My found got HIV. He had dated this girl for 2 yrs plus, even talked about STDs and before they decided to go have unprotected sex (after 2 yrs of dating mind you) they got individually tested for STDs (to include HIV) she said she was negative (a lie) they then began having unprotected sex which well the result was obvious he got infected.

He isn't some druggie, or hippie, or some sex crazed maniac. He's a successful business owner who dated a girl for 2 yrs. They got STD tested before they started having unprotected sex. And she lied about her results.

nick, did your friend press charges? I am pretty sure she can be convictied of murder. Its illegal to lie about having HIV/AIDS

Even if it is a one in a million fluke with ten thousand variables at work, that fluke is still something and it's something we haven't had in all the decades of the HIV / AIDS epidemic. It's a scientific discovery, it's medical progress, and it's hope.

The average person with HIV/AIDS in the USA is DEAD by their 43rd birthday.

Over 66% of the NEW HIV/AIDS cases in the USA are due to MSM & IDU. The majority of the remainder are due to BI-sexual boyfriends.

In the EU some countries IDUs have 80% infection rates.

In Asia - Thailand IDUs have between 40 & 50% infection rates. Thailand DECREASED their infection rates by ENFORCING their policy of putting drug dealers/traffickers to DEATH and users in jail for up to LIFE.

More people have died due to HIV/AIDS than were KILLED during the WWI.

The question to ask is, "Who is going to pay for this cure???"

@ncik

I don't believe you. You say your friend waited two years before having sex. What was he 12 years old? Additionally you an ask to see someone's report.

The best cure for HIV is don't live dangerously.

bklynj - Ncik-2003585 said that his friend waited before having unprotected sex. That doesn't mean that they didn't have sex for two years.

Rheanan, I believe you put it very well. It is "Something" ....

Hope!... as Rheanan eluded to cannot ever be underestimated. The truth is, in the last 30 years, we have been getting our butts kicked in the field of Virus Control and Cure. We have poured $$ BILLIONS $$ into "Hard On Pills" we have poured just as much into Cholesterol medications. And considering that many can control their cholesterol by "Just saying No" to that Cheese Burger for lunch, it is a high price to pay for science to be bogged into such studies. No soap box here though... I realize those Meds are important.

Watch a little TV, it is stunning how they will begin the advertisement of some drug or another for some affliction or another, the soothing music will play, the actors all look like Department store window "Manikins"... and then somewhere, at some point, they start giving the possible side effects, and while they tell you that by taking this or that you may have an arm fall off or your Tongue may swell to the size of a cantaloupe or you may die a prolonged agonizing death from extreme flatulence... the smiles from the "Manikins never stop and the music plays on....

I ask you... all of you, "How in Gods name are we ever going to create the cures for those Viruses which take the most of us? How can we when we cannot even get it right when making a medication to keep your Blood Pressure straight without a major concern of heart attack or stroke? How can we study, perfect and then prescribe these new cures when the medical people and drug companies are being sued for Billions? Sued to the brink of Insolvency by every ambulance chasing, gut sucking, low life Lawyer in America... for untold Billions of $$$ that mostly end up as Yachts, Super Cars and Private jets owned by said Lawyers and their Firms?

I ...."HOPE"..... Therefore.... I care.

That one day we start to see some of the greatest killers of man kind alleviated. However... I also have a spiritual belief in Balance... There are diseases that kill Humans, just as there are diseases that kill animals of the earth. They have evolved, just as the Earth has evolved to keep the weak and the sickly at a minimum. They are there to allow for a strong and fertile Genetics pool. They are there because we are only borrowing this energy and the material we are made of. It all must go from whence it came... Ash to Ash... Dust to dust... People are born and they die... Both actions are as natural as life can be... and a necessity to keep it all Balanced and Verile in the big picture.

Are you drunk?

I agree...a "fluke" is still an event. I hate how the scientific community is quick to explain away things they don't really understand. The "fluke" needs to be investigated continually. This is not the first time that I've read a story wherein someone no longer shows any medical sign of HIV infection but doctors refuse to claim they are "cured," saying things like "maybe he wasn't really infected in the first place" or "maybe the drug cocktail did it's job..." It sometimes makes me think that they don't really want to explore all the options (even though I know that sentiment isn't really founded in truth).

