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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."
Insert generic comment about the overuse of a drug leading to the evolution of the disease to a new super form that is resistant to all known treatments.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
" In addition to being a potential checkmate to HIV, the compounds show indications of being just as effective against other diseases plaguing humankind - among them influenza, possibly even the dread bird flu, along with smallpox and herpes. "
Its a treatment that cures all that ails ya!
" Further, the compounds appear to have few limits on how they are delivered to patients. Although early indications are for application of CSAs with an ointment or cream, pills or injections may also be developed - if the compound gets to market. "
you can rub it on or drink it down, it don't matter!
Yeah, I think I will remain skeptical as well.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is being promoted by Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, inc.. Here is the press release behind this article - Novel Drug Compound Kills Multiple HIV Strains.
"Ceragenix has licensed the exclusive worldwide rights to a patented new class of small molecule compounds from its developer, Professor Paul B. Savage at Brigham Young University."
IF the claims are reproducible, this is a major medical breakthrough and will place Prof. Savage among such immortals as Jonas Salk. However, I'll wait for the independent verification before getting excited though.
I'm no med student but the article states that: Ok, if this is true, then we've overcome the large part of AIDS (immunodeficiency). We can just boost the hell out of the white blood cell mimicking Ceragenins. Will this stop AIDS? Maybe not, but it will provide the defenses that AIDS rips from its patients. If I recall correctly, it's not the AIDS virus itself that kills a victim but instead another desease/sickness that occurs from a weakened immune system.
What's exciting is that the AIDS virus probably doesn't infect/reproduce when it is being killed by Ceragenins like it does to white blood cells. Thus, they may have something here if their premises hold true.
Googling for "Ceragenins" results in zero hits. Which means this is some magical elixir that is a mistakened cure all. Or perhaps it's something very obscure that no one has thought of until today? We shall see.
My work here is dung.
I dunno. So the compound destroys HIV in the test tube. AFAIK, this is underwhelming, because the problem with HIV is that it hides out inside cells where blood-borne drugs can't get to it. (I don't even think it's in there as a complete viral particle, probably just the RNA.)
You could hope that if you kept your bloodstream flooded with the drug you could nail each new virus as it emerged, but I seem to recall HIV can go directly from cell to cell, without entering the bloodstream at all.
I think our natural immune system kills off viral infections in substantial part by recognizing which of our cells are infected and killing them. That is, it's not just a question of wiping out the free virus, I think.
The reason is that HIV integrates itself into the victim's DNA and hides there, pretty much forever. Short of rebuilding the victim molecule-by-molecule, you can never get rid of HIV. The best you can hope for is to put the virus into remission, and hope people take their pills faithfully enough to prevent a shadow epidemic from forming.
And even if the drug works and is nontoxic, there is another big hurdle: the blood-brain barrier. The brain is extremely picky about which chemicals it lets in, and a lot of drugs just don't make the cut. Unfortunately, HIV is perfectly happy to grow in the brain, where it gradually kills off nerve cells. IIRC the existing anti-HIV drugs have this problem; AIDS-related dementia is a feared complication.
So just the fact that they've found something that kills AIDS is not particularly interesting.
What's required is to also do tests on cells, then animals, then humans. If they don't immediately keel over, then we can get a tad excited. Until then, it's about as promising a treatment as red fuming nitric acid (a real good AIDS zapper).
Urbanization and developed economies do a really good job of lowering birthrates. It's happened in the United States, Europe, Japan and is starting to happen in India. China's is dropping too, but that is more of a side effect because of government planning.
Ok, so I missed that word. I did RTFA but I'm still skeptical.
Viruses and bacteria are so different to me, rarely a treatment affects both.
CSA, in fact, stands for Cationic Steroid Antimicrobial and almost every piece of research involving them is centered on attacking bacteria.
How come zero hits turn up for Ceragenins when I search for it?
