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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. '"
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.
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.
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.