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Human Blood May Contain A Cure For AIDS
Lisandro writes "German scientists at the University of Ulm have identified a natural ingredient of human blood that prevents the HIV-1 virus from from infecting immune cells and multiplying. The molecule, which they call virus-inhibitory peptide (VIRIP), promises new types of effective treatment for HIV in the future. 'Tweaks to its amino acid components boosted its anti-HIV potency by two orders of magnitude. Tests also showed that some derivatives of the molecule are highly stable in human blood plasma, and non-toxic even at very high concentrations. A synthetic version of VIRIP also proved effective at blocking HIV, excluding the possibility that some other factor was responsible. VIRIP targets a sugar molecule which HIV uses to infect a host cell. '"
If you don't mean to be insensitive or brash, why are you being that way?
I have lost two people so far to this disease in my life, and I have more than 5 friends that are HIV+ today.
To say that type 1 diabetes, a treatable disease, deserves more money than HIV/AIDS research is absolutely ludicrious. Type 1 diabetes will kill you if left untreated. HIV/AIDS will kill you, period. The retrovirals help extend your life, but have no doubt, it is a terminal disease. Have you ever seen someone die of HIV/AIDS? Please go down to Africa and explain to the people living with HIV and AIDS there that they aren't as important as a diabetes patient.
Are you aware how expensive the medication to treat HIV is? Compare that to the cost of insulin then get back to me.
It may be true to a certain degree in the West, but in Africa where 15 million have died from AIDS, and 24 million are infected, it's clearly not so 'easy' to prevent.
Errr... the problem with HIV/AIDS in Africa is a cultural and economic one, not one of "can't be prevented."
The use of condoms drastically reduces infection rates. The problem that I've been reading about in Africa is that condoms are not utilized because they interfere too much in the love making process (ie, takes too long to put them on, and they're too expensive). A prototype device is being introduced here to try and address those issues.
Spread of this disease is preventable (which was the GP post's point); efforts to educate and provide the protection would be immediately effective versus waiting for a scientific cure... which would also have to be made available cheaply enough to help impoverished Africa (ie, not for many years after being made available on the market).
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
That may be true, in the same, clinical way that lung cancer and obesity are easily preventable diseases. The complication arises when you try to change human behavior on a societal level. People consume carbonated soda and french fries becase it tastes good! People smoke because it feels good! The same is true of sex and IV drugs.
Add to this the fact that humans are very bad at assessing risk, and you have a recipe for the HIV epidemic.
Sure, some people weren't as careful as they should have been and got infected, but guess what... They live in the same world with the rest of us and can subsequently spread their illness. This is a public health issue. Morality judgements of people infected with STDs don't bring about cures for them any faster. Nor does the attempted imposition of the same morality on the rest of the, as yet, uninfected population seem to be having much effect in slowing down the spread either, let alone stopping it.
How 'bout instead of taking research money away from HIV and giving it some more morally worthy disease, we just resolve to spend more research money on all of them and stop making questionable moral assessments of sick people.
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
At 16, you should be focusing more on increasing physical activity levels than dieting to lose weight, but if you had 50lbs to lose in the first place, you're doing the right thing in dropping a good bit of it.
I'd suggest stopping the low carb diet once you hit somewhere below 15% bodyfat. A good indication is when what might be a spare tire turns into more of a small set of saddlebags, and you've got decent definition in your arms.
You've got at least two, probably 3 or 4, years of growth left in you, and it would be a pity to stunt your growth due to any deficiencies in nutrients you suffered losing weight you could lose later anyway.
Comparing AIDS and the common cold is ridiculous. You can get the cold from almost anything, but to get AIDS you have to either have sex with someone who has it, or inject their blood...As a virus goes, it's extremely difficult to catch.
While blaming the victim is rarely worthwhile, this is a disease that could basically be eradicated by education, testing, and self control. The reason it's spread so widely is that people aren't into any of those things.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Yeah, well if YOUR so omniscient, you'd know the poor guy can't type very well. Not to mention, if you're so omnipotent and omni-benevolent, why'd you go and do that to poor Stephen in the first place, huh?
I mean really, you simply ARE. Real Godheads neither exist nor don't exist.
Sincerely,
Brahman
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
My fiance is a Red Cross certified HIV/AIDS instructor, so I've gotten a good earfull of what is and isn't true about AIDS "cures".
The "cocktail" that's currently used to treat HIV infection drugs to prevent HIV from entering cells, drugs to keep it from reproducing inside cells, and drugs to keep it from breaking out of infected cells. From what I read in the summary, this new treatment fits in that first category. Good thing, because HIV has this nasty tendency to mutate and become immune to any given drug after years and years of use. When that happens, the patient has no choice but to switch over to another combination of drugs, probably more expensive, and probably not as friendly to the body. If this "blood-derived" treatment adds to the list of patient-friendly treatments available, that's fantastic.
But the way I read this, it isn't the magic bullet "cure for AIDS" everyone is wishing for. It can slow down the progress of an infection, but reversing that progress is another matter altogether. Ditto for undoing damage to the immune system.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
On the part of their parents, perhaps? You don't get choices when you're that age, you get things handed to you. If you manage to be born without contracting HIV from an HIV positive mother, which is pretty likely if you can score a c-section, but still possible for a natural birth, you can still catch it from breast milk.
I still think coming out of the body of someone who is HIV positive qualifies as "hard to get this disease", and "drinking the breast milk of an infected individual" is pretty high up there as well.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I am not a scientist, but there is no guarantee that this particular strain of HIV can exist without that sugar molecule, or that evolution will occur fast enough to save the species. For example, this may be like removing oxygen from a human environment. Sure, we may one day evolve the ability to exist on another common chemical, but we could never do it in time, if a natural catastrophe should strike.
This could be an excellent argument for organizations trying to distribute AIDs drugs in third world nations (once they get their hands on this one), since the practice of curing only those who can afford it would simply allow the virus to exist long enough to evolve (if possible), whereas curing everybody could could make it go the way of polio and small-pox.
But, I reiterate. I am not a scientist, so the next person to read this may point out where I am wrong.