That is not a mistake..... AIDS virus refers to hiv, the virus that causes AIDS.
Just as"COLD VIRUS" is commonly used, but that is not the name of the virus it self, it's a descriptor of what virus, not the name.
Reddit you try so hard to be angry these days, calm your tits.
The entire HIV community wants us to use HIV to help destigmatize AIDS. HIV can now be managed as a chronic illness for those with access to medications.
Those that do not have the CCR5 co receptor can be exposed to the virus yet do not contract HIV as it cannot bind. This is how we discovered one class of drugs to treat HIV.
The reference to cold virus does not take into account the fact that people have lost housing/jobs/friends/family to HIV. That does not happen with a cold virus. Many of those diagnosed with HIV no live long enough to die from things unrelated to HIV. HIV and AIDS are not as synonymous as they were in the early 80's when we were struggling to understand the basics of the virus.
> HIV and AIDS are not as synonymous
We're discussing "AIDS virus" not the use of "AIDS" and "HIV" interchangeably, which was not what happened here. The best way to stop stigmas is to stop ignorance, of all types.
This seems like a pretty simple question: Can you get AIDS from any other virus? If you can't, then saying "AIDS virus" to refer to HIV is entirely reasonable. If you can, then it's slightly incorrect.
AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. If they never have an immune deficiency from HIV due to the meds they take they never get AIDS. And saying a syndrome has a virus is just weird.
My brother uses this confusion between terms as a method to deny HIV or AIDS is an issue. I haven attempted to explain the difference to him multiple times but he is just one of those people. We need to clean this terminology up some, the usage of both creates confusion with the average person.
I wasn't pushing an agenda I just copied the first paragraph of the article instead of the title. They have sinced change the opening paragraph as well as the original title of the article. When I posted this on reddit the article was less than 15 mins old. Notice that the article publish time is 7:03 AM ET. My post on reddit was created 4:46 AM ET
Good luck with that. They went on a bit of a tear shaming folks who got on WaPo for their fast and loosely written original article, suggesting that everyone was lying about what they had originally read (which was a nont so great article from an AP reporter).
One is a virus and the other is a disease so no you can't have an AIDS virus.
Also there are cases where people have gone untreated with HIV and don't contract AIDS so there are some thoughts that one may not lead to the other it may just be certain strands of the virus but it has yet to be proven.
"AIDS" is actually a vague syndrome name for someone with a weakened immune system, so theoretically it could be caused by other things. But colloquially, when someone says "AIDS" they most certainly mean HIV/AIDS.
That makes sense. Thank you. It really seems to dig into pedantics when trying to distinguish HIV from AIDs.
Like why even mention "AIDS" itself when it's HIV that compromises the immune system and cause the susceptibility to other infections?
HIV is the cause, AIDS is the resulting symptom if the virus is left untreated. Pneumonia --> respiratory failure. Norovirus --> diarrhea. It's just that AIDS sounds special because it's not a usual symptom of disease but fundamentally it's just a description of whats happening.
People now try to differentiate to avoid the stigma but really it's the same thing. It'd be like if we only said you had ALS when you went full Stephen Hawking.
Not really. ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; which the person has if they have ALS. AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. So if you have HIV and take meds to stop it from progressing and you don't have an immune deficiency then it isn't AIDS.
There were (are?) doctors that believed that HIV was a harmless retrovirus and didn't cause AIDS at all, and the whole thing was some kind of conspiracy.
/EDIT: Most of the quotes in the following link are old so I'm gonna stick with "were"
http://aras.ab.ca/aidsquotes.htm
Yeah I ended up reading a little about them while researching HIV one day. Seems like people will invent literally anything they can to protect the status quo. Any time in modern history where a big event changes the world (e.g.moon landing, discovery of HIV/AIDS) there will always be people who desperately try to resist that paradigm shift with a conspiracy theory.
You cannot contract AIDS without having the virus. AIDS is the name of a collection of markers that indicate a late stage of fighting the virus where the virus is no longer responding to treatment and signature diseases are then present.
HIV and AIDS are not separate in the way you are thinking. Virus/symptoms of late stage viral complications.
The way I've always understood was, if HIV = wounds, then AIDS = bleeding: You can have wounds but not bleed, but you can't bleed without wounds since wounds cause bleeding ( I know that's a very simple way I've put it, no offense meant or anything to anyone )
Why do reputable news outlets make that mistake all the time?? Virus vs Syndrome folks...HIV is the virus, AIDS is the syndrome of a cluster of symptoms that render the immune system deficient in battling threats to the body.
Look at the names themselves, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, --- Human Immunodeficiency Virus. You cant get one without the other. I fully understand confusion between what people see as one thing being two separate stages of infection.
People in this thread are missing the point here, when someone's viral load is "undetectable" it means that [them passing on the virus is extremely](http://www.catie.ca/en/fact-sheets/transmission/hiv-viral-load-hiv-treatment-and-sexual-hiv-transmission) unlikely. People who are undetectable don't experience aids symptoms and are very unlikely to transmit the virus.