This article didn't include much of the above information and seemed to give a completely different name for CSAs than what they truly are--compound steroids used to primarily combat bacteria.
My work here is dung.
In other words, an FDA "fast track" does not mean they will overlook a critical step in the efficacy of the candidate drug.
Sigs cause cancer.
If you're going to troll on bush, you might as well do it right. You know he's going to push the FDA to kill the drug if it works, because if it can cure HIV, there won't be any boogeymen left to scare people into not having sex with each other.
If by "owner" you mean the people that invested the money and did the hard work to make it happen, then I hope they can do whatever they please.
Well, arguably "maybe".
Take this situation: A person is standing on a river bank, with his new blue suede shoes, say. Suddenly he sees a child drowning some small distance out. It would not be putting himself in any danger to wade out and grab the child. He does not do so, however, arguing that he _is_ free to help people or not, as he pleases. He's not a life guard, and besides, his new shoes would be ruined and who's going to pay for that.
He may be right - or a court may judge that not helping was an act of negligence resulting in a wroingful death. Two pretty important principles are colliding here.
And arguably the same situation persists with a medication that can save the life of people. This is pretty much what, for example, the US did with the anthrax scare, when they overrode the ownership claims of anthrax vaccine makers in order to protect the public - and what several poor nations are doing when the allow unlicensed copying of AIDS drugs in the face of an epidemic.
You might, in other words, get to the situation where, in the interests of public health, they may see legalized copying of their substance in several parts of the world, perhaps with a court-imposed "reasonable" payout that is not at the level they would have wanted.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Thank God I'm not the only one. My own wake-up call happened when I stumbled on Peter Duesberg's paper The Chemical Bases of the Various AIDS Epidemics: Recreational Drugs, Anti-viral Chemotherapy and Malnutrition. (pdf). In other words, destruction of the body's immune system is reasonably caused by:
* Pounding the body with massive doses of intoxicants, most notably nitrite poppers (anyone up for gay anal sex?)
* Highly toxic anti-viral medication, such as AZT, which is sure to cause death if ingested.
* Malnutrition, or the shutting down of the body's systems though sheer neglect, mostly seen in Africa.
In other words, when you consider that statistically, all early AIDS patients were gay, most of them used "batteries of recreational drugs" before sex, all were told they were going to die, all were given toxic AZT, all died, and that poor Africans have nothing to do with this, then you can neatly explain the AIDS "epidemic" in you armchair without even hitting reload.
Problem is, AZT and other retrovirals cost $25,000 per year, and if you explain away the AIDS epidemic, then you destroy everyone's profit and research incentives. Meanwhile, the gay community is complicit in this deception, because no gay man wants to admit that he is a drug addict or gave the disease to himself.
Remember Richard Nixon's "War on Cancer?" This was a viral research program that concluded in the late 1970's with nothing to show for its efforts. Except that a few years later, along came HIV and a massive new round of research funding. Convenient?
As the OP says, debunking HIV/AIDS takes a lot of reading. But that's also kind of the point: the evidence against HIV is so massive that even paraphrasing it would leave you breathless.
Which is just! wonderful! because we know how so many people know and care who makes MiracleTreat(tm) that they saw on TV. I'm married to a doctor, but I can't name more than 3 or 4 major drug companies, let alone which one makes any given drug.
And the 'obscene profits' lost from it being socialized would be inconsequential to the good will by the people.
I didn't major in economics, so please clarify for me the exchange rate of good will units per dollar. Can you pay your employees in good will, or is it the sort of thing you'd distribute as a dividend instead?
OK, yeah, I know I'm being a smartass. However, I still have yet to hear an explanation for how socializing medical patents would support continued R&D. This isn't like a software patent where you get to write "$common_process, on a computer!" and start suing people - this stuff takes some real investment.
