Possible Breakthrough for AIDS Cure

kryonD writes "Researchers believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do. While most of the community is still hesitant to comment on this until it passes peer review, initial results show that their method attacks and kills ALL variations of the virus. A fast track through the FDA could have one of the world's leading problems licked in less than a decade."

Comments

Raised eyebrows

[BWJones]

There is a history of announcing big breakthroughs in science here in Utah by going to the press before appropriate peer review has taken place (Cold Fusion anyone?). Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this come through, but until it passes the peer review test, as a scientist, I will withhold my enthusiasm.

In fact, any time I hear something potentially huge being hyped in the mainstream press before I hear about it in scientific journals, my eyebrows tend to rise a bit and I tend to be perhaps even more skeptical.

"We have some preliminary but very exciting results [but] we would like to formally show this before making any claims that would cause unwanted hype."

Uh...... yeah. That is why I am reading about it in the Salt Lake Tribune before hearing about it in Science or Nature?

Re:Raised eyebrows

[megla]

You pretty much summed up my take on this.
If it truely does work, then it's a huge discovery - I just hope the "owners" can put aside huge profits for once, and make the drug available for as near cost as practicable.

Re:Raised eyebrows

[fireboy1919]

I'm with you in the skepticism. It's quite likely you're right.

The thing that nags at my mind is that we have found wonderdrugs in the past.

Penicillin, which could cure most kinds of bacterial infections, could be taken orally or as a salve, and it just got rid of the bacteria. It really was a wonder drug.

And cowpox was just perfect. You just inject some, and you become immune to smallpox with basically no ill effects. These things weren't found by years of research; they were stumbled upon, and they just worked. So I'm not conceding the thing as impossible. I'm quite willing to admit that they've got something.

All they'd have to do to convince me is to inject themselves with a pint or so of HIV infested blood.

Fast Track

[CastrTroy]

As nice as it is to think that we have an AIDS cure, and that we don't have to worry about it anymore. But I think that rushing it through a FDA approval, without exploring its full consequences could be a little dangerous. If this drug was passed, and everybody who took it got rid of their AIDS, but developed some other condition which killed them in a year, then we'd all look a little stupid, and the drug company would probably be under a lot of scrutiny.

Another thing though, is this drug patented, or will this be cheaply available for everyone who needs it, especially AIDS ravaged countried in Africa.

Er, what?

[leonbrooks]

Last I looked, the AIDS toll in Africa stood at 30 million, which is more people than live in my entire country -- and more than another 25 million have the disease and know that they're going to die because of it. In Africa alone.

The figures for 'way back in 2000 were 10,000 a day, 4,000 of those from AIDS. Last year, there were over 3 million deaths and nearly 5 million new infections. That would wipe out my entire state in five months, eight through AIDS alone, and AIDS alone would do in the entire country in about eight years.

True, there are those other diseases around -- curable ones too -- but don't underestimate the damage which AIDS does. There are 12 million AIDS orphans alive as I type, for example.

Amongst other things, a common urban myth in Africa is that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS... so you get AIDS-infected men raping girls who are so young that they have to be virgins. Nice.

It's also largely curable by the same education which would reduce AIDS and practically eliminate tuberculosis and malaria. In fact, the basic directives for achieving this are something like 4500 years old. Nevertheless, a magic bullet for AIDS would be a more than welcome assistant. My only real reservations center around what else it kills besides AIDS.