Will it finally be cured?
Posted by PitAIDS THAT IS!
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_3482712
Posted by Stalolin****ing mormons.
Posted by BonerPit, you will always have AIDS. Get over it.
<3 Bill
Posted by Fei-on Castor[quote=God/Jesus/Joseph Smith/Mormon guys]Further, CSAs appear to be deadly to all known strains of HIV.
This is where their research falters.
AIDS is a retrovirus. It mutates at a ridiculously rapid rate. There are several million strands of AIDS in any given person with actual AIDS (meaning that at some pont, the T-cell count of the victim has fallen below 200). All the strands of HIV that exist today may be replaced by completely different ones tommorrow, ones that are resistant to these drugs developed by God -- I mean, the mormons.
It is impossible to introduce something to the body that will kill the virus, due to the virus' nature. The only possible way to do it would be to introduce something to the body that makes the body's natural systems work harder at killing it.
Even then, you could only theoretically kill the virus particles that live in the blood stream, and that's only about 2 - 4% of the total virus particles in an AIDS victim. The other 90 something percent resides in various glands (lymph nodes and such), and won't be killed, and will cause problems in the future.
When you get a virus, any virus, it doesn't ever go away. If you've ever had a cold or a flu, you still have that virus living inside you, right now. The only reason it doesn't affect you is because your body has developed the antibodies necessary to keep the virus load at bay.
You can't do this with HIV because of how rapidly it mutates. Your body does develop antibodies, and with those, it manages to kill a few thousand, maybe a few million virus particles. But a set of antibodies can only kill a particular strain, and when one HIV particle takes over a T-cell, it eventually births several million new particles, each with a relatively unique structure, making them immune to the antibodies your system has produced.
The bottom line about AIDS is simple. It's eventually going to kill all the people that it can kill. Sort of like the bubonic plague.
At some point, some human will be born with a freak resistance to AIDS. He'll get the virus, but for some reason, it won't harm him. Just a common natural mutation, you know? It happens all the time. That person will have offspring with the same mutation, and within a long period of time, all those not born with that mutation will have been killed by the virus, leaving only those naturally immune to it. And hence, the human race will grow alongside the virus, developing a symbiotic relationship with it.
Simians (such as monkeys) almost all have SIV (Pretty much the same thing as HIV), but it only harms a small amount because they've already gone through the process I just described.
So we can never "cure" AIDS because of it's nature. It can't happen. There's no advance in technology that's gonna change that. We can create new treatments that can offer people with AIDS a symptom free life for a long time, such as the treatments I've described in the past. Treatments involving protease inhibitors and powerful stimulants. But that's no cure. You can't "cure" a virus. You can simply adapt to it.
Posted by casawesome. we can all have promiscuous sex again! hurray!
Posted by Lord of SpamHardly the point he was trying to make, though I doubt you'll ever be in the position (no pun intended) to test the theory.
And, for the record, there are small groups of people who are immune to it, in Iceland, I think. Just goes to prove that Vikings really are the toughest people alive.
Posted by Vampiro V. Empire
Quoted post: though I doubt you'll ever be in the position (no pun intended) to test the theory.
If it's the cas I'm thinking it is, he'll find a way...
... he'll find a way.
Quoted post: Just goes to prove that Vikings really are the toughest people alive.
Also people who raped countless women. I mean, after getting infected so many times, you eventually became immune to just about anything, right?
Posted by GameMiestro[quote=Fei-on]You can't "cure" a virus. You can simply adapt to it.
You can completely obliterate it... seeing the progress made in the last 10 years in stopping the disease, yes, it is possible.
Posted by Vampiro V. EmpireAnything's eventually possible.
Anything.
Posted by Boner
Quoting Fei-on: This is where their research falters............blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...........
So we can never "cure" AIDS because of it's nature. It can't happen. There's no advance in technology that's gonna change that. We can create new treatments that can offer people with AIDS a symptom free life for a long time, such as the treatments I've described in the past. Treatments involving protease inhibitors and powerful stimulants. But that's no cure. You can't "cure" a virus. You can simply adapt to it.
So it's like I said....Pit will always have AIDS :-D
Posted by Fate
Quoting GameMiestro: You can completely obliterate it... seeing the progress made in the last 10 years in stopping the disease, yes, it is possible.
