Stem cell treatment cures an HIV-positive man

[Alienated Being]

On the heels of World AIDS Day comes a stunning medical breakthrough: Doctors believe an HIV-positive man who underwent a stem cell transplant has been cured as a result of the procedure.

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A breakthrough has been made in the world of medicine. A man has been cured of HIV under the influence of stem cell treatment.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Stem cell treatment AND chemotherapy - anyone who knows what Chemo does will be smacking their heads saying "why didn't we think of that?". Chemo makes your own sweat toxic to other humans (even in small doses), kills off all bacteria in your body (even the good stuff), overloads the immune system and above all else is designed to attack cells. THEN dosed with stem cells that are resistant to HIV obviously you're going to "reboot" (to use a computing parlance) the system with a new immunity.

[StoneSmasher]

Here is a more in depth report. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/14/hiv.infection.cure/index.html

The huff post leaves out alot of info.

[Asheron]

Hmmm pretty interesting hope they can have statistical data on this so we may practice it even on third world countries this give me a research idea on diabetis mellitus also hmmmm... hmmm....

[Prab]

"It's not going to be applicable unless they develop leukemia or lymphoma and need a bone-marrow transplant,"Saag said.

Again here they seemed quite unexcited by this discovery in which a person has cured himself from HIV and they are not showing any signs of talking a step further to see how he was actually cured so that they could help eradicate this mofo disease once and for all!

Instead they are still pretending as if they know everything about this case and it was an exception.

Lame excuses!, they never thought that anyone would be cured by HIV and now when someone is cured they are just taking it easily and saying "yeah yeah we knew this could happen this way its commonsense!"

[The Word of Thoth]

To quote Peter Griffin....." WHY ARE WE NOT FUNDING THIS!!!!!!"

[:PsYKoTiC:BeHAvIoR:]

To quote Peter Griffin....." WHY ARE WE NOT FUNDING THIS!!!!!!"

LOL! Stroke! Stroke! Stroke! Stop mocking me!

[Ginger]

I would love to see logical arguments against stem cell research now.

[Odin11]

I would love to see logical arguments against stem cell research now.

There wasn't any to start with.

[TheVeryFirstDinosaur]

Remarkable.

[Drj312]

sorry everyone but this really isnt a definite, practical cure. this is not a practical solution at all. this is also old news. article from 2008

what happened is that the HIV-positive man received a bone marrow transplant after receiving very powerful chemotherapy. the chemo was being used to treat his leukemia. the difference is that he was given bone marrow that had a mutation that prevents the CCR5 molecule from appearing on cells. HIV needs the CCR5 to bind to in order to enter other cells and spread. so, from the chemo, most immune cells were killed in his body, so the HIV had no cells to spread on. Then, the ccr5 mutation prevented all later immune cells from being able to be bound to by the virus.

this is not a practical cure at all. there is no guarantee it will work again. the patients immune system is destroyed for a period of time, leaving him open to other infections. and, from this article, "Most researchers there believed some HIV still lurks in the patient but that it can't ignite a raging infection, most likely because its target cells are invulnerable mutants." the doctors called him "functionally cured" even though the hiv might still be in his system.

overall, this is not a practical cure for hiv. bone marrow transplants are extremely risky

[d e v i c e]

Whatever the case, least half his worries are over.