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Experts Claim HIV Patients Made Non-Infectious
Misanthrope writes to tell us that Swiss scientists are claiming that with proper treatment HIV patients can be made non-infectious. "The statement's headline statement says that 'after review of the medical literature and extensive discussion,' the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV / AIDS resolves that, 'An HIV-infected person on antiretroviral therapy with completely suppressed viraemia ("effective ART") is not sexually infectious, i.e. cannot transmit HIV through sexual contact.'"
I promise...... Trust me....
I have HIV and I haven't used a condom in several years with dozens of sexual partners.
Nobodoy has called me back saying they have AIDS, so I must not be infectious.
One can only hope that the treatments can be made available at a decent price, so that the folks who are most likely to pass it on--poor people who don't know how to use contraception and the like--will be able to be treated.
Unlikely, though, I dare say...those drug companies do love their income.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
If this is true, then it effectively means that the world can be AIDS free in a generation. I'm willing to bet it's not going to happen, though. The drug companies have no interest in this.
My UID is prime. Hah!
Can you imagine the shitstorm that would ensue if they're wrong? It takes a whole lot of balls to not just put your reputation on the line like this, but the lives of thousands of people too. I really hope they're right.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
but it does make life possible for those around you.
I sucks but its a step in the right direction. (But will any company take the next step; after all, once YOU're dead, the disease is eradicated.)
Sucks to think like an actuary...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It's in the article but non-infectious here does not mean it's impossible for HIV transmission during sex. It's only improbable and of course the probability of transfer is unknown - as even in the studies done with these drugs other protection measures were used (of course). Furthermore this is not new; rather it's a statement made by a few experts based on older research. The statement is meant to be a standard taken throughout the healthcare world.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
You're asking people other than you to change their behavior based on your principles?
If you can figure out how to accomplish that reliably, then every government, armed service, advertising agency, and school wants to speak with you right now.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Just like drug companies had no interest in eliminating small pox? There are plenty of diseases to go around, and more of them turn up all the time.
Admittedly, I'm too young to appreciate the politics that went on when small pox was "eradicated", so it would be nice if anyone can point out what's so different about the small pox issue and the AIDS issue.
Is it just sexually? What about blood transfusions? What about sharing needles?
AIDS is spreading rapidly in different parts of the world by different means. In Africa and India/Asia, it's spreading because of unprotected sex. In eastern Europe and Russia, it's being spread predominately from dirty needles used for drugs.
well its obviously not currently working, so i think thats why they're still trying to find a cure/preventative.
Probably not, barring some kind of major mutation. 1. It's hard to transmit, requiring sexual or blood contact. A significant portion, maybe even a majority, of the American population for example is in monogamous relationships and doesn't do drugs. 2. Its slow to spread. Before you get AIDS, you get HIV, and sometimes HIV never really develops into AIDS, other times it takes decades. In either case the specimen has ample time to reproduce. Even if HIV mutates to overcome both of those things, in the long term it would kill off huge segments of the species where it can easily take hold, it is extremely likely some part of the species will be able to resist it. Now would that be you or me? Different question...
Is abstinence really that difficult?
You want the average human to stop doing what evolution has spent 300 million years programming them to do? Its kind of like asking bears to not eat trout. Its what they do!
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
>You want the average human to stop doing what evolution has spent 300 million years programming them to do?
Really? Evolution has been progrmaming people to kill their mates through disease? Whoa, I've missed a lot in sex ed!
I love how only the most base animal desires get propped out by evolution. I love how people just never say "Hey evolution has instilled logic and compassion into humans." Or "Evolution has instilled moral action" Or "Evolution has instilled guilt and conscious thought." Instead its always fuck and kill, and if you think thats all evolution can do then youre sorely mistaken.
The real question is the ease of being able to control one's sexual desires vs the the control compassion and empathy have on us. Considering your comment could be (and has) been used to justify everything from rape to office sexual harassment, its interesting how society hasnt given up on some basic moral structures. Evolution again! Tricky aint it?
I think TFA concentrates on sexual transmission because dirty needles have really become rarer in Switzerland, and thus play a less significant role in the AIDS transmission compared to before the introduction of these efforts (or compared to other countries where such efforts don't exist).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Scientists come up with a device to make HIV patients non-infections.
This scientific breakthrough will bring hope to millions of people infected with the virus.
Sources indicate it will be named 'condom'.
Is abstinence really that difficult?
Historically it has certainly proven to be. Not everyone on this planet is educated, has enough wealth that prostitution isn't tempting, or even is in a position to say no if they wish to. You're not talking about the abstinence of a few wealthy individuals but of everyone on the planet infected with an STD.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
the CDC.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's cheap, small, easily mass-produced, easy to use, 100% effective... It's called a CONDOM.
How I wish the various religious groups and governments would endorse proper sex education and provision of a plentiful supply of condoms, instead of pushing the abstinence only bulls---, which has completely failed.
So, even if they are 100% absolutely right for the samples they have, at the time the experiment was conducted, that confidence must fall as you increase the range of HIV viruses and the range of time they have to mutate.
You must also consider that we're on some Nth generation of anti-virals because AIDS has mutated to develop resistance to all of the others. The second that happens with the current generation is the second the risk goes from near-zero to infinity, and nobody knows for sure when that moment will be. Hence the use of all kinds of toxic substances and anti-virals mixed together, so that immunity from one won't help, so minimizing the risk of mutant strains surviving. But you know that they will, sooner or later, and that when they do, they will spread. It might be tomorrow, but I'm guessing it's actually not too likely this side of 2020.
Of course, if everyone considers it safe, and takes no precautions, I imagine the probability of such a mutation surviving and spreading will go up. As such, even if it is "safe" for the moment, it can't be safe forever and when it does develop resistance, it may take years - or decades - for the resistant strain to even get detected.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
For every one antibiotic rx I write for an illness that probably doesn't need it (generally because I am a wimp) I have to convince another ten people who are certain that they need antibiotics... that they don't.
Generally the reason most physicians prescribe inappropriately is because asshats like Mr "I have not had a doctor do, or say anything to me that I did not already know since I was about 10" know better that they absolutely do need antibiotics (when they obviously don't). It takes thirty seconds to write the prescription and sometimes thirty minutes to escape the asshat.
I actually had a complaint letter written to the CEO of the hospital where I worked a few years back from a parent who brought their child into the ER with what was obviously a viral syndrome. Their letter literally said I brought my child to the ER to get a prescription for antibiotics, not to be told that he didn't need antibiotics. And I get several complaints yearly from irate people who didn't like my answer that they didn't need antibiotics. I've never gotten a complaint when I prescribed them.
So you can't have it both ways. If you want a doctor who has real clinical acumen, you can't also have him be a prescription vending machine.
So who wants to be the one to test this hypothesis?
On another note, how can you say for sure if this even works? Usually whenever an AIDS vaccine is tried in humans, it is given to a population of people at high risk of getting HIV(usually gay men). How can you tell if something like this stops people from spreading it, when their partners are interacting with other, infectious people? They are likely to get HIV regardless, if not from the non-infectious person, then from someone else. How do you figure out which partner gave who what?
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.