You'd have to illegally condense the AIDS population into communities and completely get a handle on all forms of sex to completely obliterate it. I'm not quite sure, but I think AIDS can be spontaneous.
I've had my own little stabs at this issue that seem scientifically uninformed. Bleach can kill AIDS, so a silly little thought pops into my head and I think that bleachy water can be put through the human body in some way without hurting it. You can take all the dirty blood out of somebody and keep the body alive artificially until it gets clean, then replace the old dirty blood with new blood! :/
Posted by Fei-on Castor
Quoting GameMiestro: You can completely obliterate it... seeing the progress made in the last 10 years in stopping the disease, yes, it is possible.
Figure this math problem.
1 divided by 2.
Take that answer, and divide it by 2.
And take that answer and divide it by 2.
Continue doing this till you reach 0.
You see what I'm getting at? Yes, we've made significant progress in the last ten years, but none of that progress went in the direction of "stopping" the disease. We've made strides in the area of "slowing down" the disease.
The most recent drugs available are called "protease inhibitors", which do just what the name suggests; they inhibit the production of the enzyme "protease" in the human body.
Unfortunately, without protease, you'll die. So we can't simply cut off protease production. However, without protease, the virus can't reproduce. So it drastically slows virus reproduction, thus keeping a somewhat healthy immune system, so you're able fight off the opportunistic infections that kill people who have AIDS (as you know, AIDS doesn't kill you. It makes you so weak that something else easily does).
HIV needs a live human being to survive. As long as you are alive, if you contract HIV, it's there to stay. Just like any other virus.
In the past, here at VGC, I have offered a fairly powerful treatment for AIDS. It is not a cure because a "cure" can't exist for a viral infection, but it is a treatment that goes beyond any modern treatment.
Unfortunately, it's rather controversial, so I doubt anyone would even do the testing necessary to determine if it could work.
If anyone is interested, PM me and I'll tell you what I have in mind. Hell, you could even sell my idea to some medical group and be super rich and famous as the guy who discovered a super-effective AIDS treatment.
But if you do that, you have to give me five bucks. Serious.
Posted by Fei-on Castor[quote]You'd have to illegally condense the AIDS population into communities and completely get a handle on all forms of sex to completely obliterate it. I'm not quite sure, but I think AIDS can be spontaneous.
I've had my own little stabs at this issue that seem scientifically uninformed. Bleach can kill AIDS, so a silly little thought pops into my head and I think that bleachy water can be put through the human body in some way without hurting it. You can take all the dirty blood out of somebody and keep the body alive artificially until it gets clean, then replace the old dirty blood with new blood! :/
Actually, bleach can't kill AIDS, because viruses aren't technically alive, so they can't be "killed". When your body fights off a virus, it removes in a much more complicated way then usage of chemical compounds.
The virus can't survive outside of a human body for more than a few seconds. If you took a vial full of HIV, and dumped it on a counter, all the virus particles would be dead within 20 second or so. It's a VERY fragile virus, really. The only reason it is so deadly to humans is because the cell it chooses as its host is also the cell that is supposed to play a huge role in killing it.
It's not remotely spontaneous. It's definitely caused by HIV, which is a finite entity.
Furthermore:
[quote=Me]Even then, you could only theoretically kill the virus particles that live in the blood stream, and that's only about 2 - 4% of the total virus particles in an AIDS victim. The other 90 something percent resides in various glands (lymph nodes and such), and won't be killed, and will cause problems in the future.
.
Posted by FateWell, not killed, but destroyed. I'm pretty sure the body could be manipulated in some way.
Are you suggesting that scientists create an AIDS-killing inorganic virus?
Posted by NES Queen
Quoting Fate: I've had my own little stabs at this issue that seem scientifically uninformed. Bleach can kill AIDS, so a silly little thought pops into my head and I think that bleachy water can be put through the human body in some way without hurting it. You can take all the dirty blood out of somebody and keep the body alive artificially until it gets clean, then replace the old dirty blood with new blood! :/
1. AIDS is a syndrome, HIV is a virus. Bleach can kill viruses, not syndromes (group of symptoms that collectively encompass or characterize an illness)
2. it's called dialysis, but as fei-on already mentioned its not just about "cleaning" your blood. even if you dialyzed a patient with HIV, the viral load would climb back up within a few days or so. its possible it may help with treatment, but certainly isn't a cure. same reason why people with kidney disease aren't "cured" by having a dialysis treatment. or people with autoimmune diseases aren't "cured" by plasmapheresis procedures.
