A Potential Cure For AIDS

Wall Street Journal:

The startling case of an AIDS patient who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease.

The patient, a 42-year-old American living in Berlin, is still recovering from his leukemia therapy, but he appears to have won his battle with AIDS. Doctors have not been able to detect the virus in his blood for more than 600 days, despite his having ceased all conventional AIDS medication. Normally when a patient stops taking AIDS drugs, the virus stampedes through the body within weeks, or days.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[Temsi]

08:46 PM on 11/11/2008

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that here in the United States, he wouldn't even have qualified for a Bone Marrow transplant because he has AIDS - or at least his insurance would have refused to pay for it.

[initforlife]

01:17 PM on 11/11/2008

About 100% of the world's "supposed" leaders believe this planet is over-populated. Roughly half American citizens are most likely to agree with them with higher percentages of the Earth's "public" masses are also likely to agree that our planet is over-populated. Personally, I do not believe we are over-populated, but I definitely believe there is a dangerously large percentage of bipeds running around on this planet. Self appointed superior minds (scientists) have stated by majority that this planet is over-populated with people.

Given the above probable statistics- does anyone seriously believe there is still a motive for curing AIDS and/or cancer? There is definitely profits to be had in "treatment" but cures? There is no money in that let alone motive.

[mrcontinental]

04:48 PM on 11/11/2008

This planet isn't close to being overpopulated. If we were to truly harness solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal energy to their full potential there would be enough energy for all. Technology is the answer to our problems but the current "Profits Uber Alles" system prevents it from happening. We could have long ago found cures for cancer, heart disease, and aids but there is more profit in keeping people sick.

[harriettubman]

11:49 AM on 11/11/2008

We have thrown gazillions toward cancer yet no cure has been found yet. It makes me scratch my head. What's going on? All they do is cry that funding is low. Do they realize how much money is given to cancer research? It's mind boggling. An objective panel should be used when doing research and working with the pharmaceutical giants.

We have other illnesses where there is no known origin, let alone a cure--ALS, Parkinson's, MS, and others.

[MourningDood]

12:01 PM on 11/11/2008

Cancer is essentially a normal biological process gone haywire.

An infection like smallpox, and perhaps even AIDS someday, can be eradicated. You can't eradicate cancer because it's using normal biological processes at the wrong time and place. If you eradicated those processes, the human race would cease to exist.

[dshwa]

10:08 AM on 11/12/2008

Yes, there is no cure yet. But if you look at mortality rates, the 5 year survival rates have dramatically increased for nearly all types of cancer over the last two decades. We're getting fairly good bang for our buck. (Pancreatic and GBM being the glaring exceptions.)

Which is not to let the pharmaceutical industry off the hook, because they do overcharge for their treatments, many of which they create with tax-payer funded research. (Taxol!)

[harriettubman]

11:44 AM on 11/11/2008

I hope this is true. Unlike some American doctors who would be waiting to get rich off of a cure, this man is being cautiously optimistic.

[Scholar in Training]

11:23 AM on 11/11/2008

Lots of interesting medical stories this morning. This guy is curing AIDS and this girl, over in the UK, is refusing to have a heart transplant so she's going to die (http://www.acouplethings.com/blog/2008/11/philosophical-discussion-time-does-a-13-year-old-have-the-right-to-die-on-her-own-terms/). Only problem is, she's 13!

[ndem]

11:01 AM on 11/11/2008

Futherrmore, AIDS charities such as AmFar have given huge grants to biotechs such as Tanox which tried to develop vaccines based on this technology but which in fact made Gulf War soldiers and others at Huntsville prison very very sick. one of the people working at both Tanox and the government biowarfare labs and who holds the patent on an important AIDS co-factor, a mycroplasma, was Shyh Ching Lo. the founders of Tanox are two Taiwanese doctors, Nancy Chang and her ex-husband. When this company did its IPO in May 2000, it was one of the biggest ever. Chang is connected to Bush Jr. and was on his Science advisory board in Texas. This company was a tech spinoff of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, which also built the medical facilities at Huntsville prison and used people there as guinea pigs for years. Dr. james Watson, the Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of DNA, personally worked testing vaccines at Huntsville prison. He has recently come out as a racist. He knows about these genetic differences as they affect AIDS and HIV. That this information has been kept from the public and from those suffering from HIV and AIDS for over two decades is a crime.

[ndem]

10:56 AM on 11/11/2008

For well over 20 years now this genetic reality has been known. A biotech company based in Houston, Tanox, tested out vaccines based on this genetic receptor or CCR5 allele mutation on both Gulf War troops during the first Gulf War and prisoners in Huntsville prison. This should have been on the front pages of every media publication decades ago! It would have saved millions!
Basically people all have genetic coding for pairs of receptors or alleles, either two normal alleles, one normal and one mutated or two mutated (the most rare and a result of natural selection of both mostly Northern Europeans and Ashkenazi Jewish populations which survived smallpox and other viral plagues in the 15th c. because their receptors were mutated and thus viruses could not attach-now these same populations have a natural immunity to HIV).
Location-wise, the genetic coding for whether or not a person has normal or mutated alleles lis physically next to the genetic coding for skin tone...thus Sub Saharan Africans and people of color always have two normal allele/receptors and thus HIV always attaches and can replicate in cells.

