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AIDS Can Fight AIDS
dptalia writes "Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have announced that they have engineered a strain of the AIDS virus that fights AIDS. This strain of AIDS works like a vaccine and improved the immune system of the test subjects. After three years on this new therapy, no side effects have been observed."
So does this mean that two wrongs DO make a right?
Wasn't this in one of William Gibson's books?
... for this to turn into something big, but I think it's a hopeful start. A lot of people are laboring under the mistaken belief that the drug cocktails available now will somehow stop AIDS. But even if somehow made available inexpensively worldwide (which ain't gonna happen any time soon), it still wouldn't be enough. We need radically better treatment. It needs to be inexpensive, easy to administer, and something that only needs to be administered once.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
There is no such thing as an "AIDS" virus, per say... I think you mean to say that they used a modified HIV virus. AIDS is the resulting symptom that people with HIV (or certain other diseases) might develop.
We can genetically modify idiots to fight other idiots!
Task Mangler
There can only be one! (AIDS virus)
Philosophy.
So after the AIDS kills the AIDS, then they send something in to kill the AIDS that kills the AIDS....
So at what point does a Cow get sent in to go after the chicken.
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have announced that they have engineered a strain of the AIDS virus that fights AIDS.
Well, whatever you do, don't cross the streams. You're sure to get human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!
Push Button, Receive Bacon
It's only a matter of time before one of the AIDS strains invades the other AIDS strains on suspicions of building protiens of mass cell destruction.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
They say they put in more T cells than they took out. Has this sort of thing been tried before? It makes sense; if a disease depletes some cells why not create more in a laboratory and put them into the patient. I'm guessing this doesn't work in general for some reason with AIDS.
AIDS has killed AIDS!
AIDS has killed AIDS!
AIDS has killed AIDS!
AIDS has killed AIDS!
(additional stuff to bypass lameness filter.)
... when the zombie plague hits. Not only will zombie vs zombie become a way of disposing of the living dead, but we can televise it and make it the new national sport. Don't know what we'll do with the remaining living dead though. Fast food jobs, perhaps?
AIDS is a condition, not a virus.
AIDS != HIV
+0 Meh
Due to AIDS.
Well... There goes solving the Human problem.
========
77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
Man, those lucky bastards, only they have the ability to fight AIDS.
Newsflash: AIDS aids AIDS.
Have you read my journal today?
A lot of HIV/AIDS research is going on, but I wonder, what about Hepatitis C virus? As I recall, it also leads to fatality (liver damage + death) in more than 70-80% of the cases, transmits much like HIV (blood transfusion, needles, sexual intercourse), and in some regions especially South East Asia it's far more prevalent than HIV. There's also no known vaccine against it at the moment.
Threads about AIDS really hurts some of our abilities to make jokes or insert Simpsons quotes into as many threads as possible.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Reminds me of a simpsons episode...
Dr. Hibbert: "So you can see you have every disease, and a few we've never really seen. They've reached a sort of symbiance and are balanced in such a way that it isn't affecting you. ha ha ha."
Mr. Burns: "So what you're saying is i'm invincible?"
Dr. Hibbert: "Oh dear God no, the slightest breeze could kill y..."
Mr. Burns: "Invincible..."
Spammer spams his own computer!! Fixes the problem on the spot!
ok. so lets say i take some antibodies for some other disease and use AIDS to administer it; or some sort of modification to your system. That's got some crazy possibilities IMHO.
Dr. the bad news.. you have AIDS and left untreated it will kill
you: DAMN
Dr. now the good news we will inject you with AIDS that will kill your AIDS
you: GREAT
Dr. Now the not so good news the AIDS that kills the AIDS will then kill you.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
You have AIDS, yes you have AIDS, not HIV but fulll bloowwwnnnn AIIDSSS
I think I remember an article about using Cancer to fight Cancer as well.
I see a pattern emerging.
Time to convince my local fire fighters that the old saying actually does hold some water, which they won't need anymore since they'll be using fire to beat down the flames...
Summation 2
HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus that systematically destroys the T cells that help ward off infection.
AIDS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, is a CONDITION that afflicts those infected with HIV that have gone without treatment or have severe infections for a variety of other reasons. It is characterized by a weakness of the immune system and a concomitant increased likelihood to become infected with something that you might have otherwise fought off (i.e. cleared). So in other words, the AIDS does not kill you in the same sense that Ebola would (massive internal bleeding). It kills you by making you much, much more prone to something that you would have been exposed to anyways.