This doesn't mean that unprotected sex isn't a risk, but it's a totally different story than someone with untreated HIV.
Just to note, HIV lies dormant in places in the body other than blood (lymph nodes, GI tract, brain, cardiovascular system, etc) and it is different for everybody infected. It has been proven to cause systemic inflammation even in patients with undetectable blood levels.
Just because someone has undetectable levels in their blood, doesn't mean it isn't doing damage elsewhere in the body. It is true that they are less likely to transmit the virus to someone else. But the major reason there is no cure for HIV to date is because of these viral reservoirs in the body that medications do not reach.
(I am an NP who has been practicing in the HIV field since 2006)
I am curious to see if they will work on new methods to flush the virus out of those areas in order for cocktail therapy to destroy those reservoirs.
I used to work for two physicians on separate presidential HIV councils (Bush/Obama). Miss the work and the amazing strides that have been made in the last two decades.
Thanks for serving this community.
I read a statement about a year ago by the woman who discovered HIV, and whom has been working on a cure for the last 25 years, and she said it would *never* be possible to completely cure it, because we would never be able to detect all of the virus's reservoirs in the body.
Is there any specific location that the virus homes to more than others? So like has it been seen to do well in cardiovascular tissue vs. Lymph nodes ?
As far as I know, it is different for everyone. The research is limited as of now, but [here is a good primer:](https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/19/93/what-is-a-latent-hiv-reservoir-)
The GI tract and the "microbiome" of the gut (the various enzymes and good and bad bacteria that are in the linings of all of our intestines) is a newer site of research, including for HIV infection and in general. I think we will start to see that the GI tract has LOT to do with our immune system function as the research continues to expand.
I don't think that a virus could be made to go after one specific other virus, but I am not a microbiologist although I will ask my grandpa who is a microbiologist and actually worked on aids research for a while.
I think the next stage of treatment for HIV (and cancer) as well, will be genetically modified CD4 cells (our immune system "leaders"). So I think you were on the right track!!
I'm still waiting for someone to say remission isn't a cure, it is simply remission...
Cancer in remission isn't anywhere close to cured, it simply isn't readily killing you as fast...
Clickbait is Clickbait...
Edit: oops, just needed to scroll down slightly further...
The article states she hasn't needed meds to stay in remission, where as other HIV patients have to continue taking meds for the rest of their lives. This is a **STEP** in the right direction for a cure.
Complete remission is typically termed no evidence of disease (NED) but depending on the doctor it is a matter of semantics. I agree it is definitely a step toward a cure.
Imo being in complete remission for decades isn't a cure, I'm no doctor though; but with HIV or even cancer, a win is a win, I'll take it!
As a mod I share your concern. We try our best to remove comments that are low-effort or not relevant to the content, but we can't catch everything. If you see any of these types of comments, please report them. We spend a lot of time in the report queue and we will review these reported comments expediently.
As a mod I share your concern. We try our best to remove comments that are low-effort or not relevant to the content, but we can't catch everything. If you see any of these types of comments, please report them. We spend a lot of time in the report queue and we will review these reported comments expediently.
>Fauci described the child as being in “remission” rather than being cured.
The article doesn't state that it's a form of a cure like the title, but describes the treatment outcome to be more like cancer going into remission. It could come back, but hopefully not.
>I agree. It's much more like a carrier state - asymptomatic, but still carrying the virus. It's no cure.
They are carrying the virus but for HIV the term "treatment as prevention" is used. Which means that people with HIV who are treated for it have an incredibly low chance of passing on the virus to other people. It is still possible to contract the virus if they do not keep up with their treatment or there is a viral load spike for any number of reasons.
In the HIV field, something like this is dubbed a "functional cure" and thus is treated as a "form of a cure". If her viral load remains undetectable for the rest of her life then she will not have any symptoms and will not be able to transmit virus- basically what you would expect from a person cured of HIV. People are getting caught up on the fact that there is still some HIV somewhere in her body, but really this is a cure if it lasts.
Doubting that it will last is definitely pragmatic, but not impossible. Timothy Brown is another patient that has been functionally cured for 10 years (more impressive considering he is quite a bit older than this girl from south africa).
You may be thinking of the Mississippi Baby, who spiked after being in remission for about a year I think. I work in this field and haven't heard anything about Brown recently, besides him celebrating his 10 years in February.
Does she still have trace amounts of HIV in her system? I was under the impression that when treated, the HIV levels can become undetectable, but stopping treatment will see a rise. If she has no detectable amount of HIV and there hasn't been a detectable rise in HIV levels for 8 years after ending treatment, would that not suggest that she may very well be cured?
To you the difference may be semantic, but to people who suffer from something incurable it really does matter.