[sueno]

10:35 AM on 11/11/2008

I have spent 15 years of my life fighting AIDS
and working to inform people how to protect themselves.
I pray that this is a major advancement and helps
to save millions affected by HIV/AIDS-

[DaOne]

10:47 AM on 11/11/2008

Fight on my friend. Where there is life, there is hope.

[sunny555]

11:14 AM on 11/11/2008

I am praying for you and with you. A cure is long overdue

[macohmz]

10:30 AM on 11/11/2008

A cure? There's no money to be made in cures. The medical establishment along with Big Pharma doesn't want a cure for anything. Just like lawyers, cops and judges don't really want crime to end. There's too much money to made off human misery and suffering. The Republicans and Democrats maintain their positions by maintaining the same issues one decade after another. It's all about the money. It is always about the money.

[BBackSoon]

09:44 AM on 11/11/2008

Just like Detroit brought us ‘Planned Obsolescence’ the Drug companies have learned there is no money in CURES only TREATMENTS.

I am convinced that the modern plagues such as Cancer and Aids are being milked for all they are worth. Patients are paying thousands of dollars a month for drug treatments and a cure would stop that revenue.

Now let me adjust my tin foil hat.

[GrainOSand]

09:53 AM on 11/11/2008

I allow for those theories and worse. I do not say I believe them but I do not say I disbelieve them either. Good cannot exist without evil -- we would not know the difference. Things seem unbalanced and the entire world is in need of a shift away from evil. I make no bets on outcome and I stay firmly rooted in now -- which is all any of us have from changing moment to changing moment. Truth and cures are things of realizations within moments. If we wake up tomorrow and there is a cure for AIDS that will be the truth of that moment of awakening. Until then all is possible under experimentation and exploitation.

[SolarPowerGuy]

12:11 PM on 11/11/2008

The article says that David Baltimore and Irvin Chen have started a company to try to commercialize this cure. Don't give up yet.

[GrainOSand]

09:42 AM on 11/11/2008

What a horrific disease AIDS is. As I read the article, I was transported back to the early eighties and the first real rumblings about the disease. How many have died since then? A cure remains the goal and scientists remain enthusiastic and capable of inspiration in research. The scientific community has come a long way in understanding the nature of the virus but the article tells me, there is still more road to travel. I like the gene science that sends a virus to stimulate a condition of immunity. The science is way over my head but I get the principles. It is almost like looking at the universe at the micro level, as it exists inside of the human body. The dangerous nature of research was also indicated in the article, with reports of death in clinical trials.

Bravo is sent out to the scientists who are true healers and not just looking for notoriety and fortune, and thereby do a reckless disservice to the practice of medicine. The article suggests we have good people in the world fighting on the healing front. May they be inspired in their work as well as careful. May the suffering that is AIDS one day know an end.

[springsm]

11:47 AM on 11/11/2008

And you must also remember then that Reagan ignored the AIDS problem and did not do one damn thing to try to help. We have very fine people who have died with AIDS, we have had research non stop by those who care and we have had some funding. It would be a wonderful thing to find an end to this, get past the cynicism about the cure/treatment plan and do away with it all together. Nobody deserves this diesease. Fight on all of you who do the good fight.

[Big0725]

09:12 AM on 11/11/2008

A cure for AIDS?

The day that it happens, EVERYBODY GETS LAYED!

[mathme]

08:29 AM on 11/11/2008

Wait, we've known about people who have "built in" immunity to HIV for a while... why did it take so long for someone to try this??? I just assumed that something like this had been attempted and failed because it seems like a pretty obvious step. Weird.

[SolarPowerGuy]

11:37 AM on 11/11/2008

Why did it take so long? I can think of two reasons.

First, HIV is a disease which attacks your immune system. The idea of removing what white blood cells you have left is not an obvious one. For that is what you do in a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. You kill blood cells, leaving the patient completely defenseless for a while, and then you replace those blood cells.

Second, the odds of finding the right donor are awfully low. You need a bone marrow donor whose tissue type matches the recipient's type. There are hundreds, even thousands, of different tissue types. And, on top of that, the bone marrow donor has to have the HIV resistance trait, which makes the odds of finding a match about 100 times worse.

I think that this therapy, assuming that it is shown to work reliably, would be greatly improved by genetic engineering techniques.

[harriettubman]

11:51 AM on 11/11/2008

That can be a catch 22 also. Being defenseless for any amount of time can kill the patient. That's what happened with Bernie Mac and his Sarcoidosis. His medication rendered him defenselss and he died of pneumonia.

[LetsGetDumbAmerica]

07:11 AM on 11/11/2008

I wish you all the best Dr. Hütter. Stay strong..

[lochnessmonster]

06:59 AM on 11/11/2008

Let us pray but I'm afraid that something like this could be stifled by the drug companies who are so hell bent on putting everyone on some sort of maintenance drug if you need nit or not.

[GoCards1978]

09:45 AM on 11/11/2008

Good point. Something like this could be very damaging to the bottom line.