If I see another article referring to the "AIDS virus" I think I shall scream. When in doubt, the virus is the one with the "V" in its name!
Hey, there. Wanna be my butt-buddy?
The principles of Bum Fighting applied to medical science. It brings a tear of joy to my eye.
... and then they built the supercollider.
If this is a cure and you're a man and can't get laid in the next 24 hours, just chop the damn thing off.
This has got to be the stupidest fucking AIDS-news-of-the-season I've seen yet. If you really want to get educated on AIDS, read the featured wikipedia article and learn something. Don't read this reuters sensationalist bullshit.
Posting news about sexually transmitted diseases on slashdot is like writing news on poisoned beef steak in an African newspaper, isn't it?
The idea seems pretty insightful. I'm curious, however, as to what is the mechanism of preferential cell uptake and synthesis of the genetically engineered HIV strain if it is still using the same env gene (CD4 and CCR binding)? Did they also modify the tat and nef genes as well? Are there simply more viruses being made somehow, thus increasing its particular population?
The second thing I'm curious about is if the original HIV infection can be wiped out completely? We know that it hides out (M and T tropic strains) in the dendritic cells, lymph nodes, macrophages, etc., and can transfer from cell-to-cell without hematologic involvement, so it seems to me at least, that some latent virons of the original HIV infection will still be around.
They further suggest that the CD4 count increases, yet, how is this possible if the genetically engineered HIV strain is competing with the original strain? I'm assuming that the CD8 T-cells are possibly having an "easier" time fighting off the genetically engineered strain, and possibly giving its numbers a chance to bounce back up and stay elevated. This may lessen the burden on the CD4 cells, giving those numbers a chance to rise as well.
One problem, however, is that it's only a matter of time before the original HIV (T tropic) strain mutates. Normally, this would knock-off the humoral system, e.g., CD8 and CD4 counts plummet, just as the new strains begin their assault. With the genetically engineered strain, I'm not so sure what sequence this will occur.
Just an idea, if they can actually use this method, along with tweaking the surface antigen genes to actually mutate (and yes, there are millions of possibilities, and I'm assuming that natural selection doesn't require every possibility), we may actually be able to get the humoral system to recognize a sufficient number of antigenic sites and possibilities to be able to mount a full response, and eventually cure the person of HIV!
And then the new HIV will mutate and fight people too.
Pseudoscience kills. Do not spread it.
Facts: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/Factsheets/evidhiv.htm
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
Go on - go ahead - do it - inject yourself with a snootful of HIV. I dare ya. Naaaa- I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA!
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I understand that all the AIDS patients who took AZT in the 80's are now dead. Not much of a surprise, when you consider the side effects.
Follow the money, and you too can understand why AIDS is still getting the "teh cure is just around the corner", after over 20 years of research.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I took a look at the site you mentioned (specificaly first page and their's tour) and all the statements of the people are from between 1992 and 2000.
Then in section "MISSING VIRUS" there is latest entry, I quote:
And latest news entries are from 2002 too.
So, while those pages about AIDS looks good and correct, they lack fresh content and may be by now (2006) even incorrect.
Do you have links to some more up-to-date content?
What happened to that Alex Russel reward offering? What are the latest news>? ...
hany
Aids doesn't exist in the first place:
Though the hoax has made quite a few people phenomenally rich.
Unfortunately, whatever the cause of AIDS, it's made many phenomenally dead.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Too bad the Slashdot staff all have AIDS.
Unlikely. If that were the case do you think there would be so many dupes?
Long live the AIDS!
I think that, in the long run, HIV is a prime candidate for eradication. Compared to something like smallpox or polio, HIV spreads slowly, the method of infection is easy to manage, quarantine is easy if morally questionable, the spread is easy to track, and we're on top of a few of the principal vectors already (ie: tainted blood and contaminated medical instruments). Needle-exchange programs could bring even more. Any capacity for actually eliminating or completely supressing the disease would make the eradication of HIV an immediate possbility, and one that would get acted on very quickly.
They key here, i believe, is the use of antisense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisense to block production of the HIV-1 Virus. this novel approach of RNA interfances (nobel prize 06) is one of the (indirect) reasons why the nobel prize was adward.