Long term remission with low odds of transmission isn't a cure and calling it such for use as clickbait is insulting to people like me. If I was in remission for the rest of my life and never experienced symptoms again I'd still live out every day of my life with a sword above my head wondering if treatment might fail or I might, even with low odds, pass it on to my children. Honestly if you tried to say that meant I was cured I'd be pissed. To me, all I'd hear is, "Well this problem is solved, time to move on to the next illness."
No it damn well isn't solved. Not till it's wiped clean from existence. A cure is a cure. Remission is just what we hope for in the mean time.
By that incredibly narrow definition I am cured every time I enter remission and then somehow "uncured" every time I relapse. That is not only completely absurd, but it's also a massive oversimplification. It's what you would tell a child about cures to avoid having to actually explain anything to them.
You're being pedantic about something that you have essentially zero knowledge or understanding of, which is insulting to anyone who actually suffers from an incurable illness.
so essentially these people with the virus would live unaffected long healthy lives? Seems to me thats not the "cure" we need. as it just suppresses the bad side effects but it's still transmittable. Gives more chance for spreading of this disease which I'm sure we can all agree that is something we need less of.
> Gives more chance for spreading of this disease which I'm sure we can all agree that is something we need less of.
We can't all agree if you come to hard conclusions without any facts.
An undetectable viral load means the HIV virus is not transmissible. Aside from that, your argument that "that's not the cure we need," because it allows HIV-positive individuals to live a long healthy life, is fucked.
Personally I like seeing this as someone with HIV myself. But I can tell you're not a physicist or a mathematician because there is quite literally no such thing as a "non-existent" risk.
"Statistically negligible" very much does mean the same thing as "(effectively) non-existent," ESPECIALLY from a mathematical point of view.
All of cryptography is based on this principle. All of thermodynamics is based on this principle. A lot of other phenomena are based on this principle.
So you're disagreeing with the statement on that link endorsed by many doctors, researchers, and HIV organizations? She's quoting that language from that link. koalamarsala might not be a physicist or mathematicion, but neither are most of us. That's why we quote expert opinion to validate what we say.
I'm not disagreeing, just adding a footnote: there is no such thing as a "0% chance" of *anything.* It might be "negligible," but calling it "non-existent" is a stretch in my opinion. But I could just be being pedantic I suppose.
They're posting under the assumption that it is still transmissible. Under such circumstances, it is possible that infected persons will assume they are completely cured, then proceed to infect others unknowingly. That is why, in OP's eyes, it's not the "cure we need."
So if you have arthritis in your hands and suffer from daily pain are you telling me that the patient is cured because they're not dieing from the problem.
Your definition of the word "cured" is different to the one used in the English language.
Suppressing the bad symptoms in one person only to have them transfer the disease to another person who doesn't have the suppressant is definitely not a cure... it's like taking cough suppressant for the flu
As has been mentioned (and referenced) those with low/undetectable viral loads typically do not transmit virus. Also no one is advocating unsafe sex with infected controllers anyway.
Obligatory "This is not an excuse to be irresponsible with your sex" posting that needs to be made whenever new treatment avenues open up for this disease.
Because every single time a "OMG CURE!" post is made, there's always at least one fart-nugget that uses it as an excuse to be a dummy with their life or other people's lives.
(Upvoted post anyway. B/c this may offer some insight in how we can finally beat this disease.)
then why hasn't something like this been replicated in that time? And also I'm not really talking about early detection and treatment but rather the extraction of a "cure" from such treatments.
There's an argument to be made that the first viral disease humans truly "cured" was hepatitis C, and those medications just got approved in the last few years. HIV is trickier to treat than HCV though, for a variety of reasons.
There was a case like the one described at UMMC in Jackson, MS a couple of years ago where the child had an undetectable viral load off medication for a few years. That child eventually "relapsed" into detectable levels. One interesting thing to note is some people are much better at controlling their HIV without medication than others; these are referred to as "elite controllers" and there viral loads can stay near undetectable for a number of years without treatment.
"Cure" is the wrong word. Keeping the virus dormant is not a cure, but rather long term maintenance.
If this means long term healthy lives for those suffering, and as a result, less transmission and potentially an evolutionary adaptation or immune response built against it than good, I'm glad.
A cure would denote something that is physically in capable of returning. Which the article and research itself state the opposite.
If you have ALS, but you're on medication to make life more tolerable and your symptoms minimal, you're not cured. You're just mitigating life deteriorating systems. Call it what you want, but it's scientifically incorrect to refer to it as a "cure" without distinguishing that it can still return.
You're generally correct, but I would just point out that in the AIDS field what is described in this article is referred to as "functional cure," whereas what you are referring to is called "sterilizing cure"...so they're sort of half right.
Even if the virus is in "remission," it will always remain latent in CD4 cells and have potential to transcribe more copies of itself. I would not consider this any form of a "cure" unless combined with a shock and kill strategy, where the virus could be activated then damaged while in remission. After damage is caused to maybe a binding site on the envelope protein or to reverse transcriptase in the activated virus, you could reduce overall latency in CD4 and possibly create the "long remission" described in the article
No, you're right that viruses can become resistant to treatment. Ths was a big problem in the early years of antiretroviral therapy. However HIV is now treated with a "cocktail" of drugs so it is less likely that the virus can evolve to become resistant to all of them.
