be a much deeper journey. House of Numbers became a multi-faceted project that took him across five continents. Leung reveals a research establishment in disarray, and health policy gone tragically off course.

More information on the film can be found at www.houseofnumbers.com.

Contacts 

Dennis Dembia

Vice President

ROGERS&COWAN

8687 Melrose Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90069

Office: 310.854.8114

Cell: 310.709.6193

Fax: 310.854.8143

ddembia@rogersandcowan.com

Canada cuts off funding to international AIDS vaccine project

Between 2001 and 2008, the Canadian International Development Agency contributed nearly $80 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, one of the biggest backers of HIV vaccine trials in the developing world. Canada was one of IAVI's major funders.

Photograph by: Valentina Petrova, AFP/Getty Images

OTTAWA — Canada has pulled the plug on funding to one of the largest AIDS vaccine development agencies in the world.

Between 2001 and 2008, the Canadian International Development Agency contributed nearly $80 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, one of the biggest backers of HIV vaccine trials in the developing world. Canada was one of IAVI's major funders.

In 2009, Canada contributed nothing to the organization and said funding was under review. There was no money again in this year's federal budget and no decision on whether IAVI will ever receive Canadian funding again.

"IAVI was informed in July 2009 that CIDA funding priorities are under review, and that no further commitments could be made at that time," an IAVI spokeswoman told the Winnipeg Free Press.
A spokeswoman for International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda reiterated that sentiment in a statement recently emailed to the Winnipeg Free Press.

"CIDA continues to focus its efforts as part of the aid effectiveness agenda," Jessica Fletcher said. "As such, we are currently reviewing all of our programming. No decision has been made yet on the future of this program."

Stephen Lewis, co-director of AIDS Free World in the U.S. and former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said the global AIDS research community now knows Canada can't be counted on to help.

"This government is now abandoning one of the greatest vaccine initiatives in the world," said Lewis, who is on the board of IAVI. "I just think it's unconscionable."
IAVI President Dr. Seth Berkley has thus far received no response to three letters he sent Jan. 25 to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Oda and Industry Minister Tony Clement asking them to reinstate the funding.

"CIDA's ongoing support is critical in sustaining the momentum in the search for an AIDS vaccine," wrote Berkley in the letters.

He said Canada's funding has helped leverage other support. In 2007, when Canada announced its own Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, Canada committed that the CHVI "would not compromise Canada's international support of AIDS vaccines."

The CHVI is a $139-million, five-year joint venture between Canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It was announced to great fanfare in February 2007.

But three years later, less than $9 million has been spent on CHVI, including almost $700,000 on a proposed $88-million vaccine production facility which was scrapped last month. The Winnipeg-based International Centre for Infectious Diseases was the front-runner for the facility.

IAVI was also one of the partners of that Winnipeg-based bid.

Lewis said Canada presumably has $88 million from the vaccine facility it could use to reinstate its funding of IAVI.

"They have the money and they allegedly have the interest, but (the government is) now abandoning what is absolutely necessary in dealing with AIDS," Lewis said. "Ultimately, the only thing that is going to end this virus is a vaccine."

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Public Health chief Dr. David Butler-Jones have both said they are examining all the options for how to spend the CHVI money now that the production plant is off the table.

Both say it was cancelled when none of the bidders met all the criteria and the Gates Foundation produced an analysis suggesting such a facility was no longer needed.

The focus is still on helping develop a vaccine for AIDS, a spokeswoman from PHAC said.
NDP health critic and Winnipeg MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis said the government obviously has no clue about the global realities of the AIDS epidemic.

"Cutting the vaccine production facility is a blow to Canada's international reputation as a leader in AIDS research and now we will be embarrassingly absent from the global call for continued research into HIV prevention," said Wasylycia-Leis.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Finances sank HIV vaccine facility bid

'No one is hiding anything,' Aglukkaq tells House committee
 Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | 4:03 PM ET 
CBC News

The decision not to build a planned multimillion-dollar HIV vaccine manufacturing facility in Canada was based on finances, not politics, the country's chief public health officer says.
Dr. David Butler-Jones and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq both spoke Tuesday to the Commons health committee.

In February, the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed that a facility to make HIV vaccines used by researchers worldwide in clinical trials wouldn't be built in Canada. The facility would have been the main project in the $111-million Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, a venture between Canada and the Gates Foundation that was announced three years ago.
In the February announcement, the agency said a study commissioned by the foundation concluded there was enough vaccine manufacturing capacity worldwide to meet research needs.
The four bids came from corporations and universities in Winnipeg, Peterborough, Ont., London, Ont., and Quebec City.

On Tuesday, Butler-Jones told MPs that peer reviewers ranked the four bids internally on scientific merit to advise the department. But none of the bids met key criteria of sustainability or financial capacity to continue, Butler-Jones said.
"There was a fair and open process," Butler-Jones said in response to questions to the minister on the review process from NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis. "You suggest somehow I would alter that. That's untrue," he said.

"No one is hiding anything," agreed Aglukkaq.

Gates and others in the field recognized that the research capacity issue was addressed in the past 18 months, which wasn't the case two or three years ago when the bidding process began, Butler-Jones said.

Both Butler-Jones and Aglukkaq said funding earmarked for the facility is still going to the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative. The federal government and the Gates Foundation are discussing how the money will be used.

Isotope costs

Bidders had spent up to $2 million, including $750,000 by Winnipeg, opposition MPs said.
Aglukkaq also answered questions about the shortage of medical isotopes. The price of available isotopes has gone up, and the world's two biggest isotope producers, Canada and the Netherlands, have taken their reactors offline.

The Dutch reactor will be shut down for six months and Canada's reactor in Chalk River, Ont., is not expected to be running until the end of May.

Aglukkaq said she has "committed to having discussions" with provinces and territories about the extra overtime costs they've faced in paying health-care workers mitigating the isotope shortage by working on evenings and weekends.

Liberal health critic Carolyn Bennett said the government should just go ahead and agree to pay the bill.

"Once you get the numbers from them, minister, will you be able to reimburse them for the money they've had to spend in hospitals and clinics because there have been no isotopes?" Bennett asked.
Aglukkaq replied that she has not received cost information from provinces and would not speculate on if they will be reimbursed.

The government is trying to help ease the shortage by turning to isotopes now being made at a refurbished reactor in Poland.

"We have expedited the reviews for submissions to increase the supply in Canada," Aglukkaq said.
Conservatives will also reintroduce bill C-6, a proposed consumer product safety bill that aims to modernize Health Canada's response to protect children from injury such as the power to search for, seize and recall dangerous consumer products. Aglukkaq gave the example of recalling cribs for amputation risk.

Before Parliament prorogued, Liberal senators tried to alter the bill in December with amendments to protect entrepreneurs and homeowners from its search-and-seizure provisions.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/03/16/hiv-vaccine-isotopes-aglukkaq-butler-jones.html?ref=rss#ixzz0iNOtRaAp