In William Gibson's Virtual Light, AIDS was cured by finding a variant of AIDS that destroyed other AIDS strains and did no harm to its host. I think they guy they "discovered" that strain in was named JD Shapley.
The story of it is spread thruoghout the novel, which I though was pretty damn good.
I'm well aware I used AIDS three times on one sentence. Hey, it's late.
s'wut i sed.
Sounds like fun. Can me and my boyfriend join you?
HIV can fight HIV.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
There is no such thing as an "AIDS" virus, per say... I think you mean to say that they used a modified HIV virus. AIDS is the resulting symptom that people with HIV (or certain other diseases) might develop.
There is no such thing as an "HIV virus", per se. There is, however a "Human Immunodeficiency Virus", which is shortened to HIV, or - if you will - " the HI-virus".
Lemon curry???
HIV is the virus; not AIDS.
This is supposed to be in the science section!
Remember: Pseudoscience kills.
So did scurvey, and in that case the fix was also known, just ignored.
Do we still have to close the pool, while we put the new aids into it?
Every couple of weeks or so the media buy a press release about how 'a new drug' / 'gene therapy' / 'Nanotechnology' could possibly cure AIDS.
Now let's get a few things straight -
Firstly, all these potential cures work against HIV (which causes AIDS).
Secondly, there are already some great meds around for extend life span of people infected with the HI virus by 20+ years as long as people infected are adherrent to their drugs and live healthly lifestyle. Of course when you live in poverty and without access to decent healthcare this is damn hard - hence the problems in resource poor communities.
Thirdly, there is a huge pipeline of new potential drugs which may improve on the current medication regimes and if anyone is interested these tables below will give some indication of the new advanced that may possibly become approved over the next few years after extensive tests: -
Finally, if people are really interested in the latest new drugs for HIV they can get the simply subscribe to thebody.com that has an excellent newsletter which includes new developments. Or look at their latest update on Other Antiviral Drugs in Development- Sept 13 2006 and note the following paragraph
'Antisense Drugs These are a "mirror image" of part of the HIV genetic code. The drug locks onto the virus to prevent it from functioning. One antisense drug, HGTV43 by Enzo Therapeutics, is starting Phase II trials. VIRxSYS has completed a Phase I trial of its product, VRX496.'
Professor Duesberg and may others think its time top rethink AIDS. HIV probably does not cause AIDS. Nobody knows this so we can continue to stuff these poor suckers full of Chemo... That 'll make em die allright.
Please review the findings of Prof Duesberg http://duesberg.com/
Or download the movie "HIV, Fact or Fiction" for 10 (ten) scientific reasons why HIV does not cause AIDS.
Using poison to treat poison? Ingenious!
Secondly, there are already some great meds around for extend life span of people infected with the HI virus by 20+ years as long as people infected are adherrent to their drugs and live healthly lifestyle. Of course when you live in poverty and without access to decent healthcare this is damn hard - hence the problems in resource poor communities.
Also even if people have access to the drugs it doesn't mean they will take them as needed, it isn't exactly natural to remember to take x number of pills every y hours. Humans have an amazing ability to not act diligently even when faced with a not so pleasant death otherwise. I was at a talk last year where they showed this rather interesting graph of when people open their pill boxes (ie: they had sensors, etc. for the study). Basically a decent number of people with fatal disease were negligent in taking their drugs initially but as their condition progressed/got worse started becoming a lot more vigilant in taking their meds. It's probably worse with young, previously healthy, people who just aren't used to taking meds regularly or simply don't pay attention to taking them on time.
.. 20 cc's of AIDS, STAT!
God Be Gone
Is this what that Good AIDS versus Bad AIDS scene was all about?
By having a strong immune response to infection.
and what makes them sick...
Not having a strong immune response to infection, possibly because all the T cells have been wiped out by a virus.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
This if I remember correctly was the basis of the book. However at least in the book the Cure turned out to be worse.
It is a good book however.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
"The virus particles that are released are, like, sterile" ...and this is a scientist? We're doomed.
If all the hiv positive people of the world just had a 50 / 50 blood transfusion of bleach and blood, aids would be no more.
When we moved from farms to towns in the early middle ages, we brought our habits: pigs running freely in the streets, unexisting hygene. Then came the plague. Some refused to adapt, and they died. Others accepted sewages and garbage collection as a new way of life. They lived. AIDS will be eradicated from Africa the same way the plague was eradicated from Europe (and cholera,...) By a mixture of biological resistance and cultural resistance. Condoms for fun, monogamy for making children, the solutions are there. Africa needs to accept them as unavoidable cultural changes.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
In soviet Russia, AIDS kills... ehr, whatever...