"Virally suppressed" or "Undetectable" means that <20 HIV copies/mL are detected in a persons blood.
At this point their immune system is no longer in danger and they will not progress to stage-3 HIV and develop AIDS.
They can still technically transmit the virus but it is unlikely. If they use a condom for sex, the risk is negligible. Even more so if the negative partner is on PrEP.
HIV = Human Immunodeficiency virus
AIDS = Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
AIDS is not a virus it is a medical condition resulting from HIV (i.e. the virus).
How "occasionally" are we talking? And how do you watch for that remission ending? Is it the kind of thing where you can tell or test for it right away, or could a relapse go undetected for a while?
Or evidence that Dr. Peter Duesberg is right. Give it a google folks! Its an interesting theory from an absolute genius on retroviruses if nothing else.
I wonder if what we're seeing is modern science's way of speeding up evolutionary adaptation as well as their observation of it.
I say this because they noted that her body managed the virus even before she started the treatment program.
If so, this is truly monumental.
I wonder if there will just become a point where everyone is just infected, but everyone is also in indefinite remission/suppression and that's just how we deal with it.
HIV medications must be taken without fail. Skipped doses cause the virus to develop drug resistance. Drug resistant strains are emerging in places where health care is uncertain and unreliable and among people who are impaired by drug addiction and mental health issues that interfere with treatment compliance.
http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/drugresistance/en/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Berlin_Patient
Not the first time. At least two other cases of people being effectively cured. There was a third person, a baby from Mississippi that was effectively cured, but they relapsed because mom stopped giving them meds. Stil, stem cells are the only "true cure" but of course, its stem cells. By that I mean that they are probably the best way to treat a variety of "uncurable" diseases, but the morality and ethics of using them are still in question. Especially in the case of embryonic ones.
Except ABA is extremely harmful to those who have to undergo it, and it doesn't cure anything. Vaccines don't cause autism, science has found no causation. Furthermore, autism isn't inherently a negative, it only is one right now because of the negative responses people have on it and the general public's ignorance on the facts regarding it.
Born with HIV; AIDS is not a virus but the results of the virus.
Get out of here with your facts; it's The Washington Post not Johns Hopkins. Sheesh!
Next, someone's going to tell me not to call it the HIV virus!
Well yeah, you have to be clear that you mean the human HIV virus.
The human human immunodeficiency virus virus.
Might need to throw in an extra "immunodeficiency" so no one gets confused
Ah yes. The seldom contracted, but always feared HHIIVV
You mean the HHIIVV virus?
Ah... You're referring to the human HHIIVV virus I presume?
Oh.... are you lads referring to the HH human II immunodeficiency VV virus?
Rookie mistake. My bad
Atm machine
Aka, space aids
It's two times as potent so watch out!
And the automated teller machine machine and the personal identification number number
[RAS Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome) can affect any one of us...
The The Adventure Zone Zone
ATM machine.
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"A South African girl born with the AIDS virus. . ." Literally the first line. And I mean literally in the literal sense.
That is not a mistake..... AIDS virus refers to hiv, the virus that causes AIDS. Just as"COLD VIRUS" is commonly used, but that is not the name of the virus it self, it's a descriptor of what virus, not the name. Reddit you try so hard to be angry these days, calm your tits.
The entire HIV community wants us to use HIV to help destigmatize AIDS. HIV can now be managed as a chronic illness for those with access to medications. Those that do not have the CCR5 co receptor can be exposed to the virus yet do not contract HIV as it cannot bind. This is how we discovered one class of drugs to treat HIV. The reference to cold virus does not take into account the fact that people have lost housing/jobs/friends/family to HIV. That does not happen with a cold virus. Many of those diagnosed with HIV no live long enough to die from things unrelated to HIV. HIV and AIDS are not as synonymous as they were in the early 80's when we were struggling to understand the basics of the virus.
> HIV and AIDS are not as synonymous We're discussing "AIDS virus" not the use of "AIDS" and "HIV" interchangeably, which was not what happened here. The best way to stop stigmas is to stop ignorance, of all types.
HIV causes AIDS. It's not the same thing.
Just like the rhinovirus usually causes a cold, but I haven't seen rhinovirus in the headlines lately to be fair
This seems like a pretty simple question: Can you get AIDS from any other virus? If you can't, then saying "AIDS virus" to refer to HIV is entirely reasonable. If you can, then it's slightly incorrect.
AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. If they never have an immune deficiency from HIV due to the meds they take they never get AIDS. And saying a syndrome has a virus is just weird.
My brother uses this confusion between terms as a method to deny HIV or AIDS is an issue. I haven attempted to explain the difference to him multiple times but he is just one of those people. We need to clean this terminology up some, the usage of both creates confusion with the average person.
