Two Women Found With HIV-Immune Mutant Gene

Trokair writes "China Daily reports that researcher Tuofu Zhu has discovered two women in an HIV Research program that are immune to the disorder via a mutant gene."

Comments

this also linked to

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, it is linked directly to the ugly gene.

Re:this also linked to

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you have the humor-resistant gene.

Re:this also linked to

[Madcapjack]

Well, I for one, welcome our new ugly gene overlords.

Immune

[ThndrShk2k]

With this they probably could make a vaccine or genetically engineer a "virus" that could prevent AIDS*The disorder caused by the HIV virus*

Re:Immune

[boisepunk]

Let's just hope such a "virus" wouldn't be another welchia.

Re:Immune

[theparanoidcynic]

I think that the existance of this mutation has been known for some time. The key is that it was only thought to exist in the caucasian population until now.

Re:Immune

[lucabrasi999]

From the article

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races,"said Zhu.

Sounds like some mutant genes have been found previously, so I am not sure if this will add any new information to the fight against AIDS.

China is now at a key moment in adopting effective measures to control and prevent HIV/AIDS as the disease moves from high risk populations to the general population, in most cases though sexual transmission, Zhu pointed out.

China had better be prepared for a potential disaster. Even if the presense of this "mutant" gene does lead to some sort of cure, it will probably take years to develop and test. In the meantime, China, along with most Middle Eastern and Asian countries, has a high risk of having an AIDS related disaster of a scope way beyond what we now see in Africa. We're talking tens of millions of people infected and/or dying all across the Middle East and Asia.

Re:Immune

[Frogbert]

Yes there have been numerious cases of prostitutes in South Africa being imune to the disease.

Re:Immune

[Anonymous Coward]

...There is already an AIDS crisis in China at this moment. Except that the Provincial Government of Henan has been trying to keep it's dirty little secret, well, secret.

CBC had a documentary on it

It's only now coming to light, really. Yahoo and a quick Google search.

Re:Immune

[N3WBI3]

Not being a racist troll here, but from my experience, culturally Asians seem to be a lot less promiscuous, which would imply that this disaster doesn't seem so imminent.

This is not true, Keep in mind the vector that spreads aids is sex 1 guy gets it from the side, has sex with his wife and maybe a little more on the side and four people are infected.

As for Asian culture's its no more or less sexual than American culture some are more strict than others. Until after the Korean war it was quite common for men to keep second families, even now many still do despite modern stigmas..

Re:Immune

[Hooded One]

That would be correct. The immunity has been known of for a few years. I'm sort of disappointed the article didn't make that clearer, or explain how it works at all.

My biology teacher covered it as part of our lesson on HIV, about 3 years ago. Basically, it has to do with the structure of their white blood cells. Specifically, they lack the CCR-5 protein for the virus to latch on to. The best part is that people can function just fine without this protein, so there don't appear to be any ill effects. The trick now is figuring out how to confer the immunity on those not born with it.

A simple search for "ccr-5" will give a whole bunch of articles for anyone who's interested.

Re:Immune

[Stephen H-B]

I may be wrong about this, but I remember reading/hearing that many of these 'immune' women were just asymptomatic carriers. That meant they were still infected with HIV and infectious but didn't themselves develop AIDS.

Re:Immune

[BuD-TheDude]

Very true, but keep in mind that this was not true immunity. The original ~10 prostitutes found immune were then taken away from their constant exposure to HIV and some were put on antiretrovirlas. It was only after this removal that they began to progress to AIDS. There are several ways in which our body can outmaneuver HIV. This adaptive immune response is remarkable though I feel that the protein APOBEC3G is also worth mentioning. APOBEC3G is an intracellular antiretoviral protein that "interferes with the replication of HIV by incorporating itself into virus particles and damaging the genetic material of the virus. The viral protein Vif can halt this process in two ways". Vif is one of atleast 15 proteins found in HIV's 9 definitive genes. For an interesting read: http://www.retrovirology.com/content/1/1/28

Re:Immune

[severoon]

This is not news. There is a small but significant population in Africa that is immune to AIDS despite having HIV. They can pass along the infection to those who are not immune, but they themselves are completely unaffected. Last I heard, they're estimating this population in the most infected areas of Africa to hover around 0.5%.

We've known about these people since the 80s. This is not news. If someone figures out how to flip that gene in regular people so everyone's immune, then we're talking...give it /. real estate. Short of that...not interested.

Re:Immune

[Thomas Miconi]

Not being a racist troll here, but from my experience, culturally Asians seem to be a lot less promiscuous,

But you're talking about an exponential process. If everybody has unprotected sex with n persons while being infected, as soon as n > 1, the actual value of n matters very little: the disease will spread with catastrophic speed. It might take more time to infect the whole population, but not that much.

As an example, if in one case the process spreads with multiplicative factor n1 = 2, and in the other n2 = 8, then it will only take 3 times as long for the first process to infect as many people. If n1 = 2 and n2 = 16, it will be 4 times as long.

The ratio between total infection times is equal to the ratio of the logs of the two multiplicative factors. You can check by yourself, it's just basic logarithm / exponent manipulation.

Of course in this simplistic analysis we ignore repetitions (people already infected do not contribute to any further increase in infections). But these effects become significant only when a sizeable proportion of the population is infected, so essentially if one population is small and the other is large, the disease will spread faster, for a longer time, in the second one.

Oh, btw, remember that in the case of India and China put together, we are talking about one third of mankind.

But there is an even more depressing aspect of AIDS. With AIDS, abstinence is only a protection if it is absolute. There are some populations in which such a thing exists. Most of the time it is enforced by scaringly oppressive traditions / religions / customs. In other words, when AIDS becomes widespread enough to have a significant impact on the population, it turns obscurantism into a Darwinian advantage.

Thomas-

Someone call...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone call Marvel Comics, we have some new X-men candidates.

Re:Someone call...

[identity0]

Great, two hot Chinese women whose 'superpowers' are that they can fuck anyone and inject any needle without being harmed. I guess it was about time X-Men went hentai and became XXX-Men.

I'm imagining them in the leather bodysuits from the movies, but crotchless and with a opening at the elbows for shooting up. Their arch-nemesis shall be Donkey Boy and Heroin Girl.

Oh god, what kind of pathetic geek am I? I just turned an important piece of AIDS research that could help millions into a bad porno comic joke... I will log off before I embarrass myself further.

If you need me, I will be in my bedroom, masturbating...

mirrored...

[boisepunk]

Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene
Wang Zhuoqiong
2004-10-01 05:17

SHENZHEN: Two women have been identified as carrying a mutant gene that is immune to HIV/AIDS, the first such cases uncovered in China, a researcher said.

The finding is the joint effort of a research programme, "Association of Human Genetic Polymorphisms with HIV Affections," jointly conducted by the University of Washington in the US State of Washington and local Infectious Disease Hospitals and medical institutions in Guangdong Province.

Tuofu Zhu, associate professor of University of Washington and associate director of the Clinical Core at the Centre for AIDS Research (CFAR), introduced the programme to China a year ago as a part of his global research in nations in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races,"said Zhu.

China is now at a key moment in adopting effective measures to control and prevent HIV/AIDS as the disease moves from high risk populations to the general population, in most cases though sexual transmission, Zhu pointed out.

Zhu said that setting up a research centre in Guangdong Province is appropriate as its population has made it the best platform for collecting diversified samples.

"With the largest mobile population in China, we can get samples from migrants who are from other parts of the country," said Zhu.

Since a greater number of patients infected with sexual transmitted disease in particular are reported in Guangdong Province, sample collections are more efficient than other regions in China, Zhu added.

So far, according to Zhu, his programme in Shenzhen has identified 11 Exposed Seronegatives (ES) since January.

Zhu explained that the immune systems of some individuals may be capable of resisting HIV infection. These individuals who do not appear to be infected with HIV despite multiple sexual encounters with HIV infected partners are referred to as exposed seronegatives (ES).

To be specific, any one who has conducted sexual activities at least twice weekly in four consecutive months with an HIV-infected partner might be identified as ES.

Of 11 ES cases, two cases have later been identified as carrying the mutant genes.

In Zhu's opinion, if medicine functioning similarly with the genes was put in the vagina and rectum, the HIV virus couldn't find its carrier to enter the human body and thus would be expelled.

In Shenzhen, both confirmed samples are women who have been exposed to HIV for many years but remained uninfected.

One of them, in her 40s, has kept a regular sexual life with her husband without any protection measures for nine years. Her husband, who was infected with the deadly virus by blood transfusion in 1994, was hospitalized in Shenzhen's Donghu Hospital in July last year.

However, due to the limited qualified samples, Zhu said it is still too early to draw any conclusion from the programme, adding "we definitely need more support from the local hospital, medical institutions and government to collect more data from ES people."

If they were male

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be a great pick up line. "Hey baby, want your kids to be immune?"

Re:If they were male

[rusty0101]

Or better... 'Would you like to be one of the lucky ladies to receive the retro-virus giving you immunity to HIV?"

Nahh, sounds too geeky...

Re:If they were male

[sjames]

Unfortunately, the children would have to be homozygous for the allele in question to benefit much from it.

Not necessarily. If inherited from only one parent, they may be fully immune, resistant but not immune, or may have no benefit.

In some cases, carrying the trait is better than fully expressing it. This is the case for sickle cell anemia. Carrying the trait confers resistance to maleria. Fully expressing it is,of course, a bad thing. This is thought to explain the prevalance of sickle cell anemia amongst people in areas where maleria exists. Perhaps the evolutionary advantage of the maleria resistance outweighs the increased chance of having children with sickle cell.

Spontaneous mutation?

[dzym]

How much reliability is in this discovery? Is it being independently verified? Is China once again reporting something falsified as part of their inferiority complex?

On the other hand, if this is for real, how much chance is there for this gene replicating? Human evolution may be happening in front of our very eyes!

Are there any known negative effects from this mutation? I'm envisaging something like sickle cell anemia here.

Re:Spontaneous mutation?

[allism]

About ten years ago, I did volunteer work for an HIV-testing clinic. I met two men while I was there who were convinced that they were both HIV-immune. One had been very sexually active during the late 70s and early 80s and had had most of his friends and sexual partners die of AIDS-related causes, and the other had repeatedly had sex with multiple HIV-positive partners out of survivors guilt. Talk was just beginning around then of people who seemed to be immune to HIV.

It's not something I'd especially want to gamble on, though - HIV mutates nearly every time it infects, and at some point I think these people who are now immune won't be immune any longer.