1. Use AIDS to kill AIDS
2. Use ADIS to kill AIDS
.
.
.
(ad infinitum)
oxo. Profit!!
Might I suggest the movie "The other side of AIDS". Pretty biased IMHO, but definitely an eye opener on several misconceptions surrounding the issue. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427614/
Res publica non dominetur
But do the cocktails prevent an infected person from spreading the virus to other people?
As others have pointed out, if they can still infect others, by giving them the cocktail, you are effectively just enabling them to spread the disease more easily; unless you have a way to guarantee that an HIV-positive person won't use their lack of symptoms as a way to disguise their infection and start having sex, you could easily be damning many innocent people to death by prolonging an infected person's life.
Without education, simply distributing life-prolonging and symptom-reducing drugs is madness if the asymptomatic people are still infectious.
Imagine if there was a drug that combated leperosy in the same way; it got rid of your symptoms but still allowed you to pass it on. It probably wouldn't seem like such a hot idea to load people up on it and let them walk out of the hospital -- but that's in large part what AIDS drug cocktails do, when they're distributed in an uncontrolled manner or without stringent guidelines and education.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This is a very interesting point, and one that I don't thing gets mentioned often, because it's un-PC and opens up the speaker to allegations of racism.
However, I'd argue that if you look at gay (male) culture today, versus say in the late 1970s, you'll see some fairly drastic changes as a result of the AIDS epidemic. There's a lesson in there somewhere, and it's not that we all have to turn into Evangelical Christian prudes to escape God's wrath; gay people didn't disappear from the planet as a result of HIV, but some of the practices that resulted in widespread infections had to change.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Man anyone thing of William Gibson's Novel Virtual Light, that is crazy.
"If you like Battlestar Galactica, you're probably a huge nerd." -Stephen Colbert
Zombies don't eat other zombies, dude.
That's why it's hard to survive a zombie movie.
People generally die of untreated AIDS in more than three years. Counting from the HIV infection, of course, since the anti-viral cocktails treatment entails these days are aimed at keeping AIDS from actually coming up.
Still, I think I'd rather get infected with the AIDS Saint strain, rather than the real deal. (That's a Bridge Trilogy reference, yes.)
I want in one clinical testing!!!!it certainley would be a conversation starter after sleeping with someone.
"hey baby, i just gave you AIDS!!!!"
"what you are an ASSHOLE!!!!"
"No baby, I gave you the good AIDS!
"oh ok, well thats cool....because i just gave you herpes."
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
Like you know, sterile or whatever. Oh yeah, Like, sign ME up Valley Girl, Fur Shure.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
No, I'm sorry there isn't time.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
This work is really cool and hopefully and good as it appears. This could completely revolutionize the AIDS fight...
They've got 5 people infected with this antisense virus. The virus is obviously active in them. What's to keep those people from going around and (accidentally or deliberately) spreading it around to other HIV-positive people?
In SF considering the scenario, usually the evil giant corporations which funded the research kill everyone involved, destroy the papers, and sterilize everything claiming there's a biohazard. But it's a little too late for that now.
I'm confused. Why is this type of approach to combating the virus so far behind the research curve? It seems to me that with almost every disease that modern science has successfully battled through immunization: polio, small pox, etc., that the solution has always started with a stripped-down version of the virus itself.
While I freely admit that I'm not an expert on the subject of HIV/AIDS, I'd like to throw out an idea for an alternate treatment for HIV. Please let me know any reasons would (or would not) work. From what little I know, the HIV virus attacks Helper T (CD4+) lymphocytes, destroying them directly through the virus' replication process, and indirectly by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes (Killer T-Cells) attacking infected cells. If this is the case, would it be possible to engineer a drug cocktail that would temporarily suppress the production of CD4+ lymphocytes, thus denying the virus any method for replication? At that point, wouldn't the body begin to filter out and purge/excrete the now-inert viral bodies? After a sufficient purging period, cease the "T-suppresion" cocktail. Once off the suppressors, normal drug regimens for HIV/AIDS should be sufficient to bring the patient's immune system back online. I realize the patient would pretty much reduced to a "boy-in-the-bubble" state during treatment, and that the cost of treatment would be insanely high, but is the concept sound? Would denying the HIV "fire" it's fuel work, or does the virus have a mechanism for lingering in the body on a long term basis, even after it is unable to replicate further? I know that there are probably about a million medical facts that prove this concept fatally flawed, but I'd love to hear the reasons why. It might give many of us a better insight into precisely *how* HIV invades and affects the body.
