Man Officially Cured of HIV

[deanjames]

Interesting story

 

 

For the first time, a man has been declared officially cured of HIV. The remedy may nearly have killed him, but it opens a door—just a crack—to hope that we may someday kill off the scourge for good. Strangely enough, the diagnosis that most concerned Timothy Ray Brown in 2007 was acute myeloid leukemia. HIV has been increasingly thought of as a manageable disease, though certainly a terribly burdensome one. What brought the 42-year old Brown under the care of Germany's Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital was the more immediate threat his cancer posed.

 

The treatment Brown underwent was aggressive: chemotherapy that destroyed the majority of his immune cells. Total body irradiation. Finally, a risky stem-cell transplant that nearly a third of patients don't survive—but that appears to have completely cured Brown of HIV.

Doctors were savvy when they chose a stem cell donor for Brown. The man whose bone marrow they used has a particular genetic mutation, present in an incredibly small percentage of people, that makes him almost invulnerable to HIV. With Brown's own defenses decimated by treatments, the healthy, HIV-resistant donor cells repopulated his immune system. The initial indications that the virus had abated were promising. But only just now, having taken no antiretroviral drugs since the transplant, and following extensive testing shows no signs whatsoever of HIV, have his doctors given the official word: He's cured.

 

What does this mean for the future of treatment? It's not as though every HIV patient can or would want to go through the tremendous suffering that was prelude to Brown's recovery, or be able to afford the procedure if they could or did. But for the first time, we know that HIV can be cured, not just managed. It opens new avenues of research—gene therapy, stem cell treatments—that may otherwise have been thought dead ends.

 

 

http://gizmodo.com/5713498/man-officially-cured-of-hiv?skyline=true&s=i

[Hua Ngoo]

Nah, f*ck it just wear a condom, save the hassle

[El Cata]

This story is highly dubious, although the article references research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which I'm perusing ATM. It's entirely plausible, given the immunity of several individuals in Africa.

 

I've heard that if you bum a virgin, you will be cured of AIDS, but where to find a virgin in Pattaya? What's Edge's address again?

 

Peace.

Edited December 15, 2010 by El Cata

[kopite]

Surprising I haven't seen this in the news or papers, assuming it's true.

[deanjames]

Surprising I haven't seen this in the news or papers, assuming it's true.

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hiv+cured&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLL_en-GB&redir_esc=&ei=jk0JTcvAO8mFhQej06yXDw#q=hiv+cured&hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-Address&rlz=1I7GGLL_en-GB&tbs=nws:1,qdr:w&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=lE0JTbmjKpO2hAeMzIykDw&ved=0CBAQpwU&fp=20319007d454c460

[Shake Girl]

great news.... thanks for the update

[ExpatDave]

 

Doctors were savvy when they chose a stem cell donor for Brown. The man whose bone marrow they used has a particular genetic mutation, present in an incredibly small percentage of people, that makes him almost invulnerable to HIV.

 

 

[QuotaMan]

Nah, f*ck it just wear a condom, save the hassle

 

True that.

 

One wonders though how many guys will continue to bareback without an ounce of worry, believing that a 'cure' will be found soon enough in their lifetime so no big worries.

[goone]

chemotherapy does not cure anything it just destroys good or bad cells,story is Bs.

[jcp7620]

Interesting. Assuming that this is true of course.

 

So if I read this right, they basically killed off the guys immune system and replaced it with one from someone who is immune to HIV.

 

I wonder if they could skip right to the immune system transplant part on a otherwise healthy person as sort of a HIV precaution, then if said individual actually caught HIV the virus would only kill off the original cells and he would still have the transplanted cells left to fend off infections, might make getting AIDS nothing worse than a flu.

 

Hoax or not I do think that the future of medicine is in stem cells, too bad that there are some people that let their beliefs get in the way of what some argue has been one of the greatest medical advances to date, but that's a debate probably best left for another thread.

Edited January 5, 2011 by jcp7620

[asshole]

chemotherapy does not cure anything it just destroys good or bad cells,story is Bs.

 

NEJM is pretty careful. I doubt it is BS.

 

The aggressive radiation and chemo wipe out the cancer, and marrow/stem cells (and other things). So now you are cancer free (HIV freee in this case also), but you are also have no ability to make WBCs. The marrow transplant replaces the stem cells and you can make WBCs again. Unless it is autologous, you will be on drugs for the rest of your life.

 

Transplant is not a walk in the park, the chemo is hard, and then you have to worry about graft vs. host responses, etc. Considering that current AIDS therapy can extend your life for many years, I am not sure the 'cure' is worth it. I guess if it was that or die, I would go for it.

[Ace3]

I wonder if this has something to do with the recent discovery of certain cancer drugs causing lethal mutagenesis of the HIV virus.

[ginseng]

Unfortunately this cure won't help most people. It's not realistic that everyone who has HIV or who wishes to prevent it could get a bone marrow transplant. Secondly even if you could you would then need to take anti immune rejection drugs for life. So basically trading one form of lifetime meds for another and of which few insurance companies would cover because you wish to be HIV free. If I had HIV I admit I would be interested in this and would rather take anti rejection drugs than HIV drugs as this would allow me to not worry about passing on HIV and also carries less stigma but I know it's never going to be a practical way to stop HIV for the world. Hopefully this method could somehow be further developed and lead to a cure.

[Hua Ngoo]

Perhaps, in the meantime, we should JUST WEAR A CONDOM!!!!!!!

Even if this filters through to the developing world, how would you feel if you knew that all the beautiful girls you knew were potentially infected had no chance of progressive medication?

Hate to be the Grin Reaper, myself,,,,,,,,,,,,

[El Cata]

Don't worry, scientists are on the verge of curing death; permanently rather than temporarily.

 

I suspect that there will still be an anti-death-vax movement alive on the internet, warning of the dangers to children & other side effects; maybe even life.

 

What a strange world we live in, in which a certain proportion of the population still believes that the greatest life saving medical invention of all time is now the greatest threat to humanity.

 

F*cking idiots. Candidates for eugenics I say!

 

Rant over (for now).

 

Peace.