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New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

bbc.com

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Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#161

Post by smitherfield »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #149
MechEStudent wrote: post #93

HIV evolves with amazing (super-villian-ic) speed. Many "cures" attack 99% of cells, or similar. Resistance is evolved during treatment, and is usually uniform within just a few months. It mutates/evolves so fast that given just virus samples, it is possible to determine sequence of infection. I think it needs to kill more than 6-9's before it has a good chance at being a cure.

Reminds me of a lesson about misleading statistics I tell my nephews. We've all see the hand sanitizers that advertize killing 99.99% of germs, but what does that actually mean? 99.99% equates to 1/10,000 survivors and assuming for each generation the population doubles means it takes just 14 generations for the original colony to be back at full strength again. For extra creepy effect, e coli can reproduce in optima…

The idea is that it kills 99% of them, and then your immune system is up to the task of killing the remaining 1%.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#162

Post by KGIII »

evo_9 wrote: post #25
gwbas1c wrote: post #7

Earlier 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!…

The 'sexwave' was in the 70's when studio54 was a thing and disco and cocaine became common/popular/big in the mainstream culture (famously captured by the film Staying Alive). Also the legalization of abortion in 1972 contributed to this as well.

They may be referencing the Summer of Love (1967) and the Free Love movement which was, if I had to put dates to it, 1966 to 1972.

During those times there were lots of people having lots of sex. Unwashed sex with a string scent of sandalwood and patchouli, but still lots of sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Then you had the disco era, fueled by fruity drinks and cocaine, sideburns, and lots of finger guns. There was still a bunch of sex. Those people would become yuppies, while many of the Free Love people would have moved into the woods to eat tree bark and become one with Gaia.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#163

Post by g00gler »

otakucode wrote: post #57
vkou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. What about mother-to-baby transmission?

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#164

Post by jliptzin »

SeoxyS wrote: post #82
jliptzin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am gay so I have used condoms my whole life but my straight friends routinely go out and have unprotected sex all the time, I'd say about 5% of my straight friends consistently use condoms.

It's a design problem. Sex with condom sucks. Non-condom sex is 10x better. The real solution will be when you have male birth control available as well; and then it comes down to only having sex with people you trust. I great partner is better than a bunch of lousy partners anyways.

Don't they have vasectomy already?

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#165

Post by djsumdog »

jahnu wrote: post #130
joshstrange wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly, when you US folks talk about how your medical bills work and are paid there is so much jargon and complexity it sounds like Star Trek techno-babble to my ears. "I have a common but chronic ailment so all I had to do was re-route the phase-converter to the deflector shield and invert the chromaton particles in Shelk-Einstein space and we're done!" :/

> "I have a common but chronic ailment so all I had to do was [tech] the [tech] to the [tech] and [tech]"

Fun fact: A lot of the original Star Trek screenplays were written with [tech] everywhere and the science writers came in and tried to right some jargon that was believable.

In regards to health care, it's a mess. I spent years working in the industry and it's truly a little frightening. I've been in other country's systems before and recently put together a writeup on it:

http://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-t...

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#166

Post by bjterry »

esm wrote: post #126
carlisle_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's actually somewhat how AIDs treatments have worked. I'm not sure if all are like that but it's pretty much the exact logic.

Yep. Triple therapy is now standard in HIV treatment. The odds of developing mutations to 2-3 agents simultaneously are very low

Why don't we deliver all antibiotics as a triple? Wouldn't that eliminate antiobiotic resistance?

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#167

Post by always_good »

overcast wrote: post #48
always_good wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friends weren't wrapping it when I was in uni 6-10 years ago because every girl was on birth control.

That's horrible, and nonsensical for the time period. With the amount of advocacy, and information available. Why would ANYONE consider not using a condom in uncommitted relationships?

One reason is that the STDs you do tend to catch from casual uni sex are cured by a $20 pill, if that's even on your mind when you're drunk in someone's dorm bed.

"Shit, I got HIV/warts from hooking up" just isn't something I ever heard in uni. It just isn't part of the discourse. Those just don't seem to penetrate the uni bubble.

But everyone I know had to deal with the clap.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#168

Post by aswanson »

phyllostachys wrote: post #158
pasbesoin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HIV was/is an early hint at the computational complexity we face in understanding biology. Not that we should consider in insurmountable nor ungrasp-able. But that we -- or parts of our society and professional institutions -- should lose some of our arrogance. On the upside, that complexity also harbors enormous opportunity. Just, don't be simplistic about it an let your ignorance take you into disaster.

I'm always amazed at how many doctors I've encountered behave as if their knowledge is the extent of medical practice. I get it though, research is hard to stay on top of and isn't linear to results. Granted, also, that there are lots of doctors who do follow research.

Most doctors are decision-tree driven, following the rules. If you get a truly insightful one, recommend the f out of him/her.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#169

Post by always_good »

jliptzin wrote: post #164
SeoxyS wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a design problem. Sex with condom sucks. Non-condom sex is 10x better. The real solution will be when you have male birth control available as well; and then it comes down to only having sex with people you trust. I great partner is better than a bunch of lousy partners anyways.

Don't they have vasectomy already?

Irreversible, so not a solution.

I'm 29, and so far every woman I've fucked, I ended up deciding I didn't want to marry / have children with. But that's still on the table like it is for the vast majority of men, so vasectomy is not an option.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#170

Post by jamesrcole »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #149
MechEStudent wrote: post #93

HIV evolves with amazing (super-villian-ic) speed. Many "cures" attack 99% of cells, or similar. Resistance is evolved during treatment, and is usually uniform within just a few months. It mutates/evolves so fast that given just virus samples, it is possible to determine sequence of infection. I think it needs to kill more than 6-9's before it has a good chance at being a cure.

Reminds me of a lesson about misleading statistics I tell my nephews. We've all see the hand sanitizers that advertize killing 99.99% of germs, but what does that actually mean? 99.99% equates to 1/10,000 survivors and assuming for each generation the population doubles means it takes just 14 generations for the original colony to be back at full strength again. For extra creepy effect, e coli can reproduce in optima…

I think the problem is that people tend to focus on the size of the numeric probability, as if it was intrinsically meaningful. And don't think to consider contextual details like in the example you give. It's the combination of the probabilities to the contextual details they're applied to that really matter.

Another illustration of that is, if 99.99% equates to 1/10000 survivors, the meaning of it depends on how many bacteria exist on the area in the first place. It has quite a different meaning if the typical number is 10000 vs if it's 100000000

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