And no, I don't work for a pharmaceutical company, nor do I own stock in any (that I know of). I just think that people who advocate this approach are likely to get steamrolled by the Law Of Unintended Consequences, and I don't want to see that happen.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I would expect that there are a number of people investing a lot in trying to cure AIDS. Some of them for a profit motive, some for humanitarian reasons, and some for both. If someone motivated by profit finds the cure first, does that mean that millions of people in Africa (who make a small fraction of what the homeless in America make) should keep dieing because they didn't find the cure themselves?
It's true that the free market has proven the best way to allocate resources, but this may be a case where it is hard to apply. In our society, certainly, we place a very high value on human life. That being the case, if you have the potential to save millions of lives, it should outweigh any other profit motive. How's that for "something of equal value in exchange for their efforts". That doesn't mean that they should not be compensated for their time and effort, above and beyond covering their costs. It simply means that they should look beyond maximum profit and more towards maximum distribution.
I admit that I don't spend large amounts of time or money on (for lack of a better term) charity work. On quick evaluation I would blame it on being jaded. There are so many ways to contribute that feed a man for a day, or that get sucked into an organization whose values are good but whose execution is poor. If I know I can make some sort of a difference, I can be generous, I just rarely believe that I can.
In this case, I like to think that if I was the "owner" I would talk to some rich philanthropists or work some very generous licensing agreements with a number of major drug companies to try to get the stuff out at near-cost. If I didn't become a millionaire in the deal, oh well. I'd rather save lives and be poor than let people die becoming rich.
Actually, based on your views and the beliefs of the Mormon church, it would make more sense for them to distribute it as freely as possible. If they were short-sighted and just wanted to make a quick buck, sure they could sell it for as much as they can, however, I'd have to give such a quickly growing faith a little more credit than that. If the Mormon church were to become known as the religion that cured AIDS, that would likely bring untold amounts of people into their fold, boosting donations and creating more revenue in the long run. Of course, I don't believe that that would be their primary motivation. A large part of the Mormon faith is the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing, and from the way I understand it, this is because they believe that unborn souls need to be brought to the earth before Armageddon or whatever. So, if they were to eliminate AIDS, this would eliminate a large obstacle for their faith. Then again, this is just speculating on yet another wonder drug that'll probably amount to little more than snake oil. And if my views on the Mormon church are wrong, it's because I'm not Mormon, but I am one of thirty-two (first) cousins, and I've received a handful of well-intentioned preachings over the years that have possibly mutated. But I think I'm probably close enough.
I am afraid I agree that we will see no cure in this lifetime. Whether or not cures will be discovered is another matter. Curing HIV/AIDS would create both religious and economic uproar -- and would be therefore highly political. My arguments are as follows:
1. Religious: Many Christians (Mormons very much included) are of the opinion that HIV/AIDS is "God's punishment" for fornication, and the preach that HIV/AIDS is God's incentive to abstain from sex. Although this is a flawed argument, especially in regard to people who contract HIV/AIDS through non-sexual activity (haemophilacs, newborn children, blood transfusees, etc.), it carries a lot of weight within the Christian community. I find it distressing that this discovery occurred at BYU, due to the religious considerations surrounding HIV/AIDS.
2. Economic: Every pharmaceutical manufacturer that has an AIDS drug makes money hand-over-fist by selling it. It is more financially viable to "treat" an illness, because "curing" an illness is tantamount to killing the Golden Goose. For example: haemophilacs are considered a target market for drug companies who make clotting factor because haemophilia is a genetic disease and therefore incurable. A severe haemophiliac cannot survive without factor, and drug companies know this. It is common for a family with a child who develops haemophilia to go into bankruptcy over the costs of financing treatment for their disease. Further, the drug companies keep secret the cost to manufacture a single unit of factor-- largely because to make it public would open them to suits over "price gouging". HIV/AIDS patients are no different. It is a chronic, incurable disease that takes a lot of high-priced medicine every day to keep it manageable. An HIV/AIDS cure would close this lucrative market and therefore curtail profits. Due to this fact, I doubt seriously whether we will even know if this new discovery turns out to be a cure, because any peer review be performed at least in part by Big Pharma -- and we already know from experience what altruistic folks they are. I predict this will be like the discovery of any other possible HIV/AIDS cure: it will sound great, it will have a lot of promise, then it will be "discovered" to be yet another red herring.