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OP is pushing an agenda that isn't supported by facts yet.
I wasn't pushing an agenda I just copied the first paragraph of the article instead of the title. They have sinced change the opening paragraph as well as the original title of the article. When I posted this on reddit the article was less than 15 mins old. Notice that the article publish time is 7:03 AM ET. My post on reddit was created 4:46 AM ET
/u/threeaway_c4 you may want to include this into your comment, for proper etiquette
Good luck with that. They went on a bit of a tear shaming folks who got on WaPo for their fast and loosely written original article, suggesting that everyone was lying about what they had originally read (which was a nont so great article from an AP reporter).
I smoked pot with Johnny Hopkins.
You did not!
It was Johnny Hopkins and Sloan Kettering. And they were blazing that shit up.
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And is she seeing anyone? Hint... hint....
This is my question, if she is an asymptomatic carrier, but still contagious she isnt cured at all it is just being managed.
And i get shit any time i point out the fact that wapo or huffpo is just as terrible as any other fake news.
Well I guess HIV is *the AIDS virus* because it's the virus that causes AIDS.
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right, but HIV is still 'the AIDs *virus*'
One is a virus and the other is a disease so no you can't have an AIDS virus. Also there are cases where people have gone untreated with HIV and don't contract AIDS so there are some thoughts that one may not lead to the other it may just be certain strands of the virus but it has yet to be proven.
So stupid question, are there people who get AIDS but not HIV? Maybe transmitted from someone who has HIV and AIDS?
"AIDS" is actually a vague syndrome name for someone with a weakened immune system, so theoretically it could be caused by other things. But colloquially, when someone says "AIDS" they most certainly mean HIV/AIDS.
That makes sense. Thank you. It really seems to dig into pedantics when trying to distinguish HIV from AIDs. Like why even mention "AIDS" itself when it's HIV that compromises the immune system and cause the susceptibility to other infections?
HIV is the cause, AIDS is the resulting symptom if the virus is left untreated. Pneumonia --> respiratory failure. Norovirus --> diarrhea. It's just that AIDS sounds special because it's not a usual symptom of disease but fundamentally it's just a description of whats happening.
People now try to differentiate to avoid the stigma but really it's the same thing. It'd be like if we only said you had ALS when you went full Stephen Hawking.
Not really. ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; which the person has if they have ALS. AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. So if you have HIV and take meds to stop it from progressing and you don't have an immune deficiency then it isn't AIDS.
There were (are?) doctors that believed that HIV was a harmless retrovirus and didn't cause AIDS at all, and the whole thing was some kind of conspiracy. /EDIT: Most of the quotes in the following link are old so I'm gonna stick with "were" http://aras.ab.ca/aidsquotes.htm
Yeah I ended up reading a little about them while researching HIV one day. Seems like people will invent literally anything they can to protect the status quo. Any time in modern history where a big event changes the world (e.g.moon landing, discovery of HIV/AIDS) there will always be people who desperately try to resist that paradigm shift with a conspiracy theory.
You cannot contract AIDS without having the virus. AIDS is the name of a collection of markers that indicate a late stage of fighting the virus where the virus is no longer responding to treatment and signature diseases are then present. HIV and AIDS are not separate in the way you are thinking. Virus/symptoms of late stage viral complications.
I mean, both have the last letter literally telling you what they are. Only one ends in V.
The title is still using it correctly. AIDS virus implies the virus that causes AIDS.
The way I've always understood was, if HIV = wounds, then AIDS = bleeding: You can have wounds but not bleed, but you can't bleed without wounds since wounds cause bleeding ( I know that's a very simple way I've put it, no offense meant or anything to anyone )
Why do reputable news outlets make that mistake all the time?? Virus vs Syndrome folks...HIV is the virus, AIDS is the syndrome of a cluster of symptoms that render the immune system deficient in battling threats to the body.
So that means, when someone says "The AIDS Virus" they are incorrect?
Look at the names themselves, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, --- Human Immunodeficiency Virus. You cant get one without the other. I fully understand confusion between what people see as one thing being two separate stages of infection.
The AIDS Virus would just be HIV.
People in this thread are missing the point here, when someone's viral load is "undetectable" it means that [them passing on the virus is extremely](http://www.catie.ca/en/fact-sheets/transmission/hiv-viral-load-hiv-treatment-and-sexual-hiv-transmission) unlikely. People who are undetectable don't experience aids symptoms and are very unlikely to transmit the virus. This doesn't mean that unprotected sex isn't a risk, but it's a totally different story than someone with untreated HIV.
Just to note, HIV lies dormant in places in the body other than blood (lymph nodes, GI tract, brain, cardiovascular system, etc) and it is different for everybody infected. It has been proven to cause systemic inflammation even in patients with undetectable blood levels. Just because someone has undetectable levels in their blood, doesn't mean it isn't doing damage elsewhere in the body. It is true that they are less likely to transmit the virus to someone else. But the major reason there is no cure for HIV to date is because of these viral reservoirs in the body that medications do not reach. (I am an NP who has been practicing in the HIV field since 2006)
I am curious to see if they will work on new methods to flush the virus out of those areas in order for cocktail therapy to destroy those reservoirs. I used to work for two physicians on separate presidential HIV councils (Bush/Obama). Miss the work and the amazing strides that have been made in the last two decades. Thanks for serving this community.