[quote=fei-on]The virus can't survive outside of a human body for more than a few seconds.
not true of all viruses. certain viruses have the ability to change form (sporulation) in different environments and virtually are indestructible.
Posted by Fei-on Castor
Quoting NES Queen:
not true of all viruses. certain viruses have the ability to change form (sporulation) in different environments and virtually are indestructible.
You'd know more about it than I, but doesn't HIV die in seconds when exposed to dry air? Doesn't the virus itself just rupture within seconds?
Posted by ExoXile
Quoting Lord of Spam:
And, for the record, there are small groups of people who are immune to it, in Iceland, I think. Just goes to prove that Vikings really are the toughest people alive.
Iceland didn't have Vikings, WTF!?
The Vikings invaded Iceland, and raped everything in their seight!
Along with logs... and stuff.
So HAH! >=(
Still, you're point's correct. :o
Posted by higbvuyb
Quoting Fei-on: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
No. Even though HIV mutates a lot, if it's main 'structure' changes, it won't work like AIDS anymore, or it will just not work. like, you can have a human with three arms or one, but you can't replace it's brain with a spanner or an appendix and expect it to keep working. If we find something that effectively inhibits it's functioning, it will probably die off. Another solution is to nuke, but the person probably won't survive.
Another way is to keep the person in a sterile bubble,while all their T(?) cells are destroyed, and the capacity to produce them are removed. THen, when the virus eventually dies out, stem cells are used to regrow T cell growing bone marrow.
Anyway, viruses aren't exactly 'alive'.
Posted by FateCan't they still be essentially "killed?"
Posted by NES Queen
Quoting higbvuyb: No. Even though HIV mutates a lot, if it's main 'structure' changes, it won't work like AIDS anymore, or it will just not work.
Ok, maybe i'm just being anal retentive since i'm a scientist, but its getting quite annoying to see people confusing the two over and over. In the most simplest way I can put it:
Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome
HIV is a virus. It makes you get sick by not allowing the body to fight off infections. As it replicates itself it destroys your white blood cells that help you fight off simple infections. Once it gets inside your body, you can never get rid of it.
AIDS is a syndrome. Meaning a collection of different symptoms and illnesses that collectively encompass an illness. A person infected with HIV can eventually succumb to other illnesses as a result of their lowered white cell count that was caused from the HIV infection. Once a patient develops these additional illnesses, they are said to have AIDS. Should they be able to overcome those additional illnesses and symptoms, they will no longer have AIDS.
[quote]like, you can have a human with three arms or one, but you can't replace it's brain with a spanner or an appendix and expect it to keep working. If we find something that effectively inhibits it's functioning, it will probably die off.
you're not correct. even though HIV is a highly mutable virus, it is still functioning quite perfectly (unfortunately for us) and even worse, its ability to mutate is what prevents us from developing a successful vaccine. if you were suggesting that we force a mutation on the virus to try and "kill" it, most likely it would just end up mutating in a way to make itself stronger. (think of antibiotic resistant bacteria). we have certain medications that slow the replication of viruses by inhibiting certain enzymes and proteins they need to complete their life cycle, but we are currently not able to "kill" them outright.
[quote]Another way is to keep the person in a sterile bubble,while all their T(?) cells are destroyed, and the capacity to produce them are removed. THen, when the virus eventually dies out, stem cells are used to regrow T cell growing bone marrow.
Anyway, viruses aren't exactly 'alive'.
i'm not quite sure if you're trying to be funny, or simply dont understand anything you're attempting to talk about. capacity to produce what is removed? the T cells or the virus? either way, the virus would not "eventually die out". the patient would die before the virus exhausted all possible ways of replicating. and last time i checked we dont have a stem cell farm where you just walk up to the cell/organ/tissue that you need and simply get it. they're not easy to culture, and even more difficult to "persuade" into going into a certain cell line where it would "grow" into the product of your choice. and again, even if this magical farm did exist, use of stem cells to replace "bad" body parts will never work if the underlying reason they went "bad" is not addressed. meaning that if you no longer have T cells because of HIV infection, your new T cells would become infected and destroyed just as quickly as your old ones did. and FYI, T cells mature and become as such in the thymus, not the bone marrow.