If you're stupid enough to be having sex with a stranger without protection you really deserve to contract whatever you get.
You're talking about AIDS from the perspective of someone in the West. We've known about AIDS for more than two decades, and still plenty of people are getting AIDS here. There are a lot of people dying of AIDS who, as you said, should have known better. But many of them women who are getting infected by their husbands. Is the wife at fault for the actions of the husband, who cheated on her without her knowledge? As a precaution, should all married couples use condoms?
As for Africa, Eastern Europe, and other places where AIDS is running rampant, they often have governments that don't have the funds or inclination to properly educate the population about even the basics of AIDS. Then you have places like South Africa, where the leadership is in complete denial. In many parts of Africa, women don't have any real say about when or how sexual intercourse occurs.
Sure, there are people out there deliberately ignoring the risks. But there are likely far more people worldwide who don't even know what the risks are, or have no power to stop risky behavior even if they do know the risks.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Here's a thought: rather than blaming lawyers for accepting money for litigating cases - which is, after all, how they make a living - how about you exhort litigants, aka "regular folks," to stop suing people?
That'll be the day. When exactly has the system provided a means by which a person can legally extort money out of some other person, and that means hasn't been taken advantage of?
If you allow it, people will do it. They'll do it because first, someone without any morals will do it for the straight fiscal advantage, and then other people will follow in their tracks because they perceive it as being either acceptable, or required in order to 'not fall behind.'
As a general rule, people will lie, steal, cheat, and defraud other people that they don't know personally, to the maximum extent possible, until they run into prohibitions on doing it that change the risk/reward ratio.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Hold still now, you'll feel a little prick."
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Yeah because that would really ensure loads of money going to future drug research.
Way to shoot the messenger there.
Maybe instead we should look at the drug market and see why it's producing outcomes that we're unhappy with, and figure out how to modify the incentive structure in order to produce outcomes that we'd prefer.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The best way to fight AIDS is to not have sex with an infected person. For most everyone on /. that's not going to be a problem.
This is a very interesting idea, and it sounds promising. I would sound one note of caution, though: AIDS is not the only auto-immune disorder, and mucking with the immune system to make it hyperactive (especially if this is done as a vaccine) runs the risk of bringing on other immune disorders, like Multiple Sclerosis. MS is still very poorly understood, and nobody really knows what sorts of factors can bring it on.
I know that they have been testing this for three years without observed side effects, but MS is something that can be with you for 5 or 10 years before you know, or even suspect, that you have it.
Still, good work, and here's hoping that this can help a lot of people.
From the What's That Clickin' Noise? show.
Nope, no sig
A lot of the blame on the spread of AIDS to enormous numbers (in some countries something like 40% of the populace) can be put squarely on the African governments. The South African President is an HIV denier (he think's it's caused by poverty). South Africa has a prevalence of HIV of 21% Other countries like Swaziland didn't even want to try anything like education, or even talk about the disease with their people. They now have an estimated prevalance of HIV of 39%. Other countries like Uganda did use education programs and talked about using condoms. They have a prevalance of 4%.
AccountKiller
...divide and conquer...master this art and you can be an Overlord...
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Short condom makers.
What was once true, is no longer so
Score one for pedants everywhere! How the hell does this get "Informative"?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't HIV an RNA virus? RNA viruses mutates at a very high rate since they lack the DNA error correction / checking. The main reason that HIV becomes resistant to drugs is a result of normal Darwinism. A set of the resistant mutations become are more "fit" and thrive. If the cure here is an engineered HIV virus, I imagine that this new virus is also RNA based. I'm making that assumption since there were no details in the article, but I believe all HIV viruses are of the RNA variety. What is there to stop this new RNA virus from mutating into something else, perhaps even more harmful than HIV? Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the anti gene therapy guys, its just that engineering Human RNA viruses seems very risky.
Fine - go get yourself all jacked up with HIV. Wait a few years, and THEN tell me HIV doesn't cause AIDS.
