Maggie Gallagher (and yes, I feel a little dirty just typing her name) notes a CBS San Francisco report on a gentleman whose HIV has currently been reduced to undetectable levels as a result of treatment with HIV-resistant adult stem cells.
This story has been hanging around since December last year, but I am both sad to say that it is the first I have heard of it, and very happy if it gives HIV/AIDS researchers another avenue to follow in what I suspect is still going to be a long search for a cure.
Maggie deems it important enough to get a:
Wow, if true.
The thing that struck me most is a point that was made by one of the 4 commenters on Maggie’s post.
If the potential treatment had involved fetal stem cells, Maggie would undoubtedly already have posted a six page rant about how the queers are going to abort millions of babies in order to save themselves from the virally-inflicted vengeance of God, and we would all have been reading about this subject every week for the last six months.
Image: Sick Bacchus – Caravaggio (1571-1610)
[Edited slightly after posting.]
Loneoak
Good thing they’re too stupid to understand the interlocking of fetal and adult stem cell research agendas—you don’t get one without the other. And before anyone gets really excited about this, there’s no way this treatment will become widespread. It could lead to new insights, procedures and drugs, but the particular flavor of stem cell technologies used here will never provide more than a few people with immunity.
Also too, a fun fact: Those lucky ducky Northern Europeans that lack the CD4 receptor necessary to be infected by HIV are that way because the plague makes use of the same receptor, so their ancestors survived the Black Death. I’m sure Maggie Gallagher will be praising the beneficence of evolution any day now.
Ecks
Nice picture. Perhaps they’ve been treating you with Levenson’s stem cells?
NobodySpecial
Maggie Gallagher, future genocidal warrior against snowflake embryos everywhere.
Anyone ever pointed out how many ‘deaths’ her position has caused?
Yutsano
@Loneoak:
I know you were being snarky, but the fact that they are aware of this is pretty fucking amazing. Developing a permanent receptor blocker might just finally kill this scourge off.
Warren Terra
To clarify Loneoak’s comment: this type of T cell is characterized by its expression of CD4, but the mutation that makes the cell resistant to infection by HIV causes a lack of CCR5, not of CD4. Furthermore, the link of the CCR5 mutation to the black death seems to be a bit overstated in Loneoak’s comment.
asiangrrlMN
If it’s true, then let’s dance and rejoice. I’ll bring the booze, Ms. Sarah. As for Maggie…yeah….the less said about her the better.
Cliff
Maggie would undoubtedly already have posted a six page rant about how the queers are going to abort millions of babies in order to save themselves from the virally-inflicted vengeance of God
Well, look. At least ten percent of those babies would have been gay anyway, so that should be worth the price of admission for any wingnut worth his or her salt.
And I’m thinking at least five percent of them are going to be Terror Babies, and obviously we’ve got to fight those little bastards in the womb, before they turn into Terror Children.
And if you round up, the other eighty five percent are going to grow up to be atheist and Muslim thanks to Barack HUSSEIN Obama. So this should be a win-win situation for everyone.
And that’s not even counting the babies that will grow up to be government employees, public school teachers, Mexicans and welfare queens!
Ecks
@Cliff: Great point. I thought about having a baby once, but then decided not to in case it came out Mexican. Just imagining a young progeny emerging with a terror-sombrero and a sheaf of taquitos recipes… You can never be too careful.
Nate Dawg
Actually, this post is really understating the importance of the “Berlin patient”. Anti-retrovirals reduce the virus to undetectable levels, in just about everyone, and have for over a decade. This would not be such a big deal.
The stem cell treatment completely eradicated the virus from his body. It’s gone. It’s not hiding out in reservoirs untouched by treatment.
He is not just effectively cured of HIV. He’s cured.
We have a cure for AIDS.
(Now, let’s talk about the risks, rewards, costs, effectiveness of this cure, but it is literally a cure.)
Linda Featheringill
This is wonderful news! I have just enough medical knowledge to know that I don’t have enough medical knowledge, so I can’t comment on the technical aspects of it all. But it really sounds like progress!
I have heard about resistance to the plague being associated with resistance to other nasty stuff. Again, I don’t have enough understanding to make any definitive statements. But I’ll take any benefits I can get from my forebears.
Joe Bauers
“…we would all have been reading about this subject every week for the last six months.”
Except, of course, for those of us who wouldn’t read a word written by that woman unless someone with a gun to a loved one’s head demanded it.
Steve
@Loneoak: I guess I’m also too stupid to understand how the research agendas lock, but I don’t understand it. However, it has always baffled me how these people trumpet the successes of adult stem cell research as if to say, “See, this works so well, we totally don’t need any fetal stem cell research!” when there’s no logical reason at all why that should be true.
someguy
Hey, if it irritates the righties, let’s get to grindin’ some babies up. We should start by harnessing the Palin family, Matrix-style…
mikeyes
Did you notice that Bacchus looks like Harpo Marx?
Michael Finn
Just because something is at undetectable levels doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. It just means the test may not be sensitive enough to detect it.
For years they though the Ebola infested Kitum cave. They though the bats were free of the disease and went looking else where. Turns out the bats did have it and the test wasn’t sensitive enough to pick it up. Lots of people died from the infection in the mean time.
I don’t know if the guy is cured but a vial the size of your thumb is enough to contain about a least billion viruses, turn that into the size of human and give it 10 trillion caves and the hunt turns scary.
Nate Dawg
Hey Mickey Finn (heh),
I hear your complaint, but you really should read up on this case. The treatment was in 2007, and he has been undetectable (and more importantly with no change in CD4 count) since then. Scientists felt comfortable declaring him cleared after 4 years. HIV can’t hide that long without replicating, and it only replicates in cd4 cells, which it cannot enter anymore, due to the CCR5 mutation. Of course, in science, there is always caution, but it is quite likely there is no HIV in his body anymore.