Re:Spontaneous mutation?

[spinlocked]

Sounds like delta 32.

If you believe in that sort of thing. The theory seems to be that it prevents the virus from binding in the first place. It has no chance to mutate, within the host at least.

Re:Spontaneous mutation?

[fimbulvetr]

Just because something changes doesn't mean it's for the best and therefore it doesn't mean it is even remotely due to evolution.

You really are a twit!

Think about the logic...here, I'll help.

Change (mutation) in person A.
Person A is now immune to Disease B.
Person A can't be infected by the disease.
This is good!

Wow, imagine that! It changed for the good!

Now...

Change (mutation) in person C.
Person C is now a huge risk for Disease D, gets Disease D.
Person C dies of Disease D.
The changes are not passed on... (This is the opposite of bad, or in other words: good)
Wow! ANOTHER `change` for the good!

This was a generalized version.

It takes us millions of years to develop frontal lobes, because there are millions of changes. Every single one of us has a mutation of some type, it's just that some of the mutations don't manifest themselves.

Now, ideally, you understood this. If you didn't, good luck with the rest of your life.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they can mess around all they want, au natural, and not worry about dying!

Except from all the other potentially fatal STDs you can catch.

Genetics at work?

[enforcer999]

Well, we are a very capable species. We will not die off easily. Aids/HIV are dangerous and deadly to us. It was just a matter of time before our own bodies figured out how to survive this virus. We have a good package to work with.

Just my first thoughts on the subject. I would like to know more about the study.

Re:Genetics at work?

[jm92956n]

It was just a matter of time before our own bodies figured out how to survive this virus.

I don't think that's exactly the case. HIV is only twenty-five years old, which certainly isn't enough time for genetic evolution to take place (especially considering the relatively slow reporductive rate of humans).

It's more likely they've an odd mutant gene that by coincadence makes them immune to the virus.

Re:Genetics at work?

[ashridah]

"I don't think that's exactly the case. HIV is only twenty-five years old, which certainly isn't enough time for genetic evolution to take place (especially considering the relatively slow reporductive rate of humans)."

HIV is most certainly NOT only 25 years old.
It's extremely old, they have preserved tissue samples from almost 50 years ago or so that have been found to contain the virus (the subject died in exactly the same way as the first cases presented here)
(an english sailor died of a oppertunistic diseases, and after he died, tissue was preserved for later study.)

The event that has made HIV into a new epidemic is massive changes in social morality. Originally, HIV was called the Gay-Related immuno-deficiency syndrome or somesuch, because it was primarily affecting people who were outwardly gay.

Of course, it turned out that these people were just starting to be very broad in their choice of partners, and of course, people were starting to share needles for drug use.

ashridah

Re:Genetics at work?

[jcr]

HIV is only twenty-five years old,

Well, that's not clear. The virus may have existed in simian hosts for a very long time, and may also have been contracted by humans many times before but not become epidemic. It takes more than contagion and virulence to make an epidemic.

-jcr

Re:Genetics at work?

[Raul654]

HIV is only twenty-five years old, which certainly isn't enough time for genetic evolution to take place.

Mutations happen all the time - 0.0000000000000214/nucleotide/generation according to these guys . Now multiply that by 3 billion nucleotides in a human, and 70(?) days to replace all the cells in your body. Most of the time, the mtuation is fatal and the cell dies. Most of the rest of the time, it does nothing at all. Once in a while, you get a mutation that is actually beneficial. And once in a while, that mutation happens to occur in gamates, so it actually gets passed on to children. That's clearly what happened in this case.

Re:Genetics at work?

[Tzarius]

Of course, but 25 years is little more than a single generation - an effective selection process would likely take many thousands, especially since HIV is not an instant kill and susceptible persons may live to have children.

Like other posters have mentioned, from the time of the Black Death / Bubonic plague which was devastatingly effective, less than 1% of the population involved now has immunity from that particular infection.

Re:Genetics at work?

[Raul654]

Actually, the first case of HIV was 1959 . However, the leading theories are that HIV was spawned from SIV, which is, in fact, harmless to monkeys. It jumped species into HIV, which is deadly in humans.

Re:Genetics at work?

[Proc6]

Just for fun...

0.0000000000000214/nucleotide/generation
multiply that by 3 billion nucleotides in a human
------------------
0.0000642

70 year lifespan = 365 70-day cycles.
(so 0.0000642 x 365)
------------------
0.0243433

1 (person) divided by 0.0243433
------------------
4.1

So 1 mutation every 4 peoples entire lives, with a "most of the time it does nothing at all", sure doesnt look like a lot of evolution just whizzing past us to me...

Of course I'm just computing numbers without fact checking and maybe missing something.

Re:Genetics at work?

[grcumb]

HIV/AIDS caused by changing sexual mores? Puh-leese.

Perhaps you could explain how this observation works with the fact that the most virulent New World disease (Syphilis) managed to spread like wildfire from Catholic Spain at the height of the Inquisition, throughout European society. And while you're at it, perhaps you could explain how it was still a significant and common disease at the height of the Victorian period.

Maybe I'll save you the effort. Both Syphilis and HIV/AIDS were enabled by revolutions in *Human Mobility*, not changes in morality. The syphilis epidemic erupted at the same time that commerce via ship hit a spike, and HIV/AIDS hit us when air travel spiked.

It's no surprise that 'Patient Zero' in the US HIV/AIDS outbreak was an airline steward. It *is* a coincidence that he happened to be gay.

Re:Genetics at work?

[maxpublic]

The AIDS epidemic (and subsequent rush to find a cure) is indicitive of the human desire to do what pleases with no regard for the consequences.

Riiight. Like a flu epidemic is indicative of a human desire to breathe and interact with other human beings. Or the Black Plague was indicative of a desire for human beings to live in cities and coexist with rats.

AIDS is a disease, not a punishment.

Max

Re:Genetics at work?

[Phroggy]

It's more likely they've an odd mutant gene that by coincadence makes them immune to the virus.

I'm thinking you don't understand the basic concept of how evolution works?

A species doesn't try to evolve, in reaction to a threat or danger or disease. Rather, by random chance, some freak is born, quite by accident, who is immune to HIV (in this case). That's the first step. Step two is, they reproduce, and pass it on to their kids, who pass it on to their kids. Step three is, people who aren't immune to HIV die of AIDS, while those who are immune live normal lives. Voilà, evolution in action.

(By the way, I'm a Creationist; I do not believe humans evolved from lesser animals.)

Re:Genetics at work?

[maxpublic]

perhaps AIDS is in fact a punishment.

No, it's a disease, pure and simple. And if you want to wander down the road of genetic viability, consider this: it makes far more sense for a woman to have each of her children by different men, than by one man alone. Which hardly supports your argument.

And 'fornication', as you put it, doesn't promote the spread of HIV. It would be 'fornication without using a condom' that risks the individual. Use the condom and the risk disappears.

Max

Re:Genetics at work?

[BobTheLawyer]

Even if you believe in a vengeful God who kills those he disapproves of, it is bizarre and illogical for AIDS to be a punishment (unless you believe that God hates gay men, hemophiliacs and people who have blood transfusions, but loves lesbians).

If you don't believe in God, how can an undirected act of nature possibly be said to be a "punishment"?

Re:Genetics at work?

[hanssprudel]

Of course I'm just computing numbers without fact checking and maybe missing something.

You mean like the fact that humans are not single cellular organisms?

I think you may have forgotten to multiply by the number of cells in the human body...

Re:Genetics at work?

[Afty0r]

It's no surprise that 'Patient Zero' in the US HIV/AIDS outbreak was an airline steward. It *is* a coincidence that he happened to be gay.

Wait a second... a male airline steward is gay, and that's supposed to be a coincidence? :)

Re:Genetics at work?

[phoenix321]

-Get married
-Don't cheat

Keep on being faithful for 90-18=72 years. Don't cheat on your partner for three thousand seven hundred fourty-four weeks and weekends.
You are not married and you didn't have a long-term relationship yet, did you? One side of the relationship always becomes dull and passive, while the other partner becomes more active and dominant. Observed this in my own and many other relationships from friends. If you are the passive partner, no problem, just enjoy a solitary hobby or cuddle and hug your partner to death. Passive partners are happy enough to be around their partner, live with them and for them. If you're the active partner, wait for years for the next sexual activity, die from pure and severely hurting boredom, search a geeky niche hobby and disconnect from society or engage in extra-marital relationships.

Sounds harsh, but that's the way it is. Unless both partners happen to like the same almost-solitary hobby or a miracle of love happens, one of the partners is invariably bound to be bored by all that cuddly-fluffy relationship stuff. Once the process started, you have a positive feedback problem going on as the passive partner retreats into him/herself, into his/her hobbies or develops an unnatural and potentially unhealthy servitude for his partner. All that while the active partner, more and more assured by unquestioning love *and* tethered at the same time is facing the problem of feeling guilt for doing social (harmless) activities without his/her partner or ending up doing everything with him/her. The active partner then decides by gut feeling for one of the two ways, leading him/her to a intensively private relationship, having only the partner and at max two or three very similar couples as his/her friends and contact OR having "the bird waiting at home" while engaging in a circle of friends distinct from his/her partner, leading to encounters, flirts and sexual activity with like minded people from that circle or meeting new ones.

Having your social activity reduced to 5 persons at max, living intensely intimate and solitary OR having to deal with changing relationships and frequent feelings of guilt or life- and self-breaking decisions "leave current long-time partner for a possibly very short new interesting flirt that hurts in the end" or "sleep around, bury conscience and be a bad person" - not funny for anyone.

The partner that is more possible to leave the other is the active one. Are you the active or passive partner? Find out now:
Do you have fear your partner's gonna leave some day? Is it impossible to do too many activities in common with your partner? Passive!
Do you feel trapped in endless cuddling? Is the idea of having activities without the partner enticing on this fact alone? Active!
Feel free to comment on that, but perfect relationships are mostly described by "passive" partners that cannot imagine one on one life may NOT be sufficient for anyone ;)

A broad and false assumption may be, that social activity without and in a different circle of friends of the partner ultimately leads to potential sexual attraction, but that's what I witnessed more often than not.
Humans are not built to be happy, but to reproduce. - dunno who said this, but it is sadly true, trust me.

Re:Genetics at work?

[ChrisMaple]

It's not a coincidence that the initial disease vector was a male homosexual. Anal sex tends to break capillaries, making the transmission of AIDS much more likely.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Mr.Sharpy]

Now they can mess around all they want, au natural, and not worry about dying!

