Recovery?

Xrayman

Hi just spotted an article about recovery from HIV. thought it was interesting...

a while ago, there was some serious discussion (on this forum) about "recovery from HIV", perhaps this is the real deal.:skeptical

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_man_fully_%22recovers%22_from_HIV

Simonthepilgrim

We have always known that some people will show immunity to the virus. Thius has already been noted in Africa but has rarely been reported in the western press. One can only assume that, as 25 years ago, when 'GRIDS' was seen as a 'gay plague' and swept under a heterosexual carpet until Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury, the fact that some African have shown natural (and unexplained) immunity will only be seen as important when it is a white person who survives.

It should also be added that, since the original public fanfare of Mr Stimpson's HIV- status, little or nothing more has been heard:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1789575,00.html

buddhafoot

Simonthepilgrim wrote:

when 'GRIDS' was seen as a 'gay plague' and swept under a heterosexual carpet until Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury, the fact that some African have shown natural (and unexplained) immunity will only be seen as important when it is a white person who survives.

Wow... harsh...

But it could be true.

-bf

buddhafoot

I was watching a show on chimps the other day. About all the chimps in the world that are used for television or movies or biomedical testing...
Then, when their "owners" can no longer deem them as viable or profitable - they off-load them as quick as they can.

You know that chimps are 98% alike as humans, right?

So, they thought they would do a bunch of AIDS testing on them by injecting hundreds of them with the HIV virus. Oddly enough, the HIV virus didn't affect chimps like it does humans. And we're 98% alike... I found that very interesting.

I don't know why, but I did.

-bf

Xrayman

Yo BF-good to see you here again! wtf? where have you been?

it is rumoured that we have 98% the same genes that means we are 2% not-alike, our genes manufacture proteins, enzymes (cell biochemistry etc.), so the "attachments"-that are protein molecules etc. that allow/disallow infection by viral coating coding/ encryption are vastly different on the chimps cells.

This is perhaps the simplest explanation I can come up with-it may be wrong but hey?

cheers xray

buddhafoot

True, true.

Because there are quite a few physical differences that most people can notice when looking at a chimp and a human... most of the time. But, the similarities have to be quite great - otherwise, why test on chimps? I mean, I'm opposed to animal testing of any kind... Plus, my ex would think that if people were going to test drugs on animals for me, they should use a snake or a pig.

Sorry I haven't been around. I'm kind of going through a difficult time at the moment and don't know what to do. COOL, HUH!?!?!?!

I've also been in and out of town lately, so I've kind of gotten out of my daily habit of spouting off everything I truly don't know about

-bf

Simonthepilgrim

Do veterinary researchers test their new drugs for animals on human beings?

On the subject of non-human primates, my mother used to tell the story of the first time I was taken to the Chimpanzees' Tea Party at the London Zoo. Apparently (and I have no memory of this), I was so outraged (aged 4 or 5) that I wanted to climb over the fence and rescue them! I had to be taken away, screaming. We also used to have TV advertising for tea using chimpanzees. I used to ask what people would think if we made fun of people of a different human ethnicity instead.

I have heard many arguments both for and against using animals for testing, and I can understand both. My 'gut', however, rebels: I could not do it myself and, thus, do not want to ask others to do it for me. On the other hand, I am quite prepared to use the results of such testing , e.g. the antibiotics that I have to take at the moment.

On the subject of DNA parallelism, we also share 98% with sea anemones!

As Carl Sagan said: "We are all star stuff".

Palzang

Actually, bf, there is a simian version of AIDS that chimps do get, and they have used the poor critters in research as the disease closely mirrors the human variety.

Palzang

buddhafoot

True dat.

I just thought it odd that they injected and biopsied the crap out of thousands of these poor creatures on testing that did nothing regarding a cure for "human" AIDS.

-bf

Palzang

Yeah, and that's because in the scientific world life other than human doesn't carry the same value and weight. In other words, they do it on animals like chimps and dogs because nobody's going to complain. They'd do the same on humans if they could get away with it. One of the reasons I dropped out of that game when I was in graduate school in biology at the University of Chicago. I really couldn't stomach the wanton slaughter of animals, even if it was just a rat, for some research project that really didn't prove much at all or benefit anyone particularly. Even if it had, it still wasn't worth it in my book.

Palzang

Xrayman

1. SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus).

2. Attention perhaps needs to be drawn to Dr. Mengele (nazi) and Unit 731 in Japan 1938-45 to get some idea of Human experimentation and how it may be likened to animal experimentation.

Just one small bone of contention....We all have benefitted from this. American researchers used german nazi doctors and the results of their "experiments" to know the effects of Hypoxia and Hypothermia and Hyperthermia.

While Japanese research on "logs" gave us data on the effects of radiation, smallpox, bubonic plauge, pneumonic plauge and various other diseases. So I think we all need to at least acknowledge this.

Sorry to bring you all down.