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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

#181

Post by snakeanus »

jMyles wrote: post #28
anovikov wrote: post #4

Well, 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…

> Isn't sexual freedom a goal?

For whom? Not for me.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#182

Post by DrScump »

smitherfield wrote: post #161
api_or_ipa wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

But it's not a simple, linear battle.

That most virulent 1% then multiplies and infects systemwide... and adds new mutations all the time.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#183

Post by DrScump »

bjterry wrote: post #166
esm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. And that includes desired strains.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#184

Post by chimeracoder »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #150
chimeracoder wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure that it is much more complicated than this, but I wonder how long the virus can remain immune to all previous '99%' cures? Maybe eventually we could come up with enough of these and then administer them all at once. That's basically what HAART (the technique we've used to treat HIV successfully for the last 25 years) is. People take three antiretrovirals simultaneously. They're designed such that, for the…

> They're designed such that, for the virus to adapt to one, it has to make itself more susceptible to one of the other two. That's not really accurate. HAART works because the 3 drugs are taken simultaneously , and it's extremely unlikely for a virus to get random mutations that confer resistance to all three in one generation.

> That's not really accurate. HAART works because the 3 drugs are taken simultaneously, and it's extremely unlikely for a virus to get random mutations that confer resistance to all three in one generation.

That is literally exactly what I said. The drugs are taken simultaneously, and it is very difficult to develop resistance to all three simultaneously, because becoming more resistant to one means becoming more susceptible to another.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#185

Post by DrScump »

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!" :/

Just be glad that retail pricing to American consumers subsidizes pruce-controlled health systems in the rest of the world.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#186

Post by DrScump »

notadoc wrote: post #139
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #12

This 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.

From a medical standpoint, HSV and HPV are largely cosmetic and very low priority. HPV is/was perhaps a slightly higher priority because it can rarely lead to certain cancers, but the vaccine Gardasil aims at those types of HPV.

Only four strains, not all strains. Others kill up to nine different strains, but that's still not all potentially carcinogenic strains.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#187

Post by tryingagainbro »

tertius wrote: post #87
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.

Drugs are cheaper and largely subsidized by governments with high incidence of HIV. *I'm South African, antiretrovirals are free.

Drugs are cheaper and largely subsidized by governments with high incidence of HIV.

I'm South African, antiretrovirals are free.*

Almost got it right: Drugs elsewhere are cheaper and largely subsidized by USA citizens.

Those drugs cost a fortune to make and the companies make their money in USA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pharmaceuticals-usa-compa...

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#188

Post by pimeys »

techdragon wrote: post #178
djsumdog wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 countr…

Healthcare is one of the reasons I'm not keen to consider moving to the USA for a startup job. Sure it would be a fun adventure compared to my current cushy contracting work in Australia, but healthcare in the USA is a show compared to the ludicrously easy and high quality coverage I have in Australia. For reference, I pay about ~$200 Australian to my personal insurance, which is a pretty generous plan with lots of e…

This. I'm having a chronic disease (type 1 diabetes) with a need for a CGM, an insulin pump and the fastest possible insulin analog. It's at least somehow doable here in Europe, even though it's lots of bureaucracy, but at least I get it even if I happen to lose my job or move to another city.

I know I might have good options for my therapy in US, but the risks are just too big and depending where you are the monthly expenses only for the insulin analogs might be just way too much in the worst case.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#189

Post by smitherfield »

DrScump wrote: post #182
smitherfield wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But it's not a simple, linear battle. That most virulent 1% then multiplies and infects systemwide... and adds new mutations all the time.

It's not the most virulent 1%, it's 1% which have unusual mutations that cause them to be resistant to this treatment, but which usually reduce their fitness in other respects. (This can be seen in humans as well, e.g. malaria resistance->sickle-cell). The fastest-multiplying viruses are also (obviously) going to be the most common, in the absence of treatment.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#190

Post by viraptor »

techdragon wrote: post #178
djsumdog wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 countr…

Healthcare is one of the reasons I'm not keen to consider moving to the USA for a startup job. Sure it would be a fun adventure compared to my current cushy contracting work in Australia, but healthcare in the USA is a show compared to the ludicrously easy and high quality coverage I have in Australia. For reference, I pay about ~$200 Australian to my personal insurance, which is a pretty generous plan with lots of e…

I'm curious what's the insurance / clinic you go to. I'm assuming it's not a usual bulk-billing one, but one related to instance?
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