3. Politics. When the religious and pharmaceutical lobbies get involved, one can be sure there will be little or no government involvement with peer review of a cure. Any tests from public institutions that dispute those from the pharmaceutical industry will be subject to debate and perhaps even lawsuits. Because Big Pharma and the religious lobby wields such tremendous power, it is inevitable that any funding to a public insitution researching potential cures will be cut. One need only look at the fight over nicotine research and tobacco-related diseases. Big Tobacco fought with public institutions for decades and by dint of keen lobbying --essentially graft-- they kept the real results buried.
Sorry to be such a joykill...
Mekkis, The Eyeconoclast
I believe you, but he is the originator of the argument you make (down to the shoes). I took the philosophy course where I cited the argument from, thats how i recognized it. He argues philosophical pragmatism...that is "what works is true" (as opposed to "what is true works...because it is true") He is a fairly radical advocate of animal rights, having written a book aptly titled "Animal Rights" and is an all around anti-individualist (your life may be sacrificed for the betterment of others). I don't know his stance on euthenasia.
On a somewhat related note, I believe that is the sort of philosophy which resulted in much of the tyrrany of the twentieth century. "Your right to (life/liberty/property) is being taken for the beneft of (Insert group of people here)"
This sig has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.
Well if a city can take someones home to get higher taxes, what is to stop it from being taken and given away for the greater good? In fact that is one eminent domain seizure I can whole heartedly agree with.
There are a few things to ponder...
First, the article says that, the compound invented by Paul D. Savage of Brigham Young University appears to hunt down and kill HIV.
Now, doing an actual search on Brigham Young's website turns up 0 hits for "Paul D. Savage". It does, however, turn up quite a few hits for just Paul Savage. In fact, it turns up this dude, a "Paul B. Savage". He seems pretty smart (MS Word document link). Plus, he's gotten recognition for research in T-Cells, important information that could really help figure out how to stop T-Cell destruction by the AIDS virus.
I guess either the press release is really trying to piggy-back on some smart dude, and hide their tracks by swapping a middle initial, or the Salt Lake Tribune just can't get their middle initials straight. Maybe this "Ceragenins" is something new and undiscovered as well, just like "Paul D. Savage". They both return zero hits when you try to search for them.
You've got to understand the economies of scale behind that, though. There's an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 MS cases in the US. Those prices really suck, and I'd hate to be paying them myself, but the reality is that there aren't very many patients to spread the R&D and manufacturing costs across. Contrast with something like Aleve, where you can expect to find a bottle in every other medicine cabinet in the country.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
And they had a book value of about $98K as of their last quarterly report in Yahoo (which was Mar 05, I think) and just borrowed $3M at 10% interest last december - with a 10% commission to their loan agent. Their R&D budget seems to be a steady $0/quarter, so they don't do any of that. Their scientific advisor is a dermatologist, which isn't too surprising since they are a spinoff of a skin creme company. The website looks amatureish. As of todays market close, this company with a book value of (at most) $98K, no products and no R&D budget, now has a market cap of $46M. Can you say scam?
Even for the Cowpox vaccine, it wasn't completely random - it was as a result of an investigation into dairy workers to discover why smallpox didn't affect them. The discovery was part of a planned research project aimed at exactly that target.
This seems to carry with it the implication that the discovery of the smallpox vaccine was the result of a carefully-crafted study undertaken by a major pharmaceutical corporation. Keep in mind that the smallpox vaccine was discovered more than two hundred years ago by a lone guy who took a huge risk by infecting a boy with cowpox and then deliberately trying to infect him with smallpox. If the theory wasn't correct, well... oops! Vaccination was not exactly old hat at the time, either. The smallpox vaccine was the first vaccine, and the word "vaccine" itself is derived from - you guessed it - the latin word for cow, which is "vacca".
