BERLIN, Nov. 12, 2008
Marrow Transplant May Have Cured AIDS
American Living In Germany Apparently Cured After Receiving Bone Marrow Transplant To Fight Leukemia
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German hematologists Eckhard Thiel, left, and Gero Huetter of Berlin's Charite Medical University attend a news conference about a successful treatment of a HIV infected patient in Berlin, on Nov. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
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Interactive AIDS: The Modern Pandemic A history of AIDS, U.S. statistics, health facts and a look at how the epidemic has spread.
While researchers - and the doctors themselves - caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Dr. Gero Huetter said his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.
It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.
"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.
This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.
Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.
As Huetter - who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist - prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.
"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."
Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.
Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system - a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.
He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.
"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.
David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.
"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."
Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.
"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 32 CommentsOh jamster31, how naive and clueless you are. Most drug users are poor, black and straight. And how are these unborn children supposed to be getting HIV from a gay person? I would really like to know. There''s strong information and arguments that the HIV virus did orginate in monkeys and was passed onto humans as Africans eat monkeys as a delicacy. That news has been out there since the 80''s. Again, please get a clue. Read IDNNSG''s posting. It''s pretty much on target.
Posted by earache4 at 07:19 AM : Nov 14, 2008
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Oh, that''s goooooood.
You are a completely ig.no.rant schmuck. HIV did NOT "start with the gay community". The most widely held theory on the origin of HIV is that it came from African monkees and was transferred to humans through blood contact. See http://www.avert.org/origins.htm if you''d like to actually learn something about it.
When AIDS spread to the "gay community" in the US, the government did NOTHING to prevent it or contain it because Ronald Reagan believed it was "God''s retribution against the h0m0s3xu@ls". All the needless deaths that followed are Ronnie''s fault! If you want to continue the ig.no.rance, you must accept the same level of responsibility for that ig.no.rance.
http://drughealth.blogspot.com/
Hey blindman, NOWHERE have I ever said or even implied its a g@y disease, get it right! its fastest growth is in hetero WOMEN in Africa, I said either dnt have s3x with other humans, get and USE a cond0m or get an animal partner- no HIV.
Drug abusers get what they deserve- dont do drugs and you wont have drug health damage, legal risks OR HIV risk.
Hey blindman, NOWHERE have I ever said or even implied its a g@y disease, get it right! its fastest growth is in hetero WOMEN in Africa, I said either dnt have s3x with other humans, get and USE a cond0m or get an animal partner- no HIV.
Drug abusers get what they deserve- dont do drugs and you wont have drug health damage, legal risks OR HIV risk.
14 orgy-goers in Amsterdam will especially be thankful.
That word was supposed to be s-e-m-e-n. *** CBS censors!
Whether I''m gay or straight has no revelance. I could be gay... I could be straight. So what''s your point? As for the real issue, drug users got it just as early as the g-ays did because they were sharing needles injecting themselves with heroin, crack or whatever their drug of choice. And this was before we found out that the virus was spread through blood and ***. Being just a little bit informed helps me not look like an ignorant fool.
Hey dummy, being HIV+ isn''t a g-ay disease. Straights have it just as much as g-ay people. And lest us not forget the children who have contracted it through their drug-addicted mothers. Oh, and then there are those African folks, you know... the mothers, fathers and children where it runs rampant. Get a clue!
Unused, unimplanted blastocysts left over from in-vitro fertilization are used. These are cells that would otherwise be discarded.
So, do you think it''s better to discard these blastocysts than to use them to try to save lives?
Small pox has killed over 300 MILLION PEOPLE worldwide in the 20th century alone.
Spanish Flu (1918 - 1919): Killed 50 to 100 million
people worldwide in less than 2 years.
Black Death (1340 - 1771): Killed 75 million people worldwide.
Malaria (1600 - today): Kills about 2 million people per year.
AIDS (1981 - today): Killed 25 million people worldwide.
Cholera (1817 - today): 8 pandemics; hundreds of thousands killed worldwide.
Typhus (430 BC? - today): Killed 3 million people between 1918 and 1922 alone, and most of Napoleon''''s soldiers on Russia.
Posted by seandgreen
Of your examples the only one that''s going strong is AIDS. Smallpox has been eradicated by immunization; the Spanish flu virus has mutated into less virulent varieties for the moment; cholera and typhus can be beaten by providing uninfected drinking water; the Black Death was three or four different bacteria originating from fleas on rats; malaria could be pretty much annihilated if the world were allowed the use of DDT again; only AIDS is still as strong as before, despite pseudo-successful treatments with drug cocktails. The ignorance and paranoia of people like stick, newster et al who STILL think it''s only a g*a*y disease allowed the virus to gain a hold that could have been avoided if studies had been funded back in the early ''80''s when signs of the epidemic first showed.
How clueless are you? stem cell research is done on CELLS not extracted from aborted fetus material any more, yet the right wings still object. Well, if your ''god'' objects to using aborted tissue he/she/it can very easily stop it- you are so self important you actually believe anything you do is somehow going to be allowed to ''interfere'' with his grand ''plan'' LOL!
Little piddling insignificant YOU are going to be allowed to skirt and scuttle the grand creator''s ''plan'' for the universe, oh I''m SURE!
Although alot of doctors and scientist do not believe in God as healer and are willing to try anything allowed by law.I doubt that i will see a cure for hiv or the reversal of aids.Iam confident that man kind will adjust or be stricken from this planet or time by this disease.
Posted by tootall1014
It started with ***.s and that sick lifestyle is what got it spreading to all areas of our society. If not for the *** it would have never gotten to this level in our country.
Posted by stick1772 at 06:04 AM : Nov 13, 2008
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Ummm, stick...you might want reflect on your statement...
There are a number of theories regarding the origin of AIDS. The little bit of research (a single google search on "origins of AIDS") I did uncovered four common credible theories from one source (http://www.avert.org/origins.htm), corroboration of two from another source (Wikipedia) and additional information from the Wikipedia source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_origin).
*None* of these theories mentions s.e.x of *any sort, much less homosexual s.e.x, in the origins of AIDS in humans. All (except conspiracy theories) trace the origins to means of cross-species delivery other than s.e.x.
In fact, at least two theories, trace the original expansions of the virus in humans to medical practices, with *no* hint of wrong-doing or immoral acts by any party (including the medical profession).
AIDS was around for many years before unprotected s.e.x became a noted transmission method.
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