Two More Men With HIV Seemingly Cured

[Gahars]

Having cancer is awful. Being HIV positive is awful. Having cancer and HIV? Now that is just a double whammy of tragedy.

However, two HIV positive men with cancer seem to have gotten something of a lucky break. After receiving bone marrow transplants, scientists have been unable to detect any traces of HIV in their bodies. And this isn't a recent thing, either; they've been checking for two years.

The researchers are cautious in declaring the two men cured, but more than two years after receiving bone marrow transplants, HIV can't be detected anywhere in their bodies. These two new cases are reminiscent of the so-called "Berlin patient," the only person known to have been cured of infection from the human immunodeficiency virus.

These two cases, presented as a “late-breaker” finding on Thursday at the 19th annual International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., are among the reasons that scientists have been speaking so openly at the event about their hopes of finding a cure.

“Everyone knows about this ‘Berlin patient’. We wanted to see if a simpler treatment would do the same thing”, said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who oversaw the study.

MSNBC

By the way, that Berlin patient? He's been HIV free for five years. So yeah, that's pretty encouraging.

As the article mentions, it's far too soon to call this method a perfect cure for HIV. 3 people a be all, end all cure does not make, after all. A whole lot more testing needs to be done, and it take a while before we can be sure that this is permanent. Surprise side effects could always be discovered as well.

Still, this offers at least a glimmer of hope. Whatever happens next, I believe that this brings us just a little bit closer to dealing with the problem for good.

*Insert "I'm not sure, I'm HIV positive!" joke here*

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Awesome, now I can go have sex without having to think about the consequences.

Seriously though, I hope this leads to a cure. Oddly enough, I just finished watching a documentary about HIV on Frontline.

 

[SixSenseEagle]

Just think how many people will be at their doctor if there is a cure and I Know its gonna cost a lot of money, but I just hope it comes true in the Future because people who have been living with this for a while will have a second chance at life IF they get cured or they have enough money and this time there gonna have to think before they act like wear protection for now on (Hey I'm just speaking the truth).

 

[BORTZ]

I LOVE SCIENCE
seriously i read every article you post, Gahars.
You should paraphrase more science things so i can read them :3

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

For those getting all "OH LAWDY SOON EVERYONE CAN BE CURED OF AIDS!" The average cost of a bone marrow transplant is like...$10,000-$25,000 in the US without insurance, and even then this definitely couldn't cure everyone anyways. According to the article, the men had some unusual genetic mutation that doctors think aided their "cure".


EDIT: Don't get me wrong, though, this is amazing. We're learning more and more about the disease and how to cure it, and this is one big step in the right direction.

 

[naved.islam14]

*Insert "I'm not sure, I'm HIV positive!" joke here*

The joke could be "Be positive, but not HIV positive".

 

[shakirmoledina]

very interesting. seems like programming where u poke and suddenly it works correctly without us knowing. I have heard most medicines were created by mistake or unintentionally.

PS - Gahars for best poster award

 

[giavol]

awesome when i´ll be 60 i am going to be able to have sex with no protection

 

[Gahars]

*Insert "I'm not sure, I'm HIV positive!" joke here*

The joke could be "Be positive, but not HIV positive".

You beat me at my own game, sir.

 

[DragorianSword]

Well that's pretty good news!
I hope that this is the cure they are looking for, because HIV really is a major problem.

 

[yuyuyup]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7P4iFg048k
I think Chris Rock woulda been correct if AIDS had immediate marketable symptoms, but since it doesn't, I guess docs would rather have people stick around to buy anti-depressants, cholesterol pills, sleep pills, etc. But congrats to whoever for whatever cause AIDS is a dick.

 

[imz]

*insert I Am Legend joke here*

 

[The Catboy]

This is quite interesting news.
I hope one day we see a world when HIV and AIDS are just a ugly memories.

 

[gloweyjoey]

*Insert "I'm not sure, I'm HIV positive!" joke here*

The joke could be "Be positive, but not HIV positive".

I hate to be so HIV negative, but the joke is "I'm/we're not just sure, I'm/we're HIV positive" and it's from South Park.
[yt]EbKPatqmTjE[/yt]

 

[omgpwn666]

That's some good news. If I had HIV I would be hoping for a cure so bad, so maybe HIV positive people can finally go on with their lives without needing to take horse pills every couple of hours.

 

[C-Kronos]

While this is interesting news, it isn't a break through at all.. Less than 1% of the Caucasian population is immune to the HIV virus, so the people that had the bone marrow transplants happened to have gotten them from someone who was immune. Your bone marrow is responsible for creating white blood cells, so the bone marrow from the donors created white blood cells that annihilated the virus in the patients.

It would be painstaking and nearly impossible to narrow down all who is immune to the virus to fine donors to administer such a cure, that's why medical researchers are so cautious to dub this method as a cure.. Maybe they should focus on stem cell research and over time figure out how to grow bone marrow cells that were originally from patients whom are immune.

However, if geneticists can pinpoint the exact genetic sequence, perhaps they can come up with a method to screen for the immunity. The best way to go about this would be to screen every infant at birth, that way it would eventually lead to a comprehensive database of potential donors for a cure for future generations.

Question: Does anyone know if this is limited to those of a particular blood type? Are all three people whom have been seemingly cured of the virus the same blood type?

 

[gloweyjoey]

Question: Does anyone know if this is limited to those of a particular blood type? Are all three people whom have been seemingly cured of the virus the same blood type?

I do not think they all shared the same blood type. From what I understand, blood type is determined by red blood cells and their proteins.
The HIV virus uses a protein on white blood cells to enter the cell, the people who seem to be "immune" to the virus seem to lack this protein on their white blood cells so the virus doesn't infect the cell, however It's still possible for them to transfer the virus to other people.

 

[KingVamp]

I hate to be so HIV negative,

You are in a very small few, if not the only one.

 

[gloweyjoey]

I hate to be so HIV negative,

You are in a very small few, if not the only one.

I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you didn't watch the video

 

[Pleng]

While this is interesting news, it isn't a break through at all.. Less than 1% of the Caucasian population is immune to the HIV virus, so the people that had the bone marrow transplants happened to have gotten them from someone who was immune. Your bone marrow is responsible for creating white blood cells, so the bone marrow from the donors created white blood cells that annihilated the virus in the patients.

The thing is, with further research they may be able to synthesize whatever effect the bone marrow transplant had.

The trouble if they do find a cure for HIV or AIDS, though, is that as everybody goes "whoo-hoooo" and 'parties' to celebrate, all the B-List STDS are going to seize their chance to spread around. Not to mention the population crisis caused by the amount of new pregnancies, the other 'side effect' of unprotected sex that we all like to forget about!