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HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

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Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#41
post #9

Being fairly young, I can not remember a time in my life when a disease was cured or a vaccine created that significantly reduced transmission. I keep expecting a grand announcement like "AIDS cured" or "Cancer defeated" but there are always so many caveats that it feels like progress isn't being made. I wonder if it was the same way with other diseases in the past, and I am just being important, or if modern day one…

There is a lot of progress being made on HIV/AIDS. How to tell? Speak to any gay man who lived through the 80s and early 90s. In every reasonable sized gay ghetto, there were funerals every week for people dying of AIDS-related diseases. Now there are far more treatment options: if one knows they've been exposed, a month-long PEP regimen can stop one from becoming HIV+. Truvada has been approved by the FDA, which can…

>There won't be a grand announcement of "AIDS cured".

There might be if DRACO succeeds, and I would be surprised if some future medical advance doesn't cure it eventually.

Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#42

"With no signs of the virus for 10 months..." Does this mean that the virus could still be incubating in cells and some sort of stressor could cause the virus to come out, similar to those that have had Chicken Pox getting Shingles later in life? If so, is it really a cure? To me, a vaccine that has passed all trial stages and works almost 100% and w/few side effects is a cure. I don't want to belittle this miracle,…

Varicella Zoster Virus is a true latent infection. HIV is constitutively active and never truly latent in the sense that it goes into dormancy. The virus is constantly replicating and being released, the only thing that causes it to assume what looks like latency is taking drugs on a daily basis. those drugs do not address the virus that is within cells, only preventing that virus from spreading and causing AIDS.

Thanks! So basically what you are saying is that if the virus isn't replicating, then no cells are carrying the virus and the patient is cured? Are you absolutely sure that conclusion is definite? For example, some cells could have HIV and that HIV has not entered the bloodstream and show up in tests. The brain could be an example of an organ that might continue to have HIV, because of the blood brain barrier, unless HIV could pass through it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier

Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#43
post #36

I highly recommend this documentaries , House of numbers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fELMm5mAeXU and The Greatest Medical Fraud in History http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT3b_0doyRk

Dude... where is the evidence? All I see here is posturing that HIV doesn't cause AIDS... on the linked web site there is even someone claiming the "HIV-virus" doesn't even exist.

Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#44

One has to wonder if the infant is homozygous for the noted CCR5 variant that confers resistance to HIV infection. This could potentially explain a high viral load with negative titers later. I can't tell (from the relatively scant details) if the child ever developed HIV infection, by which I specifically mean to include infiltration of a cell by the virus, replication, and a host reaction. I can't find text in the…

Also see: the Milwaukee protocol for rabies. No one knows just why it works for some people but not for others, but early treatment is key.

Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Varicella Zoster Virus is a true latent infection. HIV is constitutively active and never truly latent in the sense that it goes into dormancy. The virus is constantly replicating and being released, the only thing that causes it to assume what looks like latency is taking drugs on a daily basis. those drugs do not address the virus that is within cells, only preventing that virus from spreading and causing AIDS.

Thanks! So basically what you are saying is that if the virus isn't replicating, then no cells are carrying the virus and the patient is cured? Are you absolutely sure that conclusion is definite? For example, some cells could have HIV and that HIV has not entered the bloodstream and show up in tests. The brain could be an example of an organ that might continue to have HIV, because of the blood brain barrier, unless…

Sorry, I wrote it out poorly.

HIV has a combination of latent virus and active viral expression at all times. It never goes entirely dormant because of its high replicative rate. You are correct that there is always some virus that is latent, however the overall infection will not assume latency without drug intervention.

This is as opposed to Varicella where the virus will go systemic latent and then reactive much later without any outside intervention.

Herpes is another viral infection that has true systemic latent periods where it is more or less hiding in your own DNA. It is periodically released and can then cause outbreaks of Herpes lesions such as cold sores on the mouth, genital lesions, etc.

The latency of all three diseases are why they cannot be cured once contracted. Varicella can now be effectively vaccinated against, and shingles can be avoided through boosters (not to mention avoidance of stress). One dream for curing HIV would be to signal all latent virus in the body to activate simultaneously, essentially causing a explosion of HIV viral particles, and then immediately flood the person with medication to wipe it all out. The problem with all DNA latency is how do you reach the virus, and if you can reach it, how do you reach it all at once to prevent the virus from reestablishing itself.

A patient on HIV medication can have undetectable viral load, meaning that all active virus is being suppressed. Stopping medication, even for 1 day, can lead to mutation and the rapid reestablishment of progression towards AIDS.

Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#46
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malaria hasn't been cured but we have much better anti-malarial drugs now. Same for HIV.

Who told you that malaria has no cures? I've had malaria three times, and was cured each time.

Vaccine I should have said

Re: HIV-Infected Infant Cured With Early Use of AIDS Drugs

#47
post #43
post #36

I highly recommend this documentaries , House of numbers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fELMm5mAeXU and The Greatest Medical Fraud in History http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT3b_0doyRk

Dude... where is the evidence? All I see here is posturing that HIV doesn't cause AIDS... on the linked web site there is even someone claiming the "HIV-virus" doesn't even exist.

Just check "how HIV tests are taken" , they don't even have virus to compare with, they just count your AntiBodies ..
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