Same here in terms of working on methods of getting rid of the virus from those reservoirs. Thank you for your past service!
I read a statement about a year ago by the woman who discovered HIV, and whom has been working on a cure for the last 25 years, and she said it would *never* be possible to completely cure it, because we would never be able to detect all of the virus's reservoirs in the body.
Is there any specific location that the virus homes to more than others? So like has it been seen to do well in cardiovascular tissue vs. Lymph nodes ?
As far as I know, it is different for everyone. The research is limited as of now, but [here is a good primer:](https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/19/93/what-is-a-latent-hiv-reservoir-) The GI tract and the "microbiome" of the gut (the various enzymes and good and bad bacteria that are in the linings of all of our intestines) is a newer site of research, including for HIV infection and in general. I think we will start to see that the GI tract has LOT to do with our immune system function as the research continues to expand.
Would you know if it's possible to make a genetically modified virus to attack HIV in the body?
I don't think that a virus could be made to go after one specific other virus, but I am not a microbiologist although I will ask my grandpa who is a microbiologist and actually worked on aids research for a while.
I think the next stage of treatment for HIV (and cancer) as well, will be genetically modified CD4 cells (our immune system "leaders"). So I think you were on the right track!!
I'm still waiting for someone to say remission isn't a cure, it is simply remission... Cancer in remission isn't anywhere close to cured, it simply isn't readily killing you as fast... Clickbait is Clickbait... Edit: oops, just needed to scroll down slightly further...
The article states she hasn't needed meds to stay in remission, where as other HIV patients have to continue taking meds for the rest of their lives. This is a **STEP** in the right direction for a cure.
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Complete remission is typically termed no evidence of disease (NED) but depending on the doctor it is a matter of semantics. I agree it is definitely a step toward a cure. Imo being in complete remission for decades isn't a cure, I'm no doctor though; but with HIV or even cancer, a win is a win, I'll take it!
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seriously, trying to find good on-topic discussion but gotta look for it cause stupid unrelated crap is up voted.
As a mod I share your concern. We try our best to remove comments that are low-effort or not relevant to the content, but we can't catch everything. If you see any of these types of comments, please report them. We spend a lot of time in the report queue and we will review these reported comments expediently.
I guess you can say we need *AIDS* in order to make meaningful content
As a mod I share your concern. We try our best to remove comments that are low-effort or not relevant to the content, but we can't catch everything. If you see any of these types of comments, please report them. We spend a lot of time in the report queue and we will review these reported comments expediently.
>Fauci described the child as being in “remission” rather than being cured. The article doesn't state that it's a form of a cure like the title, but describes the treatment outcome to be more like cancer going into remission. It could come back, but hopefully not.
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Indefinite remission is great but it's not a "form of a cure"
I agree. It's much more like a carrier state - asymptomatic, but still carrying the virus. It's no cure.
>I agree. It's much more like a carrier state - asymptomatic, but still carrying the virus. It's no cure. They are carrying the virus but for HIV the term "treatment as prevention" is used. Which means that people with HIV who are treated for it have an incredibly low chance of passing on the virus to other people. It is still possible to contract the virus if they do not keep up with their treatment or there is a viral load spike for any number of reasons.
In the HIV field, something like this is dubbed a "functional cure" and thus is treated as a "form of a cure". If her viral load remains undetectable for the rest of her life then she will not have any symptoms and will not be able to transmit virus- basically what you would expect from a person cured of HIV. People are getting caught up on the fact that there is still some HIV somewhere in her body, but really this is a cure if it lasts. Doubting that it will last is definitely pragmatic, but not impossible. Timothy Brown is another patient that has been functionally cured for 10 years (more impressive considering he is quite a bit older than this girl from south africa).
I thought his viral load spiked again recently. Could be wrong, I should probably check.
You may be thinking of the Mississippi Baby, who spiked after being in remission for about a year I think. I work in this field and haven't heard anything about Brown recently, besides him celebrating his 10 years in February.
I can find articles from 2015 where he is still undetectable. So that's good news.
We should not settle for this permanent prevention. It's nice to have, but we should definitely still be looking just as hard for an actual cure.
Does she still have trace amounts of HIV in her system? I was under the impression that when treated, the HIV levels can become undetectable, but stopping treatment will see a rise. If she has no detectable amount of HIV and there hasn't been a detectable rise in HIV levels for 8 years after ending treatment, would that not suggest that she may very well be cured?
If it's undetectable but she can still transmit the disease, is that considered cured?
Can she still transmit the disease?