In fact, the burden of proof is on you to actually find me some HIV with which to inject myself. HIV itself has not been detected (reverse transcriptase activity does not count since it is not unique to retroviruses). This is why antibody tests are used: there is no gold standard for HIV infection, and the "HIV tests" admit this.
So maybe you were suggesting that I inject myself with the blood of an "HIV positive" person? The burden of proof is on you to show me: A) which proteins reacted, B) how those proteins (assuming you use western blot, p24 only? others? be specific!) are known to be indicative of HIV infection, and C) how those antibodies must NOT be cross-reacting, since HIV researchers have admitted this possibility and the polyclonal properties of antigens are well-known.
The burden of proof is on YOU. I do not accept "correlation implies causation" as science, I do not accept authority as science, I do not accept insults as science, and I do not accept consensus as science. You have to tell me how and why your science is correct, especially when it is concerning a retrovirus which is alleged to be incurable and fatal and an alleged treatment which produces the same symptoms of the syndrome itself.
Note to mods: I know that what I am writing is extremely politically incorrect. AIDS is part of our culture and has broad support on both the Left and the Right. Saying that I don't believe in HIV is one million times more offensive than saying that I don't believe in Jesus. Studying HIV and AIDS is difficult, rigorous, heavy reading, but to choose not to accept the mainstream theory is NOT tantamount to believing in conspiracy theories or engaging in pseudoscience. I hate all conspiracy theories and my objection to the mainstream theory is grounded in what I believe is systematic bad science. Do not mod me down for being a dissenter. If my views lack merit then they will be destroyed by reason once all the facts are laid out and the bullshit is removed.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Like the highlander, and perhaps siamese fighting fish, there can be only one Pope.
Look to the history of the anti-popes: the poor losers in the pope-Pope debates. As fortunes (and armies) shift some popes have been deemed anti-popes after a time as pope, only to be re-pope'd after they (or a friend) regained the papacy. History has been ambivalent about certain popes - switching between pope* and anti-pope as many as six times over centuries of historical debate.
Personally, I've always been afraid my Pope will dash himself senseless against the mirror.
PS: I certainly wouldn't be one to criticise the Holy See's position on AIDS. Considering what they'll do to each other, I am truly terrified of the treatments for mere lay-people.
* er - the one I am thinking about is still under serious consideration for a re-instatement. This would mean that it should be capitalized: 'switching between Pope and anti-pope'.
in one of his books, "virtual light" i think it was, there is talk about a guy that scientists were able to capture a strain of the aids virus from to manufacture a vaccine from. people worshipped him like a messiah and there were holidays in his name. funny how life (sort of) imitates art.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Dom has a very similar bit with the "key" phrase being "I don't mean that in a bad way".
I've always thought, why dont they give AIDS to people with Leukemia.
Too many white blood cells + weak immune system = balance?
You're one of those people that stands up and salutes whenever the government decides that you're too free, and that the terrorists will win if you're allowed to play with model rockets, own a gun, or leave the country without special permission from the DHS, right? Damn American cowards. What happened to people who were willing to die and/or kill for freedom? When did people lose their respect for Human dignity? When did clinging to life like a rat become the preferred way of existing in this blighted society?
Yes - sure let's discuss this in a rational way - you are a complete Fuckwit. Rather than prove your point you do a Bushy and hide behind a bullshit 3 year old's comment. As I said what a FuckWit.
I think this is *BRILLIANT* news.
I have the good fortune to be middle-aged. Because of this I'm old enough to have seen people die from AIDS with no possible help. My wife still cries massively when we meet with parents of our dead frinds.
Again, brilliant news.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I, for one, welcome our new STD-resistant valley girls :)
Best use of this meme, this year.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Wait... what?
Seriously, in all the time and with all the people I've debated the McDonald's hot-coffee case, this is the very first time I've heard of a theory that the specific restaurant was to blame, that it was for the sake of a promotion, that McDonald's had been warned by health inspectors and that it was an isolated incident. The summaries of the case I've seen all agree that McDonald's standard practice was to serve coffee at that temperature, and that there were hundreds of previous settled claims. No mention of health inspectors.
The reason Stella Liebeck got millions from the jury was because McDonald's blew her off, refusing to pay her medical claim where they had paid hundreds of others, and the jury found that to be so cold and callous that they socked McDonald's for it.
-- Old Man Kensey
Sources RE: McDonald's? I can't find anything verifying the claims you are making.
Of course; if you like Java, you can read it that way.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca