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Crocodile's Immune System Kills HIV
ASEville writes "In an ongoing effort to stop the spread of HIV, scientists in Australia have discovered that crocodiles can fight off HIV and kill the virus. This is a major boon to medicine because the crocodile serum can also fight things that are penicillin resistant such as staphylococcus aureus."
"If you take a test tube of HIV and add crocodile serum it will have a greater effect than human serum. It can kill a much greater number of HIV viral organisms,"
/. editors don't read the articles submitted all the way to the end, so here's a bit towards the end that really matters:
Ummm.... So? The same thing can be said of chlorine bleach.
There are lots of known chemicals that kill HIV. The trick is finding one that leaves the patient alive. I know the
"However, the crocodile's immune system may be too powerful for humans and may need to be synthesized for human consumption."
There is nothing in the article to suggest that they have isolated the specific component that kills HIV, let alone determined that it is safe for human injection.
-Chris
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
! SITUATION! Your mom works as a paramedic saving people's lives. One night she rolls up on a multiple vehicle accident. A young girl, who is infected is trapped, your own mother, who is trying to help, cuts her arm while the blood of the girl is everywhere, so your mom gets infected, I guess with your attitude your mom just deserved it. Who is to blame though your mom or the INNOCENT girl's mom? You have a very perturbed view of this subject and should keep your mouth shut... and this is a very possible situation that could and probably has happened.
it is better to let nature take its course.
I will remember this when you come into my emergency room, shall I? You are mortal too. You just haven't realized it yet.
What about the dead haemophiliacs? What about the medical staff that have an accidental needle stick? And of course what about the children born into this world with HIV?
If we follow your argument then we all deserve to die because everyone is guilty of something. Even you. When you have your heart attack I will just hold the tPA (aka "clot buster") in my hand and remind you how harsh the world is, and let you die, shall I?
We have a duty to do everything we can to improve the lot of our fellow man - because one day we are the ones who will need all the help we can get. You reap what you sow.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I guess with your attitude your mom just deserved it.
Not only that, but even in the case of IV drug use or promiscuity, no one deserves to die for making one stupid mistake and thinking it wasn't going to happen to them, if that death can be prevented in any way. And nowadays it CAN be prevented.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
How the hell is it promising ? HIV is a virus not a bacteria, antibiotics won't do shit against it. You need to kill CD4+ cells that harbor the virus but guess what Sherlock, they die in abot 1.5 days after infection anyway. And even if you figure out how to kill the cells you still don't know which ones to kill because memory T cell contain HIV in latent state ! Bwahahaha ! You better hope you got d32 mutation in your CCR5 receptors because crocodile 'serum' is a crock of shit
Look Stonehenge. The point, and reason it's promising, is that -somehow- the crocodile is able to fend off this virus. A complex biological system more similar to us than "chlorine bleach" (as some other erudite poster mentioned) can destroy this. I don't see what the problem is in understanding this. No, we're not marketing some immunoglobulin or antiviral yet, but how can this not be an important discovery? Most antibiotics/drugs come from plants or molds afterall.
The answer to your lack of understanding is going to school and learning how things actually work. Not constructing theories about it because you watched a program on the Discovery channel. I mean this in a constructive way, because what you are saying is not related to reality at all and that is worrying. "Some kind of internal problem" means you are not really qualified to speak on the subject in an authoritative manner, really. There is nothing wrong in admitting you don't know something. There's a vast amount of stuff I don't know. Disease is something I am an expert on, though. It goes with the job, really.
First, it's asbestos, not azbestos. Second, asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma, not lung cancer. Asbestosis in the lung is no fun at all, but you don't get lung cancer. The mesothelioma is a cancer of the pleura, a membrane that is next to the lung, not the lung itself. Third, asbetos is an irritant that your lung cannot get rid of. This constant source of irritation causes the release of chemicals by nearby cells called growth factors. The constant local exposure to growth factors is one of the things that "takes off the brakes" in the cell cycle, and this, combined with mutations, causes the start of the cancer. Not everyone exposed to asbestos will get cancer from it. You need to have the initiation step (the mutation) as well as the promotion step (the exposure to growth factors). Fourth, this has absolutely nothing to do with HIV and AIDS.
Now to address the other part of your argument.
The HIV virus is an RNA virus. This RNA is changed to DNA by an enzyme called reverse transcriptase, that comes with the virus. This DNA can and IS merged with our own DNA. It becomes a fundamental part of you. When it's like this, there is no way I can get rid of it without killing the cell.
Some infected cells start to produce copies of the virus, and they eventually die. Other "healthy" cells are infected with the virus DNA, but those genes are not currently expressed. We're still not sure what causes a cell to suddenly switch the virus production switch to "on", and when we know this we will be one step closer to curing this disease. Still other cells (the macrophages) are capable of being infected by the HIV virus, and producing a limited amount of copies of this virus. The macrophages are not normally wiped out by this, but all you need is one copy of the virus to re-infect the whole T helper cell colony again.
So we have: 1) cells that die quickly 2) cells that take a long time to get sick and die and 3) cells than never die from the disease, but are capable of re-infecting you at any time.
This explains why HIV is a chronic infection, unlike the common cold, or viruses that cause diarrhoea which are SO aggressive they basically kill ALL the cells within days, and run out of hosts. With HIV, you create new, healthy hosts a lot quicker than the infection can kill them. But these hosts are getting constantly infected. Eventually the amount of infected cells and virus production is so great that cells are infected and die the moment they are produced or become active. This is when you get AIDS because the immune system is now collapsing.
You may not know how HIV works, but we certainly do. Billions of dollars of research money were NOT wasted. In the 1980's we knew almost nothing about how any virus worked. But with HIV there's not much that can be done about it BECAUSE of the way it works. Maybe one day we will find a better way of attacking the virus directly before it gets into the cells. We're not there yet though.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"People who are foolish enough to have unprotected sex... [deserve to die]"
The argument makes little sense. If it wasn't for STDs, it wouldn't be 'foolish' to have unprotected sex in the first place (assuming some form of oral contraception is used).
If something from a Crocodile can teach us how to cure AIDS in humans, what about all the endangered or extinct species? Maybe this will bring some more attention to the fact that we NEED other species around to learn from and co-habitate with. It would really suck if we killed off some kind of plant that was going to hold the key to solving a horrible disease of the future.
It would really suck if we killed off some kind of plant that was going to hold the key to solving a horrible disease of the future.
Conversely, it would really suck if a new mutation of a plant appeared in the future that could cure a horrible disease...and was subsequently overwhelmed by plants that we'd saved.
It's a two-way street. If species don't die off, new ones can't flourish. Don't pretend that you can comprehend what's best for a system as large as the earth.
Anyway, it's not as if it would be catastrophic if say, an entire species of crocodiles died tomorrow - there are hundreds of species of crocodile, and most are very similar in characteristics. The article doesn't mention a specific species of crocodile because it's probably not important.
Same goes for any other species.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
I am Mr. Evil Big Drugs. I just spent $5 billion on AIDS research. The government takes my work from me and gives it away without my consent. What does the public get today? A cure for AIDS. What does the public not get tomorrow? A cure for any other disease I was currently researching, because I'm pulling all funding so that I can bail out with whatever capital I can still scavenge from my dying company.
And who should be the one entitled to "Get rich" from this cure? The scientist who read some charts and took some samples? Or the people who built his lab; built, delivered, installed, and repair his equipment; the power company, the water company, et. al.
What is it exactly that you think scientists do? Stand around until the answer to their problems magically appears? Assuming that the lab owner paid the utility bills and its employees according to their contracts, those parties have zero right to any additional profits - they were already paid for their contribution. That's a strawman, and if you're smart enough to know it, then you should be ashamed. If you're not, then this conversation is pointless.
Your "solution" feels good, as if the government would finally be Doing Something. Too bad it kills millions as Mr. Evil Big Drugs and all of his associates that aren't too stupid to read the writing on the wall jump ship and switch to a different industry.
Economy 101: you fail it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?