HIV Vaccine

The Sexecutioner writes "WebMD is reporting on a new vaccine which has had an incredible effect in clinical trials. The vaccine, composed of human dendrites holding dead HIV viruses, has dropped test patients' viral load by up to 90% in one year. Could this be it?"

Comments

Thank God the /. community knows about it now...

[JamieF]

Shortly we'll hear about how someone has attach phase change cooling nanobots to the dendrites to allow them to be overclocked, and reduce the viral load by 90% in six months.

Then the lucite dendrites with cold cathode illuminated ribosomes will hit the market.

Then someone will build a nano-lego dendrite.

Then someone will make a stop action film of dendrites performing the Camelot song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Then someone will tell us all about how the Amiga had that same feature 20 years ago.

And finally, someone will announce an improved vaccine/therapy that eliminates HIV instantly, but it will link to goatse.

eh?

[goldcd]

of course you can control MS if you want. Screen to see if you're a carrier and then either abstain, adopt or abort. Stop being a judgemental cunt anyway.

Hmmm. Ok....

[jd]

So you largely eliminate AIDS from a person, but give them mad cow disease. They both kill 100% of the infected people and the incubation period is comparable. AIDS is, from what I understand, horribly agonizing, whereas CJDv is mind-rotting.

Honestly, I'm not sure it's a great swap. Although the take-up of prions is relatively unknown, and it's thought that there's a genetic component to prion-related diseases. But that's also unknown.

Mind you, as nobody has explained how something the size of a prion can (a) survive the stomach, (b) pass through the stomach walls, (c) avoid the human immune system, which does Nasty Things to foreign proteins, (d) get through the blood-brain barrier, (e) miraculously avoid affecting any other protein in the human body, being stored anywhere, or even remain in the bloodstream, as ONLY the brain and spinal cord seem to be affected and (f) survive unbelievably high temperatures, I still have a hard time accepting the prion theory.

It's the best theory out there - in fact, it's about the only theory out there - but the gaps bother me. The explanation, as it stands, just doesn't feel right. That's not very scientific, I know, but beauty and elegant simplicity tend to be hallmarks of those theories which endure, with the removal of extra entities to explain a greater bredth of phenomina.