The Vanguardian, Issue #3: March 2000
The Vanguard Project
reaches its fifth anniversary in May 2000, and we have recently
received funding to continue into 2001. We'll be marking the occasion
with a Five Year Report, which is part of our ongoing commitment
to keep our participants and the community up-to-date on the progress
and findings of the study.
As we approach our fifth year of existence, we are reaching our goal of 1000 recruited participants. We are also increasing our efforts to contact participants who have gone missing from the study, in order to improve our follow-up rate.
This past year has been a busy one for Vanguard staff, as we were peripherally involved with two clinical trials of particular interest to the gay community: helping to validate the new rapid HIV test kits, which have now been approved for use; and helping to publicize the Vancouver Vaccine Trial, a clinical trial of the first investigational HIV vaccine to be tested in large-scale human populations.
Speaking of the vaccine trial, please help us in welcoming Nancy McLean, one of the nurses for the vaccine trial. Nancy will be assisting Vanguard nurse Mary Lou Miller in testing Vanguard participants at the Downtown South Community Health Centre.
You may have noticed the new format of the questionnaire, which combines the previously separate baseline and follow-up questionnaires. This means that some questions are now repeated from one year to the next. We appreciate your patience in completing the questionnaires year after year, and apologize for the repetitive nature of some of the sections.
Thank you for your ongoing participation and cooperation in the Vanguard Project! We truly appreciate your assistance.