Indeed! Now all they have to worry about is...
Gohnorrea
Herpes
Chlamydia
Syphillis
Ge nital Warts
HPV
Hepatitus
Trichomoniasis
and more! Lucky bitches...

Virtual Light

[Mark_MF-WN]

Didn't they do this in William Gibson's "Virtual Light"? Yet another Gibson prophecy fulfilled.

Darn!

[Temfate]

That's just great, a cure that US Law will say we can't experiment with... Back to the drawing board...

Re:Darn!

[copper]

I assume by this you're referring to the federal government's "ban" on certain types of research, such as stem cell reasearch... only there is no such ban. You can do all the research with any type of stem cells you want (including those from aborted fetuses) and not break a single law... you just can't do it using money from the federal government.

While whether or not such research should have access to federal funds is debatable (and I'd probably agree that the current regulations are too restrictive), it's a far cry from actually banning such research.

One useful statistic that I've never come across is the relative ammounts of research funding spent in the U.S. by private vs. public/government sources.

Re:Darn!

[corngrower]

Well you can't do stem cell research if anyone in your company receives any research grants from the federal government. Otherwies their funding goes bye bye.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there's still this particular virus called "pregnancy" that continues to cause abrupt stoppage of sex when performed au natural.

Not as interesting as it sounds...

[vossman77]

If you RTFA you'll note:

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races," said Zhu

So it is NOT a new phenomenon.

Re:Not as interesting as it sounds...

[Fancia]

Homosexuality isn't, as far as research can tell, genetic. It seems to be caused by conditions within the mother's womb, which causes the brain to develop in a slightly different way.

Re:Not as interesting as it sounds...

[man_ls]

Just curious, then, where does that put bisexuals?

Sexuality is a long gamut of values...a simple 2, 3, or even 4-block characterization is too general.

Re:Not as interesting as it sounds...

[maxpublic]

Just curious, then, where does that put bisexuals?

No one knows, but it doesn't seem to be linked to morphological differences in the brain. And I doubt we'll find out any time soon, since bisexuals are generally treated as deviants by both hetero- and homosexuals (except when it's part of some straight guy's "bi-babe" fantasy).

Max

Re:Not as interesting as it sounds...

[INT 21h]

If it was, and was recessive, it wouldn't matter whether the homosexuals procreated or not, the gene would be furthered by their heterosexual relatives.

Re:Not as interesting as it sounds...

[emotionus]

Well one theory is this... After studying penguines it was notice they too have a substantial gay population. These gay penguines mated for life, like other penguines. Also, heterosexual penguines would sometimes have young and abondon them. So, the gay penguines would pick up the abandoned young and care for them. So the theory goes like this: The homosexuals might be there so that they may adopt unwanted / orphaned young.

Re:Not as interesting as it sounds...

[Alioth]

Well, that's not quite true.

Many homosexuals have been married and had children out of societal pressures. Also, as another poster pointed out, it could be a recessive gene and as such a straight-as-an-arrow heterosexual could still be carrying it.

I think the truth lies in a more complex set of factors - partly rooted in genetics, and partly rooted in environmental and developmental factors. I think very little lies in "lifestyle choice".

Not really news

[ajna]

HIV immunity has been reported in various sources in the past:

• a group of Kenyan prostitutes believed to be HIV immune but no longer
• the case of David Crohn and others who lack secondary CCR5 (for macrophages) or CXCR4 (for T-cells) receptors and are thus resistant to HIV infection. NB: CCR5 and CXCR4 are believed to be secondary to the CD4 receptor, found on both cell types, in the HIV binding process.

The only novel thing about this discovery is that it was in Asians, vs. the Caucasian populations in which immunity had previously been reported (and I suppose African as well, even though the Kenyan prostitutes as referenced above turned out to not be immune). The article is pretty worthless, not even listing what the "mutant genes" are, but it's a pretty good guess that CCR5 and/or CXCR4 is involved.

and pregnancy.

[taxman_10m]

eom

Re:and pregnancy.

[really?]

I am quite sure they already have. I think they call it the "Y" chromosome ... if I recall correctly.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[lucabrasi999]

there's still this particular virus called "pregnancy" that continues to cause abrupt stoppage of sex when performed au natural.

Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...

What a coincidence...

[l0ungeb0y]

How I was reflecting on Gibsons Virtual Light over my morning coffee this morning and now I hear about the mutant gene that practically fulfills Gibsons prophecy regarding the therapy.

Personally, I would undergo genetic therapy and have my chioldren (when/if I have them) undergo such a therapy if made available. I think this particular finding an excellent example of how far the field of genetics has gone and the promise it shows.
The flip side of course being the perils of falling into the Nazi idealism of creating a master race from a genetic template considered desirable.

immunity? someone should research slashdot

[taxman_10m]

Lots of people immune from STDs here.

1 More Reason to Find Swedish Women Hot

[craXORjack]

I swear I saw a documentary on PBS about how a tiny percentage of mostly european descendants are immune and it was because of the Black Death (or Bubonic plague, I'm not sure that those are the same thing.) But googling for answers lead me to this article which says that 10-15 percent of northern europeans have limited immunity due to inheriting 1 resistant gene and 1% inherited the gene from both parents giving them full immunity. And Swedes have the highest percentage. Also it says the Plague is debunked and suggests the everpresent Smallpox as the culprit.

Delta 32

[song-of-the-pogo]

The main story and your post put me in mind of a particular episode of "Secrets of the Dead" that I saw, exploring the plague and its survivors.

I wonder if either of those fellows could have been carriers of the delta 32 gene, a mutated form of the gene CCR5:

"In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body"

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/

I didn't see in the article anywhere where it mentioned which gene was affected in the Chinese women, but it seems like to be a different one, based on the information presented in the "Secrets" show:

"O'Brien assembled an international team of scientists to test for the presence of delta 32 around the world. "Native Africans did not have delta 32 at all," O'Brien says, "and when we looked at East Asians and Indians, they were also flat zero." In fact, the levels of delta 32 found in Eyam were only matched in regions of Europe that had been affected by the plague and in America, which was, for the most part, settled by European plague survivors and their descendents."

It was a really good show and if you get the opportunity to watch it, I highly recommend that you do.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[ErichTheWebGuy]

abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...

Yup. Unfortunately, I can verify that.

I hope this is true

[ShatteredDream]

Growing up, not too long into adolescence a friend of our family died of complications due to AIDS. I was barely 14 at the time and it struck me how dangerous AIDS really is. For years people used to think that my having no desire to fuck around like most of my peers was that I was gay. Then occassionally I'd let slip the story about our friend it just floored them. The scariest part is that they could have had HIV at the very moment they were thinking, after my telling that story, "but that can't happen to me."

What really struck me was that we saw the guy only about 3-4 months before he died. He was about as healthy as I am now at 21, and I workout on a regular basis. Then a few months later, *BOOM* dead of complication caused by AIDS. The scariest thing about the disease is that you can go without knowing you have it until the last minute.

Re:I hope this is true

[TykeClone]

Not to be harsh, but you can get the same thing with heart problems. I mowed lawns in high school - one afternoon I mowed the lawn of a little old lady. That night, my dad came home and said that she had just died of a heart attack. She looked fine that afternoon, but that night she was dead.

Same goes for any kind of cancer - it can insidiously grow in you until there's nothing you can do about it but waste away and die.

Probably going to burn some karma with those comments, but it's a terrible disease that they're working on. I hope they find a cure and kick its ass - same for cancer - but it's just another way to die.

Re:Woo hoo!

[ErichTheWebGuy]

1. get some chinese hookers
2. infect em with HIV, and discover that they are immune
3. ???
4. Profit!!!

Glad to know

[Teahouse]

I'm just glad to know SOMEONE will survive if this thing ever becomes airborne. LOL! Three Chinese chicks and a guy in Aboriginal Australia will recreate the human race. Boy, is our species in for a ride!

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Lord Kano]

Indeed! Now all they have to worry about is...
Gohnorrea
Herpes
Chlamydia
Syphillis
Ge nital Warts
HPV
Hepatitus
Trichomoniasis
and more! Lucky bitches...

In order....

Curable.
Nasty stuff, but not fatal.
Curable.
Curable.
Nasty stuff, once again not fatal.
Nasty stuff, not fatal unless it causes cancer.
Possibly fatal.
Nasty stuff, but curable.

HIV is the queen mother of STDs, once that is out of the way, there will be a lot more au naturale love happening in the world.

LK

Re:It seems unlikely.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The only way to be immune, then, is for the white blood cells not to attack the virus, or even be in the area of it. The natural self-destruct system in the cells will eventually trigger. Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread, the body would be guaranteed to win.

Or, you could have white blood cells that HIV has difficulty attaching to. No attack vector means that HIV never gets a chance to do its work.

Soo...

[Kizzle]

So.. Anyone have her number?

Redundancy

[Excen]

Uh, the last time I checked, life was a sexually transmitted disease that was fatal in 100% of the cases.

so..

[Anonymous Coward]

In communist China, you kill AIDS!

Re:It seems unlikely.

[ender81b]

They probably simply lack the necassary receptors (t-5?) on their white blood cells for the virus to attack. Probably nothing more than that - most of the vaccinness/treatments now adays are focusing on those areas since if they are blocked the virus can't attach itself.

seen this immunity before...

[ezonme]

... in a different way. Check these "news" from July 2, 1998:

Geneva - Researchers have uncovered unusual behaviors of human immune systems that seem to have protected certain babies in Canada, prostitutes in Thailand and Africa, and gay men in San Francisco from HIV, despite exposure to the AIDS virus.

The protections do not appear to be genetic, and may offer some critical clues to those hoping to make a vaccine against HIV.

At Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Dr. Kelly MacDonald and a team of pediatricians noticed something odd earlier this year: HIV-positive mothers did not pass the virus to babies who were born with immunologically incompatible blood. In cases of incompatibility, the mother has one genetic type of immune system markers, and the baby a different set. This can put the baby at risk of being attacked by the mother's immune system.

But, in the case of HIV-infected mothers, this immunological incompatibility saved the babies from HIV, MacDonald reported yesterday. The finding was based on a study of 111 mother / child pairs.

MacDonald believes that a key factor in the babies' genetic makeup - called A2/A6802 supertype - by fortunate coincidence prevents HIV from infecting the child. When the mother and child share the same genetic makeup in their immune system, MacDonald discovered, the child is 2.63 times more likely to get infected with HIV.