If all options like the German man were researched, and a cure was really found, think about how many people would be out of Research jobs and What effect it would have on the drug company's profits. This is the reason cures are not found for diseases, I truly believe. Drugs can cost up to or exceed 3000.00 dollars a month for HIV/AIDS. What would the Drug Companies do if they lost this revenue? As long as politics and profits for the wealthy are involved, cures will not be found...look how long they have researched a cancer cure...you would think that over a quarter of a century would be time to find something, if not, maybe the wrong people are looking or are they overlooking or is vital information being shoved in a drawer somewhere by a big CEO??? Something to think about.....

AC Robertson, SpankYoMonkey and others singling out people living with HIV-

Most occurrences of heart disease, diabetes, lung cancer, knee replacement, etc. are caused by "living dangerously." Do you or a parent have one of these? "Who is going to pay for their care?" How does that feel to hear these bigoted statements about yourself or your parents?

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

@ Derek-V "Mannequin"

That's because the rhinovirus that cause most cases of the common cold actually is able to replicate better in cooler temperatures. The warm steam slows the replication of the virus. Not joking at all.

Summer-1597193 - That is silly. While it is true that the common cold is susceptible to higher temperatures, there is no way that the warmth of a soup is going to create enough heat or steam to warm the body up for a length time long enough to kill enough of the virus. A hot shower where you breath a considerable amount of steam in through your nose for 30> minutes might...might help. Protein in the chicken and just the hydration from the soup if a far more likely elixir than a tiny bit of steam.

Summer....

Ok look...I couldn't let your mis statement re; 'the common cold replicates better in cold temperatures' go uncorrected... Your statement is simply NOT true...

This is NOT why people get colds in the winter vs summer...As far as we currently know, it is simply that the virus takes hold because people stay in doors/in close quarters, are in close proximity during the winter months and the virus spreads from person to person more efficiently then thus 'cold and flu season'...

I do believe he is being sarcastic summer. You my friend are one simple minded individual.

StMiller & Fed Up w/ Lies...Actually, it's very true for the rhionovirus which is the causative agent for the common cold. It replicates faster at slightly lower temps. The heat from the steam slows the replication of the virus. I should've added that this slowing gives your immune system a better chance to respond to the virus - that way my fault for not clarifying that. Furthermore, if you notice - I didn't say that the soup was actually curing the cold - it's not. What I said is that the heat slows the replication.

Fed up w/ Lies - if you read my statement you would see where I didn't say it is why people get colds in the winter vs. summer. These are two very different statement. Recovery from a cold is different than contracting the cold. Of course people get more colds because they are in confined spaces during the winter months and that gives a cold and flu season.

StMiller, of course a hot shower would work better. I never said it was a cure or that there weren't other things that worked better. Simply that yeah, it does help slow the replication of the virus.

There is actual scientific evidence that shows that consuming hot soup, drinking hot beverages, etc. during a Rhinovirus infection does slow the replication of the virus.

Janelyn, He may have been being sarcastic. My response, however, does not make me a simple minded individual - nor does it mean I didn't catch the sarcasm.btw, Microbiology, including viruses, is something I know very well - considering it is something I've been involved with as a researcher, and just got done taking a medical school final in microbiology (already got our grades back - I got a 98% in the class, and yes, rhinoviruses were covered as part of this class).

Actually you are all incorrect.

It is a little-known fact that the Rhino-virus is deathly allergic to chicken.

And it's not too fond of Rhinos either.

the "cold," when named, occured primarilly in the winter season. this was due to people placing their wet clothes (via snow) in front of fireplaces to dry, creating pools of warm water that were teeming with virii and bacteria. there was poor science and communication back then, and people just assumed they got the "cold" because it was *cough* cold.

There never will be a reason to live dangerously Rudy!!!.

Because this process is extremely dangerous and very difficult to replicate.

It requires a full bone marrow transplant from not only a compatible doner, but a doner with the mutation. That mutation is rare amongst those of European descent and unheard of amongst the African or Asian populations.

The process of doing a full bone marrow transplant requires the patient undergo a process by which ~all~ of their bone marrow is killed by radiation. This completely shuts down the their immune system, a common cold would kill them. They then have to stay in a completely sterile environment for a few weeks while their new translated mutated bone marrow rebuilds their immune system. A single virus or bacteria introduced to them during this time could kill them. This type of procedure is expensive and one out of four patients die either during the procedure or shortly afterwords. This type of procedure is considered a "last resort" for leukemia patents, something to do when they have little time left to live.