If you didn't mean to imply this, then I apologize.
Just to extend your point a bit. I hope someone can get this quote source as I do not have it but, I remember Bill Gates said something which I found really important in an interview related to his malaria fight fund donations.
:)
The quote was something like "Unfortunately, it is not possible, with human viruses, to give money to a group of people and tell them, go ahead, make a cure for Malaria. It just does not works like that".
With this what I want to show is that, this pharmaceutical companies cant do the same as say, Intel, that just throw some money to the PentiumV chip and say to the team "go ahead, make a 8 GHZ chip".
The process of finding medicine *really* useful against viruses is ten (if nota hundred) times more difficult. And besides that, after they've got the medicine they *must* pass the FDA regulations. To what does Intel needs to comply? some quite trivial FCC regulations.
So, yes, I defend the pharmaceutical companies. I agree that they seem to do something really antiethic, to profit by selling things that save lifes. But, in our current economy there is no other way it can be done. What some governments do (I can ONLY speak for the Mexico government) is subsidise (spell?) the medicines with the Social Security System. You have to see how cheap are the medicines in Mexico when you have IMSS, not even that, the service you can get for free (I was in the hospital for 3 months when I was a kid).
I think that is the best way to do it, but of course, we can blame our governments for removing our Social Security services
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I agree, but why stop there? Let's outlaw investment into curing diseases. That prevents all of these investors demanding a Return on Investment. No more conflict. Let's just leave them to making "useless shit like viagra".
Don't think I'm saying we shouldn't cure disease. We should. Let's just disallow any money to be invested in curing disease, and only allow diseases to be cured for free. Doesn't that solve all of these problems?
Don't be a fool. Cutting down private funding doesn't meen that there won't be any funding. Just nationalize all drug companies (or buy them, if you will) and let them continue their work (fully funded from public purse) with new priorities so that all results fall to public domain.
Wish I had mod points, you're one of the few who gets "it". In-vitero results mean very little. In-vivo results, that's a whole other ball of wax. Even, getting these CSA compounds into the body and having them target the virus without wreaking havoc on the patient is only half of the battle. One of HIVs nastiest tricks is that it can go into a latent state where the immune system's ability to bind to the virus is disrupted. Unless CSAs can go beyond mimicing the immune response and actually interfere with HIVs HDAC response, the virus will never be fully eliminated from the patient, and as such there will be no cure..
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Given that dying tends to be a side-effect of AIDS, what drug effects would one really be worried about? I never understood this whole neurotic mentality of overtesting drugs. The testing is often wrong (Vioxx?) and even when it works it probably kills far more people than it saves. The libertarian in me hates to see government regulation kill people, and the liberal in me hates to see people die for no reason and the conservative in me hates to see our economy hurt by having drug costs artificially inflated by beaurocrats.
Read about it here.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Right now, there is a debate going on about the availability (and FDA approval) of an HPV vaccine. It is almost 100% effective at stopping a virus that can cause cervical cancer in women. What's the problem? The "Christians" (to use your quotes) are concerned that this will promote teen sex.
Use google, read all about it, and then get back to us. I don't hear the "Rest of America" yelling and screaming about this one. (Maybe they're all still in a tizzy about those homosexuals wanting to get married.[/sarcasm])
This kind of reporting is terribly irresponsible.
Actually, it may be that this "reporting" is simply just a PR campaign to bolster public pressure to either get this particular drug "fast-tracked" or to undermine the FDA altogether, in order to help the beleagured, almost bankrupt, struggling for every penny of income drug companies. (My first thought was that it's just a pump-and-dump for the company's stock, but after thinking about it, it could a bigger fish they're trying to fry).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.