Since approximately 40 percent of the population worldwide has the A2/A6802 supertype, it makes it an attractive target for vaccine design, MacDonald said.

The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 280 prostitutes in Thailand who had worked in brothels for three years or more, and a group of non-prostitute Thai women. Not surprisingly, the prostitutes were far more likely to be infected with the virus, and 47 percent were HIV-positive, the CDC reported yesterday.

Remarkably, however, nine of the prostitutes were negative for HIV, even though they had genital herpes and syphilis - clear indications of unsafe sexual behavior. The women did not have any of the genetic mutations that have been shown to protect some Caucasians from HIV. But they did apparently have complete immunity. Cells of their immune systems were killing every HIV to which they were exposed, the CDC team discovered. And laboratory studies revealed that their CD8 T-cells, a type of white blood cell, were secreting a factor which, when mixed in a petri dish with human cells and HIV, stimulated immune cells to destroy the virus.

Dr. Jay Levy of the University of California in San Francisco has presented evidence of a CD8-produced factor that stops HIV, as well. For years he has tried to isolate the mysterious substance, to no avail. But it could result, he said in a speech, in a way to maintain control of the virus without the need for antiviral drugs.

Sharon Stranford, a researcher in Levy's laboratory, examined the immune system cells of gay San Francisco men who have been exposed repeatedly to HIV and never become infected. She said that the CD8 cells in these men make a mysterious factor that protects against HIV. But it is not the same as the one discovered in Thai prostitutes, Stranford said, because it blocks HIV without prompting immune system cells to kill the virus. It works by blocking the ability of HIV to make copies of itself, Levy said.

Finally, a CDC team working in Abijan, Ivory Coast, has also found a group of uninfected prostitutes. They, too, lack any genetic protection. And their ability to fight off HIV is also immunological. The team hasn't yet worked out the details, researchers said, but it is clear that immune system cells in the African prostitutes are highly activated, as if constantly ready to go to war.

Immunity?

[FiReaNGeL]

First, it's been know for ages, so it's not a new mutation.

The specific 'mutation' involve CCR5, a coreceptor of HIV-1. An uncommun deletion called CCR5delta32 make it so that M-tropic HIV-1 can't enter CCR5+ cells in homozygote individuals (2 copies of the mutant gene). Heterozygotes (having a functional CCR5 and a mutated one) show less resistance to infection (70% resistance, estimated).

HIV-1 can exhibit a tropism (T-tropic) for another coreceptor, CXCR4, for which no mutation is known, so total immunity isn't exact; we can talk about resistance at best. M-tropic viruses are associated with de novo infection, and a switch to T-tropism is thought to be a turning point in the degeneration to AIDS (but not always).

Even CCR5delta32 individuals can be infected (althought have far less risk than you and me). Even then, the infection progress far more slowly than in normal individuals... they're called long term non-progressors. Won't develop AIDS in their lifetime, but still infectious, which can be dangerous...

Re:Lucky ladies!

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

I think it would be totally awesome if some kind of imaginary god did try and punish it's creation through the use of a cruel, life destroying virus - only to have his divine will deflected by something so simple as a tiny thicknesses of latex, education, testing and screening, as well as the hard work of doctors and scientists around the globe.

Would me wonder who should be quaking in fear from who.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[bumski]

In my experience, a related condition, "marriage", seems to have a similar effect in reducing the frequency of sexual activity. So much so, in fact, that I begin to believe that those who oppose homosexual activity would be well served to endorse gay marriage as a preventative measure.

otherwise completely normal

[jeif1k]

In other words, you must have a pathetically weak immune system (or none at all), and your body's cells must be so fragile that any abnormality of any kind will destroy them instantly.

A small fraction of people seems to be resistant to HIV infection because they carry idiosyncratic mutations that interfere with the way the HIV virus works. That doesn't mean they have a "pathetically weak immune system"; in fact, such mutations generally have no known effects at all other than conferring HIV resistance. Furthermore, resistance of some fraction of the population to specific viruses is a common occurrence.

But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem.

WTF is that supposed to mean? One of the women in question was exposed to HIV from her husband, who was infected through a blood transfusion. It's bad enough that bigoted right wingers confuse stupidity and carelessness (unprotected sex) with immorality, but now people like you even consider accidentally getting a tainted blood transfusion a lifestyle choice and a moral failing?

I think you demonstrate just how absurd your kinds of views are, and the blithering nonsense that preceded it showed how uninformed you are.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Sponge Bath]

Nasty stuff, but curable.

Sounds like the current administration.

Immunity

[wildsurf]

According to my Chinese friend, the immunity comes from eating stinky fermented tofu and thousand-year egg.

I personally plan to remain vulnerable. Alas.

Dubious Science

[JavaRob]

From the article:

In Zhu's opinion, if medicine functioning similarly with the genes was put in the vagina and rectum, the HIV virus couldn't find its carrier to enter the human body and thus would be expelled.

Does this make sense to anyone? Granted, these are the reporter's words, not the doctor's words... but that just doesn't sound logical to me. The virus is there, in contact with this "medicine" and your own cells. Because of the medicine's structure, the virus can't affect it, but how does that help your own cells, which do NOT have that protection?

Frankly, the simple (but often unused/misused) "condom" solution seems easier in this example then the medicine he's talking about.

Much of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is directly caused by people misunderstanding how the virus is transmitted and treated (no, sex with virgins or babies won't help you), due in some cases to the sheer stupidity of certain leaders ("HIV does NOT cause AIDS"), poor education programs, and the equally stupid refusal of certain other religious-minded leaders who refuse to support programs that advocate anything other than celibacy to prevent STDs. Madness.

I hope that at a minimum, China is putting some serious resources into educating their population about how HIV/AIDS works, and how to avoid getting it. Obviously that's not the end of the battle, but it's the basic starting point.

Re:Dubious Science

[mefus]

Because of the medicine's structure, the virus can't affect it, but how does that help your own cells, which do NOT have that protection?

The "medicine" is the unmutated, exposed part of the protein receptor, a recombinant protein, and a delivery mechanism (probably linked to an Immunoglobulin stalk, in an emulsion in suppository form.)

Placed prior to sexual intercourse, the recombinant protein would competitively bind to the HIV surface and render it harmless.

Re:It seems unlikely.

[cyclop]

Hmmm...Is the parent a nice molecular-biology troll or just a gem of ignorance mixed with self-confidence?

"Because there's very little in the virus that is guaranteed to be common to ALL instances of said virus, it is hard to see how immunity could exist, even in theory."

The resistance mutation depends from the absence of a particular chemokine receptor on human white blood cells. In principle, the HIV virus could use another receptor to enter. In practice it's quite improbable the virus can mutate his whole capsid proteins to get advantage of a totally new receptor.

"Then, you have other problems. HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem. If your immune system is damaged, in some way, it may not be able to detect the virus and/or produce antibodies to it. Either way, any technique for detecting HIV through the antibodies would fail."

You obviously have no grasp of immunology. HIV infects primarily subsets of T cells. They are not B cells, that produce soluble antibodies. B cells are not attacked by HIV,therefore you argument is bullshit.
(In fact, B cells are indirectly affected by HIV, but only in late stages of AIDS disease.)

"So much so that they could fight the disease and not even need to generate antibodies to do so."

You have no grasp of immunology,it's obvious now. Your body doesn't "feel the need" for antibodies.It just produces them when encounters an antigen. In fact, you probably already have cells with anti-HIV antibodies: they're just very,very few and are not activated.(Wanna know why? RTFM, i.e. a molecular immunology textbook)

"In theory, since we don't actually know in practice."

We know. Check other /. comments and what I wrote before.

"Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread"

It seems you know nothing about virology and apoptosis too...

"...you're probably not going to live very long anyway, and your quality of life isn't going to be noticably better than those with the disease. In fact, it would probably be a whole lot worse. But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem. "

If these women were immunodeficient, physicians should have noticed it immediately. Such a severe immunodeficience is, like you seem to understand, practically incompatible with life.

resistant, not immune

[jeif1k]

The women are more than likely "resistant" to HIV infection, not "immune" to it. While colloquially, the two terms may mean the same thing, the term "immune" suggests that they can't be infected by HIV because their immune system recognizes and destroys the virus. "Resistance" works by some mechanism other than an immune response.

Tell me it ain't so !

[Taco Cowboy]

You sez:

"... it is linked directly to the ugly gene."

Say it ain't so, buddy.

If the human civilization succumbs to the AIDS epidemic, the NEW human civilization will have those two women as their MOTHERS.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[tarunthegreat2]

You need to correct that even further. A greater NUMBER of people will die in the third-world, but even there, AIDS deaths are a very small PROPORTION of total deaths. People in the third-world are still dying from the "basics" - Hunger, Poverty, Diaorrhea, Cholera, TB, Malaria, e.t.c. Civilisation will end when we acknowledge George Bush as our Anointed God-On-Earth and (Shudder, Shiver) start pasting "What would W do?" on our car bumpers.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[mrchaotica]

There's no reason the entire human race would succumb to the AIDS epidemic, because it's entirely preventable. The only problem is educating people about the danger, and that's mostly solved in developed countries.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[mrchaotica]

I've heard figures that around 1/3 of the total population of some African countries are HIV positive. Granted, a bunch will get picked off by something else before AIDS has a chance to get them, but it's still a significant proportion. Besides, most AIDS-related deaths aren't due to the virus itself, but rather it weakening your immune system enough for something else to get you.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[tarunthegreat2]

You've picked a few African countries, and you're most likely correct about them. But I've used the blanket term Third-World - in response to the post above mine), which includes India and China (that's a minimum of 2 Billion people. AIDS prevalence in this entire group is much, much less than 1%). But starvation/malnutrition, and the other diseases I've mentioned are at least 10%. I think the priorties there are clear. Most western agencies, when talking about India and China always mention figures, but they neve talk about percentages. In India, according to official figures there are meant to 0.5 million people suffering from AIDs, and think it's double that in China, of course, these official figures are usually crap... however, let's assume they're double that number, that still is nothing compared to the number of people dying from other diseases/afflictions.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[AndroidCat]

the NEW human civilization will have those two women as their MOTHERS.

Like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, there is speculation that this has already happened...

"Yuck, me new woman have ugly flat brow and high forehead!"
"Then why you sleep with her?"
"She very inventive."

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[SpamJunkie]

most AIDS-related deaths aren't due to the virus itself, but rather it weakening your immune system enough for something else to get you.