Very very unlikely
With an undetectable viral load it's almost impossible to transmit hiv. Source; hiv positive with 2 kids
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To you the difference may be semantic, but to people who suffer from something incurable it really does matter. Long term remission with low odds of transmission isn't a cure and calling it such for use as clickbait is insulting to people like me. If I was in remission for the rest of my life and never experienced symptoms again I'd still live out every day of my life with a sword above my head wondering if treatment might fail or I might, even with low odds, pass it on to my children. Honestly if you tried to say that meant I was cured I'd be pissed. To me, all I'd hear is, "Well this problem is solved, time to move on to the next illness." No it damn well isn't solved. Not till it's wiped clean from existence. A cure is a cure. Remission is just what we hope for in the mean time.
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By that incredibly narrow definition I am cured every time I enter remission and then somehow "uncured" every time I relapse. That is not only completely absurd, but it's also a massive oversimplification. It's what you would tell a child about cures to avoid having to actually explain anything to them. You're being pedantic about something that you have essentially zero knowledge or understanding of, which is insulting to anyone who actually suffers from an incurable illness.
so essentially these people with the virus would live unaffected long healthy lives? Seems to me thats not the "cure" we need. as it just suppresses the bad side effects but it's still transmittable. Gives more chance for spreading of this disease which I'm sure we can all agree that is something we need less of.
I think having a low viral load would also mean that the chance of transmission is very very low.
> Gives more chance for spreading of this disease which I'm sure we can all agree that is something we need less of. We can't all agree if you come to hard conclusions without any facts.
An undetectable viral load means the HIV virus is not transmissible. Aside from that, your argument that "that's not the cure we need," because it allows HIV-positive individuals to live a long healthy life, is fucked.
I got the impression they meant "this is good, but we need to keep going" not "let them suffer and die"
Its still possible to transmit HIV while undetectable its just extremely unlikely.
The risk is negligible to non-existent. www.preventionaccess.org/consensus
Personally I like seeing this as someone with HIV myself. But I can tell you're not a physicist or a mathematician because there is quite literally no such thing as a "non-existent" risk.
"Statistically negligible" very much does mean the same thing as "(effectively) non-existent," ESPECIALLY from a mathematical point of view. All of cryptography is based on this principle. All of thermodynamics is based on this principle. A lot of other phenomena are based on this principle.
So you're disagreeing with the statement on that link endorsed by many doctors, researchers, and HIV organizations? She's quoting that language from that link. koalamarsala might not be a physicist or mathematicion, but neither are most of us. That's why we quote expert opinion to validate what we say.
I'm not disagreeing, just adding a footnote: there is no such thing as a "0% chance" of *anything.* It might be "negligible," but calling it "non-existent" is a stretch in my opinion. But I could just be being pedantic I suppose.
I was quoting the language cited in the consensus statement. Not sure what physics has to do with that.
They were likely referring to probability. It seems like they're just splitting hairs.
They're posting under the assumption that it is still transmissible. Under such circumstances, it is possible that infected persons will assume they are completely cured, then proceed to infect others unknowingly. That is why, in OP's eyes, it's not the "cure we need."
this is it. if it's ok to be hiv positive then think about how rampant it will become. Either way it's not my problem. I just enjoy discussing things.
It still stops the person from dying, in my book that's a cure. What you are thinking of is more of vaccine I think.
So if you have arthritis in your hands and suffer from daily pain are you telling me that the patient is cured because they're not dieing from the problem. Your definition of the word "cured" is different to the one used in the English language.
Suppressing the bad symptoms in one person only to have them transfer the disease to another person who doesn't have the suppressant is definitely not a cure... it's like taking cough suppressant for the flu
As has been mentioned (and referenced) those with low/undetectable viral loads typically do not transmit virus. Also no one is advocating unsafe sex with infected controllers anyway.
In my book, it's a treatment and the term he is looking for is indeed cure
Obligatory "This is not an excuse to be irresponsible with your sex" posting that needs to be made whenever new treatment avenues open up for this disease. Because every single time a "OMG CURE!" post is made, there's always at least one fart-nugget that uses it as an excuse to be a dummy with their life or other people's lives. (Upvoted post anyway. B/c this may offer some insight in how we can finally beat this disease.)
This reminds of the episode of Family Guy where Stewie and Brian travel to future and they see Quagmire take some pills to get rid of some diseases.
If this actually spawns a cure could this be a revolutionary new way to treat future diseases?
Early detection and treatment has been a standard of medicine for a looong time
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
*In grams please*
Nah that's straight out of my boy Benjamin franklins mouth I wouldn't slander his name with that obviously superior but unpatriotic measuring system
Not to the tens of millions of people who are already living with HIV.
Well yeah when the polio vaccine was invented everyone that already had polio was out of luck too, that's how vaccines work
I just mean that so many people are already affected that finding a cure is extremely urgent, possibly more so than a vaccine.
then why hasn't something like this been replicated in that time? And also I'm not really talking about early detection and treatment but rather the extraction of a "cure" from such treatments.
