I was shocked when I used the search bar and didn't find anything about the cure for aids in there. If it is, I admit I didn't look very far.
But yeah, I've known for months that a cure for Aids was stumbled upon in Germany, but I'm starting to think I'm one of few in America that know about it. Every time I bring it up, people react as if I'm an idiot who's making things up. The ignorance I've seen is astounding, especially since I expected news that huge to spread like wildfire.
I'm not calling any one at the Escapist ignorant, and wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if people replied to this stating they do in fact know about the cure.
Oh well, here's one of many articles on the subject matter:
"Holy crap. These guys in Germany just cured AIDS!
Of course, the procedure is so expensive, complicated, and risky that it's not replicable as a large-scale public health strategy, but we'll ignore that for a minute. Here's how they did it. Drs. Gero Hutter and Eckhard Thiel are blood cancer experts at the Charite Medical University in Berlin. Their patient, an American ex-pat, was suffering from leukemia as well as a full-blown case of AIDS. His case was so desperate that his doctors decided to get craaazy and give him a bone-marrow transplant--(this isn't the crazy part)--using blood stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV (this is). About 10 years ago, doctors discovered that a few of their gay male patients never developed AIDS, despite engaging in risky sex with hundreds of partners. It turned out that they had a rare mutation called Delta 32 that blocks a molecule in HIV from adhering to the cell surface. Delta 32 must be inherited from both parents; it occurs at a rate of roughly 1 percent in European populations (it's more common in Northern Europe and much much, rarer--basically unheard of--in Africa and Asia), so it was difficult but not impossible for the doctors to find a donor in Germany who fit the bill. The patient was asked to stop taking his antiretroviral AIDS medication for the duration of the procedure with the understanding that he'd have to restart the meds fairly soon after the transplant was complete and the level of the virus in his bloodstream started to rise. But to everyone's surprise, it never rose, not at all. It has now been close to two years since the transplant, and there are still no traces of HIV in the patient's blood or brain tissues. So: success! A cure! For this guy, at least."
Here's the link for the full article - http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-11/cure-aids
But yeah, I've known for months that a cure for Aids was stumbled upon in Germany, but I'm starting to think I'm one of few in America that know about it. Every time I bring it up, people react as if I'm an idiot who's making things up. The ignorance I've seen is astounding, especially since I expected news that huge to spread like wildfire.
I'm not calling any one at the Escapist ignorant, and wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if people replied to this stating they do in fact know about the cure.
Oh well, here's one of many articles on the subject matter:
"Holy crap. These guys in Germany just cured AIDS!
Of course, the procedure is so expensive, complicated, and risky that it's not replicable as a large-scale public health strategy, but we'll ignore that for a minute. Here's how they did it. Drs. Gero Hutter and Eckhard Thiel are blood cancer experts at the Charite Medical University in Berlin. Their patient, an American ex-pat, was suffering from leukemia as well as a full-blown case of AIDS. His case was so desperate that his doctors decided to get craaazy and give him a bone-marrow transplant--(this isn't the crazy part)--using blood stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV (this is). About 10 years ago, doctors discovered that a few of their gay male patients never developed AIDS, despite engaging in risky sex with hundreds of partners. It turned out that they had a rare mutation called Delta 32 that blocks a molecule in HIV from adhering to the cell surface. Delta 32 must be inherited from both parents; it occurs at a rate of roughly 1 percent in European populations (it's more common in Northern Europe and much much, rarer--basically unheard of--in Africa and Asia), so it was difficult but not impossible for the doctors to find a donor in Germany who fit the bill. The patient was asked to stop taking his antiretroviral AIDS medication for the duration of the procedure with the understanding that he'd have to restart the meds fairly soon after the transplant was complete and the level of the virus in his bloodstream started to rise. But to everyone's surprise, it never rose, not at all. It has now been close to two years since the transplant, and there are still no traces of HIV in the patient's blood or brain tissues. So: success! A cure! For this guy, at least."
Here's the link for the full article - http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-11/cure-aids