That is in fact how everyone does from AIDS. A weak immune system isn't itself terminal, however, without defenses otherwise weak illnesses are life-threatening.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[once1er]

hmm, most people who have contracted the virus don't actually die "of AIDS" they die of an infection, TB, the common cold. whatever you got. HIV and AIDS just beats up on the system so badly that it can't defend itself against anything else, and you die from the same thing the guy in aisle 3 is taking NyQuil for.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Danny Rathjens]

Third-World [...], which includes India and China

I think it is time to officially retire the term "third world" since hardly anyone has a clue what it means and keeps making up their own definitions. I have to admit that including a communist country with nuclear weapons is the most imaginitive inclusion in the "third world" I've yet to see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world

Isn't it ironic?

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[extensis]

HIV is the virus, AIDS is the symptoms. No you can never directly die from HIV, HIV only infects CD4 positive cells; ie, T-Helper Cells. Unfortunatly T-Helper Cells are nessecary for an active responsive immune system, without it, you quickly succumb to a multitude of usually harmless diseases that can kill, eg herpes... some countries in africa the possibility of contracting HIV during your lifetime is now nearly 100% for teenagers.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Rob Nance]

It's not just the first step, it's half the battle! Go Joe!

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Old Wolf]

You missed the biggest point -- HIV is contagious and incurable. The number of people dying from starvation etc. will stay roughly in proportion to the population, but the HIV base will continue to grow and grow if nothing is done.
There was a time in the past (maybe only 15-20 years ago) when African countries had 1% HIV and N % starvation (for some large value of N), look at them now.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[severoon]

Yea, it's not the bullet that kills you...it's the sudden displacement of brain matter to nonfunctional locations (such as all over the wall). What you are saying makes perfect sense.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Anonymous Writer]

Take the Bubonic Plague, for example. It had the potential to destroy humanity, due to the lack of technology, specifically the knowledge of how it was transmitted.

Coincidentally, there is a correlation between the distribution of this mutant gene in populations and the bubonic plague. It is speculated that its high concentration in Caucasians is a result of it's ability to resist the black death.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Chris Z. Wintrowski]

"There's no reason the entire human race would succumb to the AIDS epidemic, because it's entirely preventable. The only problem is educating people about the danger, and that's mostly solved in developed countries."

So how come HIV infection rates in developed countries are still increasing?

http://www.healthscout.com/news/68/516241/main.htm l
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-02-11-hiv -rates-rising_x.htm
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page /0,5478,10058673%255E1702,00.html
http://www.hivdent.org/publicp/ppIHDS122003.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3856963.stm

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[geekpolitico]

It is easy to say that education will solve the problem, but that doesn't even work in the US. Many people know of the dangers of AIDS and yet still have unprotected sex. It is stupid, but they do it. And this is in a country with relatively high ability to pass the protection/abstinence memes.

In Africa there are massive cultural and practical barriers in place. It is much much harder to transmit this information widely, and there are strong cultural biases against abstinence/protection. The most sickening cultural belief is that having sex with a virgin cures you of AIDS. This is especially bad because between the long standing beliefs and the fact that people are sexually active younger there, the only virgins are very young children or babies. It's fairly horrifying.

It will take a lot of time, effort and money to bring the AIDS crisis under control in Africa. President Bush was wise (for once) to commit billions to fighting the problem there. He was also wise to recommend that the program have an abstinence element to it. The Uganda program that contained an abstinence element was unusually successful in fighting AIDS in that country. I only wish he had lived up to his commitment by actually funding it at the level he promised.

My parents spent the last 3 years living in Lesotho (the country inside of S. Africa), so they've spent a lot of time discussing this with the local Peace Corps volunteers. It is fairly discouraging, but very important that we do something about it.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[SeanDuggan]

Similar to how sickle-cell anemia is more prevalent in black people. The reason? Having partial sickle-cell anemia makes you nearly immune to malaria.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Jason Hood]

some countries in africa the possibility of contracting HIV during your lifetime is now nearly 100% for teenagers.


Whats sad is this is a preventable disease. There is so much misinformation going around in africa about the disease that know one knows how to easy it is to prevent it. The most disturbing being if you have sex with a virgin, you will be cured of HIV. Thousands of young girls each year are raped on that information alone.

There is a distinct difference between preventable diseases and curable diseases. In my opnion we should put more focus on preventing the disease than we do now. Its similar to how the US and other countries are now launching large scale infomercials on smoking. A cure to cancer and HIV would be wonderful one day but we can do something right now to prevent people from exposing themselves to both.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Godai]

Actually, AIDS is a far bigger problem than you give it credit for namely because it FEEDS the problems you think of bigger.

My father is the chairman of the Canadian branch larger organization that deals with children worldwide. As part of that mandate they have come to view AIDS as perhaps THE greatest problem that they have to deal with.

Basically, AIDS creates widows and orphans. And widows & orphans cause more poverty & more starvation. Not just because THEY are starving or poor, but because it robs their country of productive people and potentially productive people. You really see this in the schools. In countries like Tanzania & Zambia, they're losing teachers to AIDS faster than they can train them! Obviously this translates into less educated people, and that ultimately translates into fewer teachers (among many other things). And the cycle continues.

My father's been to many countries over there to see the problem first hand. In some places, it IS getting better. But very, very, slowly. Other places it's just getter worse every day.

I had the opportunity to go over in May 2004 and I spent 10 days in Zambia & Tanzania (the latter is making better headway). I can say that the problem is as bad as my father & his organization think, and it's far worse than most people in the West have any clue about. It's easy to talk about numbers, but it's a lot harder to put a value on the social and personal costs...and those are enormous.

Worst though, it was goddamn frustrating. My overreaching emotion throughout the trip was anger. Because by and large the people in those countries were getting better! All those old clichés about how poor and hungry the African countries may have been true, but they were starting to get out from under that; you could see it. But then AIDS kicked them right in the teeth and it's like watching someone who'd started to crawl out of quicksand start to slide back. It's disheartening.

AIDS has probably set the continent back 15 years. And that'll probably get worse. In Zambia, I think there are 10 MILLION orphans. 10 million!!! That's a goddamn 1/3 of the population of Canada!

And, of course, even if scientists manage to isolate a gene that prevents the infection, and bottle it, and distribute it, Africa will be the last place on earth that gets it. Because they're in debt already and have little money anyways. Hell, it costs US$3 for a pill that reduces the chances that a baby born from a mother with HIV will also have HIV to less than 10%...and most of the people there can't afford it. Or worse, can but don't know about it because the people there who have them can't afford to educate the people about it. And so it spreads :(

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[jdclucidly]

I'm so angry about your short rant that I could spit. (And shame on you moderators.) But instead of throwing a fit, I'm going to spell it out for you very clearly starting with the most aggrecious of your claims:

I know that stopping the transmission works. HIV patients need quarrantined (home bound etc) for their own protection from secondary diseases. Even treating them in the Hospital is a threat to their safety. They will not spread HIV and we don't need to treat them for the horrid illnesses they get when their failed immune systems contact the general world about them. Suggesting otherwise is to deny them the general protection of reverse isolation quarrantine that we do for other immuno compromised patients such as chemo therapy and transplant patients.

Having been HIV+ for three years, and expecting to be so for the rest of my (possibly short) life, as I'm sure and expert like you is so aware, HIV and AIDS are two medical conditions. I expect to be free from the symptoms of AIDS for at least another ten years. Your comments here expose a profound misunderstanding of how HIV works, immuno reponse works, and the variety of drugs that can keep HIV/AIDS folks out of the red zone for a very long time. Indeed is was true 20 years ago that HIV meant extreme immuno vulnerablility but that is no longer the case.

And for being an expert, somewhere along the way you, apparently, missed the class on medical ethics in which you would have learned that the central edict of medicine is increasing the quality of life for its recipients.

I don't know what kind of Nazi fantasy world you live in but there is no way in hell you are going to put me under house arrest 'for my protection' so that you feel safer when you don't know where your children are or who they are doing. The very notion that we can social engineer sexual exposure out of our society is nieve at best and disturbed at worst.

If I were to suggest that playing in the sewer was lots of fun and simply tell the kids that putting on rubber boots created "safe sewer play" equipment you would find me a dispicable person when I lead a booted class of kids into the sewers to play. There are activities and behaviors that are inherently dangerous and destructive. Making counter argument does not change the facts that these are dangerous.

It sounds like you've been reading so Christian-right pro-abstainance bullshit. Your analogy fails in two ways:

1. People aren't compelled by their very nature to go play in the sewer. As you may recall (if you can see through the hazy of your ideolgoy), as a young boy you were compelled automatically to desire sex.
2. Boots do not sheath the vulnerable parts of your body (mouth and nose) from the air born bacteria in a sewer. Condoms sheath the vunerable parts of your body (penis, vagina, rectum) from the fluid born viri with which people are be concerned. To suggest otherwise does a disservice to those who engage in sexual activity because their will is weak and who would choose not to use protection because of your lies.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[andybee]

Why do people always pull out the Nazi card?

In any case, it is a given fact that HIV could be wiped from the face of the earth in one generation. The real question is, would you still engage in sex with the person if you knew they were HIV+? Condoms may lower the rate of transmission, but it's not a magic sheath that will offer infallible protection. It's like skydiving without a reserve parachute...you'll probably be safe...but it only takes one thing to go wrong and it's all over.

My 2 cents.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[darkmeridian]

This post will sound like flamebait, but it isn't. Just consider it carefully. I am not a religious person at all, so this isn't some scary Christian-right crap you claim.

Most HIV infection cases come from preventable activity, such as unprotected sex or drug use without sterilized needles. Rare are those who are infected through a accidental needlestick or blood transfusion. We have to get people to get condoms before they have sex. Because you are right in assuming that most people want sex. We have to accomodate nature, but this can be done through safer sex.

Furthermore, most infected people with HIV do not know that they are infected for a while. The initial symptoms are flu-like. Then nothing happens, basically, until they come down with AIDS, which is a catch-all term meaning when symptoms present, such as secondary infections, etc.

In the meantime, they are continuing those activities that got them infected, such as drug use, unprotected sex, etc. These are all preventable infections, as you admit. They could wear condoms, they could bleach their needles. There is a moral dimension that seems to interject itself here, but ignore that and look at the essential fact: most infected people were doing risky things and they will continue doing it. Does this mean they deserve it? No. Does it mean they are not stricken with a contagious, deadly plague? No.