So yeah it'll work, but the cons outweigh the pros, at least for now. What this really does is show us the mechanism through which we can fight HIV. It shows us its one glaring weakness and that their is a way to shut it down. Now for them to take this knowledge and create a way through which we can destroy the virus without the risk of death.

Dont be so childish. The news is what they want us to know. Not what we should know, or the truth. "News" is just the opinion of what some people want us to know.

I want you all to know nothing.

Mission Accomplished.

One of the reasons this might not be fully researched, is because the drug company's will loose money. In fact they have, one time cure pills, but the business men do not want to release this information, because they want you to continually purchase medications in order for you to spend money. They will not make money if their is a cure. Business men have told scientist in their face to halt production if they find a cure. This is why the real world can slap you in the face. Welcome to reality. Have a nice day.

Because a single instance of one individual not having detectable levels of HIV is not a cure. It's an anomaly.

To put this into perspective, "lightning struck and cured the patient" ie we don't know how, why or how to get a repeat result! Besides, bone marrow transplant is like high dose electroconvulsive therapy (to run with the electricity theme :) You basically "fry" the immune system to the point of the patient almost dying and then bring them back by giving bone marrow. The risk is HUGE of this going the wrong direction ie death. Think this one needs a little work before it is worthy of the front page!

99octane: Sorry it took space away that could otherwise have been used for celebrity sightings etc.

Nick, the HIV virus has an incredibly complicated biology. Vaccine after vaccine has failed to prevent new infection in clinical trials.

Fact is that HIV attacks the immune system by many mechanisms. There is no compound safe for human ingestion that kills all the virus once in the blood stream. I mean, bleach will do the trick, but you obviously can't drink up.

HIV 'hides out' in the tissues of the immune system, lies dormant while the patient is on cocktails of HIV meds. As soon as they stop the cocktails, it roars back.

A BMT is an incredibly risky procedure, like other commenters have alluded to. As the article also pointed out, there is no way to know at this point if the virus is lying dormant somewhere in the patients body. It also costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a perfectly matched donor who happens to have an incredibly rare mutation. I hope people realize that you can't just find a donor who simply has the mutation; they also need to be MHC compatible - very hard to find for a random donor.

Currently, the best thing for any of us to do is prevent infection in ourselves.

Rick's Real,

You wouldn't be the first to do that. It still wouldn't make you safe either.

i agree witth nick...u hav no idea heather what this guys r doing. like the tobbacco companies dd u know that one of their x-employees they tried to assasinate becoz he revealled the truth.... u hav no idea... ask me i will tell you.

I also have ocean front property in Nevada to sell you, TechT.

People like you and Nick are insulting to the people who work tirelessly to discover the cure and in the meantime find ways to keep the virus at bay, thus providing the patient a good quality of life and not the death sentence HIV/AIDS once was.

Oh, i dunno. I think people like Nick and Tech T, who are usually convinced that the government has installed rectally-implanted microphones and GPS devices in them to "keep track of everything they do" are really quite amusing more than anything else.

I think they're both overdue for their new TinFoil-Hat fittings...

Nick almost, there are a few catch's.

For one you can't just transplant any bone marrow it must be genetically compatible. Because this mutation happened amongst the northern European population anyone not of northern European decent has a very small chance of finding a compatible doner. Yes nature can be "racist" sometimes.

Now if someone doesn't have HIV to begin with you could introduce the new marrow as a vaccine and it would reduce the patients susceptibility to HIV, but because the patients own marrow still exists and is created vulnerable cells they could still be infected. You would have to systematically kill off the patients bone marrow and allow the new marrow to repopulate the are, this might be dangerous we don't know yet.

If someone already has HIV it gets much worse. Assuming they can find a compatible doner, you must eradicate all of the patients current bone marrow first. Its the only way to kill the virus off and remove it from their system. This reduces their immune system to less then that of a new born baby. A single virus / bacteria could kill them and it takes weeks for the new marrow to repopulate enough to allow them outside a sterile environment. HIV doesn't kill off live bone marrow, instead it infects the cells produced by that bone marrow. If you have both types of bone marrow then the virus will only infect some of the cells but it would still be there.

lol, you think same sex marrige will spread the virus worse? You know gay people who get married are a lot more faithful then straights. You should be more worried about the cheating straight couples spreading.

i agree with you hmmmm. man some people!! so quick to judge.

