Now that they're on a roll we need to get them on the cure for cancer!
New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
51–60 of 256 posts
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#52Well, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.
> People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave. The way you've phrased this, it sounds like you are casting "other hard to cure STDs" as a protective measure against the "threat of 1960s style of unprote…
Even if there were a perfect HIV cure, and antibiotics were 100% effective, there is a risk of infertility from chlamydia, etc.
So no, unprotected sexual freedom isn't a practical goal for medical science. Better to use condoms instead.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the 1960's unprotected sex wave was more a symptom of ignorance of STDs. People used to see condoms as primarily for birth control, and not really a sanitary measure. Remember, the birth control pill came out in the 1960s! Even then, knowledge of condoms wasn't widespread like it is now. My grandmother was super-pissed-off when my grandfather told her about them after she was pregnant for 18 months straight!…
Ignorance of STDs was okay in 1960s, because antibiotics worked really great back then and just about every STD was easily curable.
Importantly, while the bacterial STIs were curable, Herpes was definitely not.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#54Well, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.
If there is no significant chance of untreatable disease, it is not 'irresponsible' to have a very active sex life. The irresponsibility stems purely from the danger. Without it, it becomes a moral issue and is quite different from 'irresponsible'. And yes, there are people who actively oppose any development of an HIV vaccine or cure due to their moral fear that people will start having more sex. The chaplain of the…
"The most likely significant health threat as far as STDs go in the future are anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea. There were a couple of those spreading in Asia a couple years ago that were positively nightmarish." FYI, they're in the United States now and circulating.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even at 100% eradication would be very difficult. As far as I am aware, smallpox is the only disease we have successfully eradicated. If you count non-human diseases, this number climbs to 2 with rinderpest. This is assuming that we can get the vaccine to everyone. In first world countries with developed and trusted this is mostly possible, but would still be a massive undertaking.
We were VERY close with Polio... but the CIA absolutely destroyed that when they ran a fake polio vaccination scam in Pakistan to get info on Bin Laden. Now it's making a comeback and doctors get shot trying to vaccinate.
We were also very close on measles, but politics and the anti-vaxx crowd have done a number on it.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#56Well, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.
> People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave. The way you've phrased this, it sounds like you are casting "other hard to cure STDs" as a protective measure against the "threat of 1960s style of unprote…
I just meant that a huge wave of unprotected sex could mean that remaining 1% to explode into a large threat. But it is unlikely as there are other factors deterring it, so if the article is true, that might really be the end for the virus.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#57HIV must be the most almost cured disease ever.
In the 1980s, getting HIV was a quick death sentence. In the 2010s, getting HIV means that you are likely to live until... Your 70s. (Assuming you have access to medication.) The problem is that you need to take expensive medication for the rest of your life. And that you can infect other people.
The infecting other people is mostly theoretical. As far as I know there is no actual instance of transmission from a person with an undetectable viral load on antiretroviral drugs to an uninfected person.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is being downvoted to oblivion but I'm not sure if it's true or not; hopefully someone can weigh in before it disappears.
Well hepatitis C wasn't and isn't easily curable, but i guess awareness of it was pretty low.
Is a stronger statement that hepatitis C is NOT curable, as it's a retroviral infection, thereby rewriting host DNA? [ Edit: i'd remembered incorrectly from decades ago: it's an RNA virus ]
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#59This is also good news for people with elevated risks of acquiring HIV (such as people with Herpes). Hopefully they can use similar tactics to eradicate HSV and HPV next.
Don't they have the HPV vaccine Guardasil?
Gardasil gives immunity to a few different strands of HPV, notably the most dangerous ones in terms of causing cancer risk. I do not know if it is reasonable to expect we will ever be able to totally eradicate all strains of HPV. Luckily most strains are, like most strains of herpes, innocuous. That's how they manage to infect the vast majority of the populace in the first place.
Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains
#60Hopefully it's cheap and/or Bill Gates starts throwing money into producing it if it passes clinical trials. I have a feeling that Africa is where AIDS does the most damage, and I doubt they can afford the $1000/mo. it will certainly cost in the States.
Not that it helps Africa but in the US for a drug like Truvada (PrEP) it costs ~$1500/mo on insurance but they offer a copay card that covers $3600/yr which is enough to hit my deductible at least so after 2 months I only pay $30/mo but in practice I don't pay a dime because the copay card covers it all.