What are we going to do? Medicine can only treat HIV, not cure it. The majority of the infected will eventually die of AIDS, not with AIDS. Society should not hold its breath waiting for a cure for the disease. It has to be socially removed from circulation.

Why shouldn't we isolate those with HIV infections? Again, this sounds like flamebait, but think about it. We isolated lepers and smallpox and polio victims because we had to save lives. We had to sacrifice the ill to save the healthy. Political correctness did not matter in face of this crucial need to save the lives of the young. Remember what we did for SARS and West Nile and the hantavirus, in terms of isolation in the United States. Consider that HIV/AIDS is essentially a hundred percent lethal.

However, HIV/AIDS has been seen as a "gay" illness that causes it to be treated differently from other deadly plagues. There is nothing further from the truth; it is a human problem that cuts across all facets, gay and straight, black and white, men and women. It kills. It spreads. Period. It should be treated as such. Testing should be mandatory and then we should isolate the infected.

Is this cruel? Of course. Is it inhuman? I would say so. But the politically correct alternative is to allow those with HIV/AIDS to keep spreading it and kill more people. Because they will not stop. Most do not know they are infected. They got infected not because they were terrible people, but they got infected because they were doing risky things. They are likely to continue these acts. They have to be stopped. That this somewhat aligns itself with religious thoughts on morality is an unfortunate intersection. On a purely utilitarian scale, a strong argument can be made to isolate the sick.

Is this a "Nazi-fantasy world"? No. In a fantasy world, we would not get sick. But we do not live there. We live on this place called Earth where innocents die. Sacrifices have to be made. So while we can promote social change, people will never do what is necessary to truly remove AIDS from society.

Re:Conspiracy theory

[Alomex]

You are indeed correct. In fact I've been able to replicate the chemical compound in my basement wet lab, but lack the funds for commercialization. Please send a check to my Nigerian account so I can continue with my research.

Unless you happen to be...

[Nick Driver]

Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...

Unless you happen to be Catholic :-)

Re:It seems unlikely.

[Chucklz]

Umm no. Grab an Immunology text and get busy. HIV begins by infecting CCR5+ CXCR4+ CD4+ T cells. B cells are the cells that produce antibodies, not T cells. Early in infection T-h cells are capable of activating B cells, with a corresponding increase of cytokine production (partially responsible for the early "flu" symptoms associated with infection). Early in infection there is a sharp increase in circulating IgG and IgA, so an ELISA/Western blot test for circulating antibodies is certainly justified. How would a body fight HIV. Well even late infection, CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes are still present, albeit in an impaired state due to an impaired generative ability. So, your body can still kill HIV infected cells. This does not even take into account the role of the complement pathway, which will be active at least through mid stage infection, and late stage in some patients. The immune system collapse is due to a loss of Th cells, which are required to modulate the B cell response, and of course Th cytokines are absolutely essential for the functioning of the rest of the immune system. Without these cells, the immune system doesn't do much, let alone fight itself. Where are all the deaths from anaphylaxis, and other hyper immune responses? The way that people are immune to HIV involves HIV entry into Th cells. Individuals with either a modified CCR5 or CXCR4 surface molecule do not support normal HIV entry into T cells. So, no entry, no infection. For your apoptosis suggestion, first learn exactly what apoptosis involves, and how viral replication works. If a cell goes apoptotic with even a few assembled viruses in its cytosol, they will spread. You must have a pathetically weak knowledge of the iummune system (or none at all).

Re:It seems unlikely.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's so much wrong with this post, it's hard to know where to begin.

HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem.

Screening for HIV is typically a cheap, fast antibody-based test. However, any positive is then confirmed via much more specific tests.

The only way to be immune, then ... you must have a pathetically weak immune system (or none at all)

WTF do you think HIV does? What does the I in AIDS stand for? HIV doesn't kill people; opportunistic infections kill people whose immune systems are compromised by HIV.

This is like calling a pair of cement shoes in a swimming pool of cyanide "protective" against cyanide poisoning because it'll only take a couple minutes to drown.

Our immune system is actually quite effective at fighting HIV. That's why the symptoms associated with seroconversion last only a few days, and then people end up living a number of years before finally being overwhelmed.

Suggesting that starting off with an immunodeficiency is somehow better than waiting for HIV to give you one is, I think, the most ridiculous bit of interesting/insightfully-moderated random Slashdot speculation I've read in at least 45 minutes.

But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem.

Nice.

CCR5delta32 is probably the mutant gene

[Linuxathome]

The "mutant" gene referred by the article most likely is the CCR5delta32 deletion allele of CCR5. I agree, this is not news. Many of the points made in the article were vague and the discovery itself is nothing novel -- even if they determined the frequency of this allele in the Chinese, this is not a new finding. In Steve O'Brien's Science paper, the frequency of CCR5delta32 in Caucasions is 0.1 (2.8% of exposed uninfected patients were deletion homozygotes). I remember another population study among Koreans to try to determine CCR5delta32's frequency in that population.

Even the statement about putting the "gene" in the vagina or rectum is not new: see microbicides.

Just a word to the wise, news like this will rarely, if ever, scoop a scientific publication in Science or Nature. If the discoveries truly have any scientific merit whatsoever, you'll more likely read about it in these journals or the media commotion stirred by these publications. In other words, unless somewhere in the article is says "results of these studies published in the journal [place name of journal here]," the results have not been peer reviewed. Therefore, "there's nothing to see here, move on."

Come to Asia and taste it, buddy !

[Taco Cowboy]

You sez:

"culturally Asians seem to be a lot less
promiscuous, which would imply that this
disaster doesn't seem so imminent"

This is so only to show others.

Asian culture is at its best in the sex scene.

On one hand, they will pretend that they are not sexually promiscuous, and on the other hand, the vast majority of Child Prostitution in the world happen throughout Asian countries. You can find child prostitutes in Indonesia, China, India, Kampuchia (formerly known as Cambodia), Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia and so on.

If you are willing to pay, you can even participate in the "deflowering" act, where you'd get a virgin child - male or female - for his / her first night.

What you do to them, as long as you don't kill them, is entirely up to you.

Re:Come to Asia and taste it, buddy !

[jb.hl.com]

You seem to know slightly too much on the subject there.

Re:Come to Asia and taste it, buddy !

[WIAKywbfatw]

You can find child prostitutes in any country in the world, including the US, UK, France, Germany, Austrailia, etc. It's not a problem that's unique to Asia, so don't try to paint it that way, please.

Natural Selection at Work - Darwin would be happy

[DJ Zany]

Surely this is just the process of natural selection. Cast aside the concept of gene manipulation and mass media to inform people of the risks of HIV, and you would end up with some of the population immune and living, and the rest dead. Therefore the human race would have evolved to be immune to HIV. So back to genes and media, have we evolved so far that we are further helping evolution, or are putting it at risk by stopping natural selection?

Just like Password

[dr_dank]

Gohnorrea...
Herpes....
Chlamydia....
Syphillis ....
Genital Warts...
HPV....
Hepatitus...
Trichomoniasis...


I know! Things the average Slashdotter won't ever have to worry about.

ding ding ding

Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Well just so you understand, Africans are not simply running around having sex with everyone they see and contracting AIDS. A number of factors including a poor medical system, infected medicinal needles, and contaminated blood have also played a role in many of the infection cases. Exactly, how big of a role is debatable, but I have seen some estimates from studies conducted here in the US that concluded that as much as 60% of the current number of AIDS cases in Africa can be attributed to those factors. If the Middle Eastern and Asian countries do not mitigate those same factors, an epidemic would occur regardless of perceived promiscuity.

Re:Eat it, creationist fuckwads

[Bull999999]

A random mutation grants a survival advantage, just like evolutionary theory predicts.

Doesn't that also cause cancer?

Re:Lucky ladies!

[IrnWrk]

so, like are they dating?

No such thing as race in science

[Magickcat]

It's interesting that the mutation has been found in the Asian population, but I'm concerned that the article places an emphasis on ideas of race, which has been an obsolete scientific term since genetic research in the 1940s and 50s.

Race and the idea of race have are not medical ideas. The reason why so many Europeans (not merely Caucasians) have one or two copies of the mutant gene is because of the bottle neck of the black plague throughout Europe. It afforded them some or cmplete resistance to it. It is entirely possible that the Chinese people found to have the gene may have these ancestors themselves. As Chinese "asians" are just as much a mix of people from different places as "caucasians".

There is no scientific basis for ideas of race whatsoever - we are all homo sapiens.

Of all the genes in human being, about 75 per cent are identical in every person; only 25 per cent vary from person to person. And of that variable amount, 85 per cent of the difference would be present even if the two people were fairly closely related; that is, an ethnic subgroup, like Norwegians. Another 9 per cent of the genetic variation will result from individuals being members of separate nations or tribes within a "race"--a Spaniard and an Italian, for example. And only about 6 per cent is the result of the two people being from what we call separate races. Any person's race accounts for only about 0.24 per cent (or 6 per cent of 25 per cent) of his genetic make-up.
Info taken from here.

they're not the first

[asdren]

I saw a show on PBS that discussed the Plague and how some medievals didn't die when infected. It then went to discuss a gay man who was HIV resistant. the guy must've felt like a highlander - all his friends kept dying off and he expected to die off also but though infected with HIV it never

Interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have their contact info?

Re:immunity? someone should research slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

More like: "if it's got boobs, it will turn and run away"

Patents are the real key

[fsterman]

The key is the fact the Gene patens have blocked research into it. Every time a lab does something with the caucasian mutation this lab send out a cease and desist. They guy who they found it on originally is opposed to it, but he has no say, even if it is his body. Another thing software and genes have in common, neither should have patents.

Re:Patents are the real key

[jimicus]

Every time a lab does something with the caucasian mutation this lab send out a cease and desist.

Cite?

(Yes, I know not believing everything you read is genereally bad for the karma. So mod me down).

Re:Patents are the real key

[bloosqr]

Cite?

(Yes, I know not believing everything you read is genereally bad for the karma. So mod me down).

The wonders of google:

CCR5 Mutant Gene Sequence Patented for AIDS diagnoses :: Patent 6,692,938 "

Actually this one is more appropriate: Here is another article on a general CCR5 Gene Patent from Human Genome Sciences. This article goes quite in depth w/ regards the consequence of the patent filing on drug research w/ CCR5 inhibitors.

-bloo

Re:Patents are the real key

[jimicus]

Wonderful, wonderful. So now only one company in most of the developed world can research this promising avenue, rather than pooling the resources of charities, drugs companies and other researchers worldwide?

