Science Man cured of HIV after stem cell transplant

[willy88]

http://current.com/items/89808160_man-appears-free-of-hiv-after-stem-cell-transplant.htm

 

[Star Voyager]

I love how they say "appears" free of HIV :lol:! Later that night, an alien popped out of his chest :rofl:!

 

[Brad]

Is this a legit NEWS site?:dry:

 

[tblaxland]

This is fairly old news (Nov '08).

Is this a legit NEWS site?:dry:

Perhaps this is more your style:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24652691-12335,00.html
Pertinent extracts:

GERMAN doctors' claims that they cured a man of HIV by giving him a bone marrow transplant has been met with caution by medical specialists.
[...]
[Professor Andrew McMichael] told the Independent that the HIV virus was adept at hiding in the body and much depended on how hard the researchers had looked for it.
[...]
Specialists, including Dr Hutter, said bone marrow transplants were too dangerous and too expensive to be considered as a routine treatment for the millions with HIV.
[...]
Finding compatible donors [...] "restricted practically to zero the chances of repeating the procedure on a large scale".

 

[TSPenguin]

This is indeed old news.
So far it could not be replicated and after all, everything are just preliminary findings.
Given the singular occurance, and specific condition of the patient, this might be just a freak accident.

If this is reproducable after all, it would mean an interesting new way on tackling HIV if we eventualy make progress on growing bone marrow.

 

[Urwumpe]

of course, it would be real scientific news, if they could explain how bone marrow defeats HIV. I think the real answer to the news is a flawed method of testing for HIV. The receptor mutation is not making you immune against HIV, it only slows the rate down - the new immune cells produced by this bone marrow will develop HIV just like the others, but the effects of leukemia are gone which disturb HIV tests.

 

[StarLost]

Is this a legit NEWS site?:dry:

Define "legit". Given the polarization of reporting in modern "mainstream" news, and their rush to report without acceptable verification, or balance of viewpoint, it is difficult to show that any current media outlet is more legit than any tabloid reporting.

It's like reading the results of any study. You have to ask:

Who paid for the study?
How was the study set up?
What other studies corroborate this study's findings?
What position did the authors of the study hold prior to the study (results often correlate to pre-existing views, as in, the study was designed to uphold a viewpoint rather than find and interpret new results)?
Who paid for the study?
... on and on ad nauseam ...

Also, you have to be wary of any study that bases its results on a statistical population of 1.

 

[Messierhunter]

I had a family member who tested positive for HIV shortly before coming down with an autoimmune disorder. The autoimmune disorder was successfully treated and the next HIV test came back as inconclusive, and then once more as negative. Does that mean that treating for autoimmune disorders cures HIV? Of course not, it just meant the HIV test was wrong to start with.

 

[cjp]

Made me think...

HIV only infects immune cells, right?
And you really only need immune cells to fight infections, right?

So, what if you destroy all immune cells of someone? Would that also lead to extinction of the HIV virus inside the body?

Of course, surviving without an immune system wouldn't be possible except in a completely sterile environment. So this treatment would be quite useless if a completely sterile environment is impossible, or if it is impossible to restore the immune system after treatment.

Would a completely sterile environment be possible? IIRC the intestines contain bacteria which are needed for digesting food, but which can also cause lethal infections in absence of an immune system. Can these be destroyed, and can their need be avoided by using specially prepared food?

It's just ideas. It sounds so straight-forward that there are probably other people who thought of this before me, and it would already be implemented if it was a good idea. But the effect of a cure for AIDS is so big that I don't want to leave this idea without understanding why it is impossible.

 

[ijuin]

There is a disorder called Severe Combined ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (SCIDS), which essentially boils down to a person being born with an immune system so weak that they must be kept in an artificially sterilized environment to avoid lethal infections--this even extends to wearing full biohazard suits any time that they wish to go outside of the sterilized chambers. Such people can also not have direct body-to-body contact with others, as most normal people are filled with microbes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_combined_immunodeficiency

Anyway, fighting an immunodeficiency disease by eliminating the parts of the immune system that it attacks is rather like protecting your house from fire by burning it down in advance.

 

[Moonwalker]

What we call immune system is anything but simple working mechanisms and a few cells.

But anyway, in my point of view AIDS is not "the" disease of the 20th century. I'm not afraid of HIV at all, because I know how not to get it very likely. I'm also not at all afraid of any kind of multimedia voodoo influenza. But I'm afraid of cancer really. I don't know anybody personally yet who has died because of AIDS. But I knew 11 persons personally that have died because of cancer for now (which includes 4 comming from my family). In Germany, each year, EACH YEAR we have more than 7 times as much humans who get cancer than humans who got HIV in Germany, but not within a year: since the beginning. And out of those who get cancer each year in Germany, more than 200.000 die because of it (roughly 50%), which is 10 times more, per year, than humans who died because of AIDS in Germany since the beginning. Globally, more than 10 million humans get cancer each year (and more than 70% of it die). That is, each year, 1/3 of those who got HIV since the beginning.

I'm not only afraid because of the numbers but even more because you barely can't do anything to not get cancer. Not smoking and drinking? Nah, that's no guarantee at all. Ever seen a cancer ward for children? Today you're fine, the next day you get pain and in a few weeks, month, or in a very few years if you're lucky, you can be dead.