Man Officially Cured of HIV

[rednaxela]

For the first time, a man has been declared officially cured of HIV. The remedy may nearly have killed him, but it opens a door—just a crack—to hope that we may someday kill off the scourge for good.

Strangely enough, the diagnosis that most concerned Timothy Ray Brown in 2007 was acute myeloid leukemia. HIV has been increasingly thought of as a manageable disease, though certainly a terribly burdensome one. What brought the 42-year old Brown under the care of Germany's Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital was the more immediate threat his cancer posed.

The treatment Brown underwent was aggressive: chemotherapy that destroyed the majority of his immune cells. Total body irradiation. Finally, a risky stem-cell transplant that nearly a third of patients don't survive—but that appears to have completely cured Brown of HIV.

Doctors were savvy when they chose a stem cell donor for Brown. The man whose bone marrow they used has a particular genetic mutation, present in an incredibly small percentage of people, that makes him almost invulnerable to HIV. With Brown's own defenses decimated by treatments, the healthy, HIV-resistant donor cells repopulated his immune system. The initial indications that the virus had abated were promising. But only just now, having taken no antiretroviral drugs since the transplant, and following extensive testing shows no signs whatsoever of HIV, have his doctors given the official word:

He's cured.

What does this mean for the future of treatment? It's not as though every HIV patient can or would want to go through the tremendous suffering that was prelude to Brown's recovery, or be able to afford the procedure if they could or did. But for the first time, we know that HIV can be cured, not just managed. It opens new avenues of research—gene therapy, stem cell treatments—that may otherwise have been thought dead ends.

Great news.:thumbs up:

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

great news indeed, though it poses more questions than it answers.

A big problem, as I understand it, is that tests for HIV antibodies in the blood cannot detect anything below a certain level. When the doctors say "viral load undetectable", they do not mean the virus is absent, they believe it is still there, but in small enough numbers so that it's not causing any symptoms or problems. When people have stopped taking their antiviral medications however the virus has invariably multiplied to the point where it became detectable again. In all cases up to now, that is. Moreover, because of the way the virus mutates to become resistant to certain drugs, you can't then just go back on the same medication you were on before, you have to switch to a different one which may or may not do the job as well.

What this means is that it's always risky to stop any HIV medication that seems to be working, even if you have no detectable levels of the virus, and it's really only in exceptional cases like this one, where the man's whole immune system was basically being replaced anyhow, that it might be considered as a strategy.

Having said all that, this case shows that the virus apparently CAN be got rid of completely, and the next step is to work out the technology of how to do that without people having to undergo the traumatic procedures that this man went through.

 

[RuG]

i'm thinking at what cost would someone undergo this treatment (both financially and emotionally)? plus, the article mentions that the donor with the 'right' bone marrow is rare.

 

[jw4833]

Actually, he's not the first to admit of being cured of HIV. There is a popular gospel singer by the name of DeWayne Woods who had admitted a couple of years ago of being officially cured of HIV through prayer and healing. I've seen him on TV show over the past couple of years proclaiming his healing of HIV. I have attached a couple of links where he is being interviewed;

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art47832

and

http://www.whozhe.blogspot.com/2007/09/gospel-si

 

[diklik]

Great news.
But only just now, having taken no antiretroviral drugs since the transplant, and following extensive testing shows no signs whatsoever of HIV, have his doctors given the official word:

He's cured.
:thumbs up:

I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade, but I regard those absolute pronouncements as total bullshit. Every week or two, some medical clinic announces some new breakthrough. So great, no viral activity was found, and I am happy for that man. However next month, some researcher may find a new test that could point out the faults in any old testing methods - and our "cured" person might be re-diagnosed as still having some vestige of the infection. Besides, the European medical community thrives on selling expensive treatments for all kinds of diseases and conditions to wealthy North Americans whose insurance or bank accounts will support the financial load. I am not yet convinced of the total authenticity until multiple peer reviews are delivered from around the medical world, all of them confirming the 'cure'.

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

There was a story doing the rounds a couple of years ago about a man who had been "cured of HIV". I don't know if it was the same person as this gospel singer mentioned above. The fact that the news item has dropped off the radar obviously means that the claim did not survive the scrutiny of the medical profession.

 

[rednaxela]

I know that but the good news I'm pointing out is what jeansguy already pointed out on his first post.

 

[justandra]

You would think this would be big news but I can barely recall seeing it on the news stations. I can only fathom the risk and cost that come along with this. Hopefully its a step in the right direction.

 

[dillydallier]

Truly wonderful and unbelievable!

 

[diklik]

Quite interrestingly, the case of DeWayne Woods is solely based on his own testimony. .

Ay, and there's the rub---as they say. Without comprehensive proof of both before and after, such an assertion is either a total scam and a fraud or a case of very misguided and wishful thinking. Myself, I tend to gravitate towards fraud, since most people who stand up and yell how religious they are, have a lot of past lies to hide in their respective closets. My late father taught me many things, but one of the most important was for me to discern the truth about other people from how they live, not how they talk.

 

[alexfot55]

Doesn't mean we will throw all our safety measures and prudence away,OK ?