The human race is going to be the first race in history to litigate itself into oblivion.

Re:It seems unlikely.

[spectecjr]

HIV mutates faster than virtually any other virus. Indeed, early vaccine attempts were foiled by the ability of the virus to "reactivate" itself, after being disabled. Because there's very little in the virus that is guaranteed to be common to ALL instances of said virus, it is hard to see how immunity could exist, even in theory.


Other primates are already immune to HIV - Chimps, it seems, caught it a long time ago. It decimated their population - but some had the immunity. All chimps today are immune to it.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...

You know this is slashdot when a post like this is marked "Informative."

Back at ya, monkey's uncle.

[uberdave]

Creationists have no problem with evolution on this level. What they have a problem with is that evolution can account for the development of different species, or that it somehow allows a puddle of goo somewhere in France to became human.

Re:Back at ya, monkey's uncle.

[Scarblac]

Creationists have no problem with evolution on this level. What they have a problem with is that evolution can account for the development of different species, or that it somehow allows a puddle of goo somewhere in France to became human.

It is perfectly reasonable to be critical about that sort of thing, even though it's often more a statement about the ignorance about biology of those Creationists than about deficiencies of the theory, and well, everything isn't completely explained yet, that is of course true.

What's ridiculous though, is that those Creationists then suddenly claim that some "God" created all of this, a theory for which the evidence is completely absent and therefore the gaps are infinitely larger... At least Evolution tries to actually explain things and thus be a scientific theory at all.

Re:Conspiracy theory

[suwain_2]

This absolutely could be the case. And yet I'm sure it isn't.

Businesses will do anything to make a buck. Companies routinely overlook blatant safety hazards that put their customers' lives on the line.

But I think if someone had cured AIDS, they'd go forth with it, if nothing else so they could claim they cured AIDS. I think if a big pharmaceutical came out tomorrow with a (credible) claim at having cured AIDS, their stock would go through the roof.

Stupid Question

[suwain_2]

I'm not well-versed on HIV or AIDS. But I have a simple, stupid question.

To fight off the flu, you essentially give someone the flu, you just only give them a small amount. (And it's usually "dead," so that it can't infect them.) The body 'learns' to defend against it, so that if the 'full strength' flu hits, you can prevent it. This is a basic fact of how most preventative immunizations work.

Why doesn't this work for HIV/AIDS? Wouldn't someone receiving a tiny bit of the AIDS virus become immune to AIDS? I'm assuming that someone much smarter than myself has attempted this, and that it doesn't work. I'm just curious as to why. (And, as I said, I don't pretend to know much about HIV, AIDS, or medicine in general.)

Re:Stupid Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Answering anon because I modded someone, but here's the gist of it:

Immunizations against HIV aren't effective for a couple reasons: First, the virus mutates so quickly that what you're immunized against might not protect you from infection. Second, the virus itself kills off the white blood cells that would be activated by the immunization, making it basically pointless.

Re:Stupid Question

[xutopia]

Disclaimer: IANAD (I am not a doctor).

AIDS means: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and we say someone has AIDS if they have acquired the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This virus works by attacking your immune system's foundation: white blood cells. In seronegative people (people without HIV) white blood cells take care of killing off any "exotic cells" that can get you sick. White blood cells work by recognising a cell's signature (a mixture of protein and/or enzymes) but the AIDS virus has a stealth system (a protein or enzyme) which fakes a signature similar to one common in other cells found in your body. To add insult to injury the white blood cells are what the AIDS virus uses to reproduce. It enters a white blood cell and uses it as food and shelter until it can divide a few times and burst out in bigger numbers. Scary isn't it?

It's a real challenge for doctors around the world and they're trying all kinds of angles. Many have tried to change the protein shell of the aids virus, making the white blood cells more "intelligent" and all kinds of other things. So far AIDS is winning. Use condoms or be in a faithful relationship with a seronegative person(someone without AIDS), or if you believe in that you can always abstain.

RTFA

[fluxrad]

This gene has been known of for quite some time. What is odd is that it was previously thought that only (primarily) caucasians had the mutant gene.

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Writer]

Here is a theory why. The CCR5-Delta32 mutation has the highest concentration in Ashkenazi Jews and Nordic people, and developed a high concentration in Caucasians because it provided resistance to the black plague.

Re:RTFA

[alexo]

> Ashke-Nazi Jews? So, what the heck is that?

Could be a troll but I'll bite anyway.

Re:Plague Survivors

[Hooya]

in response to the grandparent post:

it's not that there aren't any delta32 posessors in asia or africa. there are. just that in europe, those that didn't have it were wiped out during the plague. so the concentration of delta32 in europe is much much higher since present day europeans were decendents of delta32 carriers. and anyone that didn't have delta32 didn't stick around to pass on there non-mutated gene.

in asia and africa, you didn't have to survive the plague (since there hasn't been one like in europe) to be able to pass your genes. hence the very low concentration of delta32.

to the parent post:
as far as i can remember, delta32 prevents the virii from latching onto the white blood cell. i believe the virus has to hijack WBC to launch attack against other WBCs rendering the defence machanisms useless.

interestingly, plague infection and AIDS infection work with the same mechanism (the virus puncturing a WBC and then hijacking it) and delta32 prevents the puncturing. so decendents of those who survived the plague have a high chance of having delta32 which would then give them immunity from AIDS. which then explains the AIDS epedimic in africa and asia since the inhabitants were not necessarily decendents of people that had to have delta32 to survive to pass on their genes.

Re:God and science

[qeveren]

HIV's primary vector is blood-to-blood contact. I think it's just slightly more likely that someone became infected by butchering an SIV infected primate for food and getting blood contact, rather than the more sensational concept of interspecies sex. Of course, people always prefer the more lurid and shocking possibilities over more mundane (and likely) causes.

But HPV is more prevalent than GW are

[MarcQuadra]

And virtually everyone has one form of HPV or another.

Last I heard, there were over 90 strains, and several are common on even non sexually-active folks.

HPV transmits through skin contact, so rubbers won't prevent it. But the VAST majority of the time it does NOTHING, no warts, no cancers, NOTHING. Certain combinations of strains seem to cause the warts, and that's far less common than having no symptoms at all.

Overall, I think there's a LOT of fear mongering about STDs. The problem is really much more prevalent amongst the poor and uneducated. If you pick your partners right, and 'look before you leap' you have pretty good chances of coming out OK. It's good to get your partner to prove no infection before you hit it raw though, and you should go 'get swabbed' every year or so.

Also remember, there are less than 100,000 women with HIV in the United States. Your chances of sleeping with an HIV-infected female pickup in the USA is about 1 in 1500. Your chances of CONTRACTING HIV from that would be under 1 in 30,000. For non-junkie heterosexual men seeking women in the USA, your chance of being infected with HIV is almost nothing. Worry about the nasty STDs instead.

There are asian sluts out there, believe me.

[Scrameustache]

from my experience, culturally Asians seem to be a lot less promiscuous

Being turned down by asian chicks doesn't mean asian cultures are less promiscuous ;-)

Re:Lucky ladies!

[dustinbarbour]

Why is it that politics MUST make its way into every single article on this site? Talk about annoying..

Re:It seems unlikely.

[spectecjr]

Read this and learn:

Origin of HIV

Genome sequencing of different isolates of HIV-1 and HIV-2 shows that each is related to retroviruses that occur in primates in Africa. These are designated simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV) although they do not cause immune deficiency (or any disease) in their natural host. However, on those occasions when a SIV accidentally infects a primate of a different species, it does cause disease in the new host. The human epidemic is one example.
HIV-1 is most closely related to a SIV found in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes)
HIV-2 is most closely related to a SIV that occurs in the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys).
Genome analysis also permits the construction of phylogenetic trees which reveal different clades of HIV just as such analysis reveals evolutionary relationship between species.

(emphasis mine)

um, no

[autopr0n]

China and India are in the "developing" world, not the 3rd world, get it straight.

Re:um, no

[bluFox]

Third world was the non-aligned world,
perhaps a misnomer today since the second world [Communist world aligned against the US-Led block] is no more [except china N-Corea etc.]

Re:um, no

[pjt33]

India's third world: China's second world.

Re:um, no

[metlin]

The original poster was right, you are wrong.

As bluFox pointed out, 3d world refers to Non-Aligned nations.

See Wikipedia's definition.

'Third world is a term originally used to distinguish those nations that neither aligned with the capitalist West, the "First world", nor with the Socialist East, the "Second world".'

Third world has nothing to do with development, it refers to whether you were with the Capitalistic (US) or Communistic (USSR) blocks.

Man, Slashdot. Sheesh.

Misinformative

[DietFluffy]

Why is this modded Informative? The parent is implying that these 2 women developed a mutation that made them immune to the HIV virus. This is a total misconception of how evolution works. This is not a comic book people, Evolution works as trends within species. The mutation described in the article is clearly a coincidental mutation that came about much earlier, not one that evolved due to the current 25-year-old aids epidemic.

It may not be relative

[PCM2]

Actually, I once saw a show on PBS where some scientists did a clever test. They took a whole bunch of photographs of people's faces and morphed them together, to create a picture of a composite human face. Most people who saw the face and were asked whether it was an attractive person agreed that it was.

The idea here is that what the scientists did was create a completely average face -- that is, mathematically average. Faces with big noses, or big chins, or buggy eyes, were cancelled out by the majority of faces that didn't share those features. In the end, what you got was a face every feature of which was the "norm" for the human race at large.

So the conclusion you could draw from this study is that the people we find the most attractive are the ones with the least apparent variation. A particularly exaggerated feature on a face might be viewed as a sign that some radical genetic divergence has taken place in that person's development -- and we don't care much for that, as a species. While diversity might be good for evolution, we like the norm (and this has nothing to do with skin color or the facial features of any particular ethnicity; so far as I know the scientists used a whole cross-section of people).

So if this theory is true, then no, human standards of beauty are not actually as relative as romantics might assume.

Re:It may not be relative

[Anonymous Writer]

Actually, I once saw a show on PBS where some scientists did a clever test.

You may be referring to Dr. Stephen Marquardt who found that faces considered to be beautiful conform to certain proportions. It is based on the Golden Ratio, which has many recurrances in nature, such as in the chambers of a nautilus shell.

Re:It may not be relative

[glyph42]

All this study proved is that the "average" face is attractive. It did NOT prove that the "average" face is the MOST attractive, which has also been tested and found to be false. The "average" face is high on the beauty scale, but it is not at the top.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Myuu]

You have to get like extra karma for comparing the Bush administration to Trichomoniasis.