[quote=fei-on]You'd know more about it than I, but doesn't HIV die in seconds when exposed to dry air? Doesn't the virus itself just rupture within seconds?
you're kind confusing things a bit. as far as i know it doesn't "explode" or anything like that the instance it leaves the body. but supposing a drop of HIV infected blood falls onto the counter, once the blood dries up, the amount of infectious viral particles reduces by up to 90-99%. so it's not about reaching the air, its about the environment the virus is in (nice, soft, squishy, wet blood). once the blood dries up, the virus is no longer in ideal conditions and it cannot survive. As reference, HBV (Hepatitis B) can remain viable for up to a week outside the body. However, neither HIV or HBV can replicate outside of a human host. They can possibly survive, but will not replicate unti they get inside of you.
Posted by Roger SmithWell I say this: There's no money in a cure.
Hope that didn't come off as too negative.
Posted by NES Queen
Quoting Roger Smith: Well I say this: There's no money in a cure.
but there are fortunes of money to be made with a vaccine. so your theory is flawed.
there's no governmental conspiracy theory to keep the "bad" people of the world infected with HIV. i'm definitely willing to bet the goverment knows way more about treatment/prevention than they're willing to let on, but I doubt they would hold back a cure from us simply because they wouldnt be raking in the high health care costs to treat HIV patients.
even if they would, non-government funded labs would still keep trying. real scientists are involved for the sake of science, not for the potential monetary payoff in the end.
Posted by Fei-on Castor
Quoting NES Queen: i'm not quite sure if you're trying to be funny, or simply dont understand anything you're attempting to talk about. capacity to produce what is removed? the T cells or the virus? either way, the virus would not "eventually die out". the patient would die before the virus exhausted all possible ways of replicating. and last time i checked we dont have a stem cell farm where you just walk up to the cell/organ/tissue that you need and simply get it. they're not easy to culture, and even more difficult to "persuade" into going into a certain cell line where it would "grow" into the product of your choice. and again, even if this magical farm did exist, use of stem cells to replace "bad" body parts will never work if the underlying reason they went "bad" is not addressed. meaning that if you no longer have T cells because of HIV infection, your new T cells would become infected and destroyed just as quickly as your old ones did. and FYI, T cells mature and become as such in the thymus, not the bone marrow.
Furthermore, we've already cited how the overwhelming majority of virus particles in a person suffering from AIDS are present in glands such as lymph glands, and only a small portion exist in the person's blood stream. Killing the viruses in the bloodstream solves nothing; the ones not in the blood stream will be out in no time, going to work on you.
For clarification, Queenage, I believe the technical standard for AIDS is when your T-Cell count drops below 200 ppm. I THINK that's it. I know 200 is the magic number, but the "ppm" may be incorrect. And if once it has fallen below 200, you have AIDS. Even if it goes back up as far as 6 or 7 hundred (and it can, with treatment), you're still considered to have AIDS.
However, if all symptoms indicative of a person with AIDS should permanantly cease, obviously, you would cease to have the syndrome. However, we have never seen cases of this, and I doubt we will in our lifetimes, given the nature of the bug.
Hey, out of curiosity, have any of you guys heard of bug-chasers?
And I think I have an idea of where the virus came from assuming we dont' already know that. But I do understand that in the 1960s, several aid groups from the USA were vaccinating people in Africa for polio. We were incubating the polio vaccines in the kidney tissue of simians. It's fairly common knowledge that most simians carry a virus that is strikingly similar to HIV (called SIV), but simians are immune to it (thanks natural selection), and carrying it doesn't harm them. But when we incubated polio vaccine in kidney tissue, the vaccine became contaminated with SIV, which then found a new home in recipiants of the vaccine. And thus, HIV made its way into the human populous. This would explain why HIV rates are much higher in African countries. Because everyone's parents got HIV from polio vaccines, thus, most people were just born with it. Those who weren't contracted it from sex or blood contact.
But, uh, yeah.