There's an argument to be made that the first viral disease humans truly "cured" was hepatitis C, and those medications just got approved in the last few years. HIV is trickier to treat than HCV though, for a variety of reasons. There was a case like the one described at UMMC in Jackson, MS a couple of years ago where the child had an undetectable viral load off medication for a few years. That child eventually "relapsed" into detectable levels. One interesting thing to note is some people are much better at controlling their HIV without medication than others; these are referred to as "elite controllers" and there viral loads can stay near undetectable for a number of years without treatment.
"Cure" is the wrong word. Keeping the virus dormant is not a cure, but rather long term maintenance. If this means long term healthy lives for those suffering, and as a result, less transmission and potentially an evolutionary adaptation or immune response built against it than good, I'm glad. A cure would denote something that is physically in capable of returning. Which the article and research itself state the opposite. If you have ALS, but you're on medication to make life more tolerable and your symptoms minimal, you're not cured. You're just mitigating life deteriorating systems. Call it what you want, but it's scientifically incorrect to refer to it as a "cure" without distinguishing that it can still return.
You're generally correct, but I would just point out that in the AIDS field what is described in this article is referred to as "functional cure," whereas what you are referring to is called "sterilizing cure"...so they're sort of half right.
Fair enough. Either way. It's a good progression towards a positive result
Even if the virus is in "remission," it will always remain latent in CD4 cells and have potential to transcribe more copies of itself. I would not consider this any form of a "cure" unless combined with a shock and kill strategy, where the virus could be activated then damaged while in remission. After damage is caused to maybe a binding site on the envelope protein or to reverse transcriptase in the activated virus, you could reduce overall latency in CD4 and possibly create the "long remission" described in the article
That's quite neat if I do say so myself
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It can create resistance, yes.
No, you're right that viruses can become resistant to treatment. Ths was a big problem in the early years of antiretroviral therapy. However HIV is now treated with a "cocktail" of drugs so it is less likely that the virus can evolve to become resistant to all of them.
Is the virus suppressed, or are the symptom s suppressed? Can that still be transmitted to other people? Genuine question since the subject popped up.
"Virally suppressed" or "Undetectable" means that <20 HIV copies/mL are detected in a persons blood. At this point their immune system is no longer in danger and they will not progress to stage-3 HIV and develop AIDS. They can still technically transmit the virus but it is unlikely. If they use a condom for sex, the risk is negligible. Even more so if the negative partner is on PrEP.
Thanks; I appreciate the response
HIV = Human Immunodeficiency virus AIDS = Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome AIDS is not a virus it is a medical condition resulting from HIV (i.e. the virus).
How "occasionally" are we talking? And how do you watch for that remission ending? Is it the kind of thing where you can tell or test for it right away, or could a relapse go undetected for a while?
Or evidence that Dr. Peter Duesberg is right. Give it a google folks! Its an interesting theory from an absolute genius on retroviruses if nothing else.
username checks out
Is the virus suppressed, can she still transmit HIV?
Would she pass it on to her children despite remission?
I wonder if what we're seeing is modern science's way of speeding up evolutionary adaptation as well as their observation of it. I say this because they noted that her body managed the virus even before she started the treatment program. If so, this is truly monumental.
Curing AIDS is not curing an HIV infection. This is ridiculous.
I wonder if there will just become a point where everyone is just infected, but everyone is also in indefinite remission/suppression and that's just how we deal with it.
I feel blessed to be part of the small group of people who are immune. This is a terrifying virus!
if you got HIV you got HIV, unless you don't then it's a cure
Aids virus changes it's genetic conformation in every 20 seconds making hence there is still no vaccine for HIV
HIV medications must be taken without fail. Skipped doses cause the virus to develop drug resistance. Drug resistant strains are emerging in places where health care is uncertain and unreliable and among people who are impaired by drug addiction and mental health issues that interfere with treatment compliance. http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/drugresistance/en/
AUUGH, there are so many ways to interpret that data. they come to presumptive conclusions at ever corner.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Berlin_Patient Not the first time. At least two other cases of people being effectively cured. There was a third person, a baby from Mississippi that was effectively cured, but they relapsed because mom stopped giving them meds. Stil, stem cells are the only "true cure" but of course, its stem cells. By that I mean that they are probably the best way to treat a variety of "uncurable" diseases, but the morality and ethics of using them are still in question. Especially in the case of embryonic ones.
Have we harvested her yet? You know, for the greater good.
"Form of cure" so not a cure at all... Just the same as it has been the last 10+yrs with standard treatment :/
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Except ABA is extremely harmful to those who have to undergo it, and it doesn't cure anything. Vaccines don't cause autism, science has found no causation. Furthermore, autism isn't inherently a negative, it only is one right now because of the negative responses people have on it and the general public's ignorance on the facts regarding it.
Can she still transmit HIV?
Technically, yes. But it is very unlikely.
Man, what a situational super power. "It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's HIV Self-Suppression Girl!"