CCR5 Delta 32 - same immunity for Black Plague

[Ex-MislTech]

Some ppl were found to be alive and well in towns that were
completely wiped out by the black plague, they did some gene
research and linked it to the specific marker CCR5 Delta 32,
and those ppl that had the marker from both lines of their
parents were immune, and if just one were resisitant and had a
chance of living through the black plague but contracting it .

The ppl that had both markers from both parents were immune .

They found this same gene mutations has the same effect with
AIDs as it blocks the uptake process needed to do its terrible
process .

Peace,
Ex-MislTech

Not totally new

[pk2000]

AIDS resistance has also been found in family trees that survived Black Death some 600 years ago.

http://www.geocities.com/endeavour_uksa/article.ht ml
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is _n6_v18/ai_19447788/pg_2

Strange idea that HIV virus doesn't cause death

[waterbear]

most AIDS-related deaths aren't due to the virus itself, but rather it weakening your immune system enough for something else to get you.

That is in fact how everyone does from AIDS. A weak immune system isn't itself terminal, however, without defenses otherwise weak illnesses are life-threatening.

IMO it's a very weird idea of causation that wants to say the main factor leading to death (the virus) is not a cause, just because there had to be a second contributory factor there as well.

As noted in the immediate parent post, the HIV virus breaks its sufferers so badly, that they die from something normally minor, that others just bounce off. Saying these deaths 'aren't due' to the virus is like saying that the spark didn't cause that forest fire, because, see, there was all that oxygen around, and that's what caused the fire, wouldn't have happened without it y'know!

-wb-

Doesn't mean much in itself

[DrXym]

Many races have a built immunity to malaria too thanks to a genetic mutation. Which is all fine and good until you consider the mutation also causes sickle cell anaemia.

In other other words the mutation might stop you dying in childhood from malaria, only to see an increased chance that you die painfully in adulthood. The mutation is only semi-recessive so even if you get it from one parent you will exhibit some symptoms. If you're really unfortunate however, both parents will pass on the mutation to you in which case you're really screwed.

From the DNA's perspective the mutation is still successful since it means a greater chance of reproducing (over the more malaria prone normal gene pool). But it it's not so great for the individual whose natural defence against malaria could see them die painfully and prematurely in either case.

So the fact that there is a gene that grants increased immunity to HIV is meaningless unless it has no other sideeffects. If these women consequently die of breast cancer or something else as a result of it, it could hardly be said to be a 'miracle cure'.

Did anyone catch this facist quote?

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is a direct, unedited, yes I RTFA quote:

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races,"said Zhu. "

So 'before', when white-people, like myself, had this gene and it was identified and being considered, it wasn't REALLY studied that hard. But now that a Chinese person has it, they're going to study it?

Nice.

If you substitute the word Caucasion for blacks or hispanics, there would be cries of racism from any other ethnic group:

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Blacks."

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Hispanics."

Long Live ANON

This is not a major story.

[Futurepower(R)]

This is not a major story. It is just meant to be a local story. For example, see this 2002 story: Secrets of Aids 'immunity'. Here is a quote, "Scientists have known since the mid-1980s that some people with HIV do not go on to develop Aids."

--
Bush borrows money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion. When Saudis attack, invade Iraq?

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Reene]

To be picky for a moment..

Syphilis can be fatal and often was (eventually) before treatments for it were developed. If it isn't caught in its first stage it is no longer completely curable and will slowly progress to the brain, the tissue of which it gradually destroys over time.

You basically get to lose your mind (literally and figuratively) before you die. It's not a good way to go.

Then again, ever since being unknowingly exposed to (seriously) almost every single STD on that list including HIV due to a cheating spouse (who knew the other woman was infected) I've got very little pity for the people who go around fucking whomever despite knowing the risks.

Vectors of disease that knowingly spread these diseases (this goes double for ones like HIV) deserve to be shot. But maybe I'm a little too biased to be speaking on the matter, and now I've strayed off-topic...

FightAIDS@Home

[Anonymous Writer]

Perhaps this would be a good place to mention FightAIDS@Home, which is a distributed computing project like SETI@Home. It is used for research into newer drugs to keep up with the mutability of the HIV virus, which has been termed computational co-evolution. It only runs on Windows so far. OS X and Linux versions are supposedly in the works, but they've been taking ages.

Identical twins can be different sexualities

[Colin Smith]

Sexuality appears to be as much to do with the parenting environment as genetic or environment within the womb where both twins are subjected to the same genes and environment. It's a common misconception that identical twins are brought up in an identical manner.

Where identical twins have been brought up under completely different conditions and one is gay, there is only a 50% correlation with the sexuality of the other twin. This suggests that the environment plays a significant role in the development of sexuality, though the genes or conditions within the womb also play a role.

Basically, it's not simply one thing.

not just science

[cascadingstylesheet]

There is no scientific basis for ideas of race whatsoever - we are all homo sapiens.

Nor any basis in Christianity (note the "one blood" part):

http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language= english&version=KJV&passage=acts+17%3A26&x=0&y =0

The War is Coming

[Master Ben]

This is how it begins. A few small subtle changes here and there. Now one of those changes has given some people the unfair advantage over the rest of us. We NEED to stop this mutant problem before it becomes a crisis. I say we eliminate these women before more of them start coming out and taking over.

Who's With Me?

Questionning the AIDS hypothesis

[joshv]

I don't really know what it means to be 'immune' to HIV, but I can tell you there are a large number of highly qualified scientists out there who either question the very existance of the HIV virus or whether or not HIV is capable of causing AIDS. These are not your normal run of the mill Internet whack-jobs with a pet conspiracy theory. A good place to start is http://www.aliveandwell.org/, click the "Rethinking AIDS" link.

This site was founded by Christine Maggiore, a married, heterosexual white women (not the normal risk group), who has tested positive for the 'HIV' virus in 1992. At first she became an AIDS activist, but as she delved deeper into AIDS/HIV research she began to question everything she though she knew about the virus and the disease, and wrote a book about her findings. She calls into question the accuracy of the HIV test, the assumption that HIV causes AIDS, and the efficacy/safety of anti-retroviral drugs.

Today, over 12 years after her diagnosis, she takes no anti-retroviral drugs, and is in perfect health. She has had two healthy children since her diagnosis, and refuses to test or treat either of them for HIV. She actively campaigns for mother's rights to refuse the HIV test and AIDS drug treatments for themselves and their children.

Don't just assume that the mainstream scientific beliefs about HIV and AIDS are correct. Do some research on your own. Google 'AIDS dissidents' and 'Rethinking AIDS'. There is a lot out there. Judge for yourself.

AIDS, Africa, & Aid

[TFGeditor]

Please do not label this FLAMEBAIT, because that is not the intent.

Decades ago, the native African population existed in a state of equilibrium with nature. Part of that equilibrium entailed each woman (polygamy was--and actually is--common) birthing up to 9 infants in order to ensure at least one surviving to adulthood.

Then comes the Western do-gooder, apalled at the poverty, infant mortality, disease, non-existent medical care, and food shortage. Aid from Western countries poured in. Now the indigenous population had means to thrive and grow. Problem was (and is), women continued to birth up to 9 infants--but most if not all survived. The population exploded then spiked--then came another form of AID, nature's way of restoring equilibrium in an environment taxed beyond carrying capacity.

The spread of AIDs will never stop in backward African countries so long as the population remains ignorant. Promotion of condom use? "Don't you know the mzungu (white man) puts the AIDs in the condoms?" Abstinence? What a joke.

The only "cure" for AIDs (for now, at leaset) is education. Problem is, the educatee must want to be educated. It is hard to battle against several millenia of tradition and superstition.

plaugue theory questionable

[vrakj]

The black plague theory about Delta 32 is questionable. Two published studies (one by me, in fact) have shown that it is not very plausible that the bubonic plague caused enough natural selection to have produced the modern day frequencies of the Delta 32 mutation in Europe. However, it is nearly certain that something did exert strong natural selection on Delta 32 in order for it to be at its current frequency. The leading contender would be some infectious disease (e.g. smallpox), but probably not plague.

Re:Tell me it ain't so ! "... bush was wise..."???

[geekpolitico]

Ok, for the record, I am about as big a separation of church and stater as there is on Earth. I have been referred to as an "anti-theist" instead of a mere "atheist".

While there is no doubt that GWB is religiously biased in favor of abstinence only crap, that doesn't mean that abstinence hasn't helped in other countries.

I refer you to:

This story about Uganda and abstinence

This Kristof article

It does mention that 1/3 of the money committed goes to abstinence programs, which may be too much as a percentage, but a) these programs have a history of working in conjuction with other programs, and b) in a dire situation like this, it's better to have $3 billion that is as effective as $2 billion than just spending $1 billion.

Bush is a disagreeable ideologue, and he is overcommitted to many crap ideas, but that doesn't immediately discount funding for abstinence AIDS programs.

Also, I believe, although I can't point to something that immediately backs it up, that they have trouble getting people to regularly take the AIDS cocktail when it is offered. I truly wish that the West would get off it's ass and force drug companies to license/produce generic AIDS drugs for distribution in Africa, but it is unlikely to happen, and even so, there are still major cultural barriers to overcome.

The problem is that we view the health problems of Africa through Western eyes. With so many people dying young from a variety of illnesses, we can afford to allow them to do things that we find disagreeable to protect themselves. For instance, allowing/selling them DDT for their homes to prevent malarial mosquitos from infecting them.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[sexylicious]

Herpes isn't curable. It's treatable, but not curable.

And as another poster pointed out, syphillis can kill. And it's not a particularly fun way to go.

Re:That's not proof

[TheLink]

AC: "The reason is that race, to a biologist, is defined in terms of whether members of the race can and (to a lesser extent) do choose to breed.

So, all dogs are the same species. As you say, different breeds of dog have different characteristics. But those characteristics don't stop breeding, so they don't make two breeds racially different - even though they do make them phenotypically distinct. The proof that the "0.24%" is insignificant is that this difference doesn't cause biologically separate populations."

You are mostly wrong. Biologists define _species_ that way ( mate + produce viable offspring). But who defines race by ability/inability to interbreed? It's obvious to anyone that the races can and do interbreed and produce viable offspring.

"Race" is closer to "breed". Human races are a product of probably more haphazard breeding, so the breed characteristics are not as distinct as they are in dog breeds, but there ARE characteristics.