Actually there it is very much true that homosexuals have the highest chance of contracting AIDs. This is because the virus spreads through the plasma in ejaculate (ejaculate is only 5% sperm cells, the rest is just plasma containing other hormones). The membranes inside the vaginal and anal cavity are very thin and allow ejaculate plasma to permeate them and enter the bloom stream. This is how the male ejaculate delivers certain hormones into the females blood stream for various things. This is also how the virus can get inside the body so easily, its riding your reproductive system.

Seeing that females lack the ability to discharge ejaculate plasma and that the male penile skin is much tougher then vaginal / anal membranes, the chances of a male catching it from a women are significantly less then a women catching it from a male. This doesn't mean males can't catch it from females, the virus lives in all those fluids including her lubrication, and if some of that lubrication can get into some microscopic crack or weakness in the skin then the male can be infected. This makes male on male sex have the absolute highest chance of spreading the infection, followed by male on female, then female on female at the bottom.

Plus the micro-tears that occur due to the anus not being as...flexible...as the vagina.

theotherguy1234 ...This makes male on male sex have the absolute highest chance of spreading the infection, followed by male on female, then female on female at the bottom.

Dang.

First I'm going to become a woman. Then I'm going to become a lesbian.

News flash: AIDS leaves you "susceptible to life threatening infections," so if I had full blown AIDS, I think I'd take my chances with the transplant!

If you knew anything about AIDS it is caused by the passing of HIV across the blood brain barrier and infects other cell besides CD4+ T lymphocytes. At this point, a bone marrow transplant would not help. So this is not a cure for AIDS just a stop in the stread of HIV. There is a HUGE difference between the two.

Disinformation for all!!.

Spiritdance, there is a huge difference from what HIV does and what this procedure will do. HIV just infects the cells produced by your bone marrow, these cells in turn create more infected cells and thus the virus spreads. These new cells are not as capable as healthy cells at fighting diseased but their at least something. AIDS happens once those cells reach a point where your body's ability to stave off infection is compromised. Here is the catch, neither HIV nor AIDS can kill you, your immune system becomes so weak that you can't defend yourself from the virus's and bacteria that are everywhere. You can die from the common cold. The drugs work to slow down HIV to keep at least some of your immune system working, its still weaker but not terminally weak.

What a full bone marrow transplant does is kill off all the old bone marrow, in effect is completely shuts down your immune system. Your weaker then a newly born baby. A single virus or hostile bacteria will kill you. The new bone marrow is then implanted and it starts to rebuild your immune system. It takes weeks before your able to be let out of a sterile environment (think bubble boy) and even then your horribly weak. They can't put you on antibiotics or other immune system medication because they need your new immune system to grow as fast as possible.

FYI, one in four patients who undergo this extreme procedure (full bone marrow transplant) die during the procedure or shortly afterward. Its a last resort procedure for terminally ill leukemia patients.

But, studying what happened as a result of this partuclar transplant may reveal a cure, or whatever it was that caused this individual's system to wipe out the HIV infection.

Remember. All they know now is that:

1. The bone marrow transplant occurred, and

2. All traces of HIV in his system are now gone.

The transplant may have simply triggered something else, or some other mechanism, which allowed his own immue system to effectively wipe out the HIV. They haevn't studied it yet, but it's quite possible that the transplant simply triggered something else they aren't aware of yet -- something that, once it's determiend, may not require a transplant in future individuals to achieve the same end result. Give it time...it'll be interesting to see what comes of this.

You guys are right... we should probably just ignore this. Science is for suckers anyway

"FYI, one in four patients who undergo this extreme procedure (full bone marrow transplant) die during the procedure or shortly afterward. Its a last resort procedure for terminally ill leukemia patients."

While it may be a last resort procedure for leukemia patients, the 75% survival rate (from the procedure) is still better than the 0% survival rate from AIDS-related complications.

At this particular point in time, the transplant (assuming you can find a donor that has what is necessary and is compatible) is the best option they have.

Plus if it really does cure it, we don't have to worry about people spreading it due to being alive longer. There are people who intentionally spread it and are happy that they have more time to do so.

That is not how doctor's ethics work. By that thinking life has a 100% mortality rate and we should do whatever because we're all going to die eventually. And its more like 29% mortality rate within a month vs years of life with HIV. Not to mention the procedure costs over a million dollars with the possibility of a civil suit if they do die. The only reason this guy was having this procedure done in the first place is that past procedures failed and he was running out of time. This isn't something any ethical doctor would recommend a HIV patient to undergo.

On the bright side, as I've mentioned before, this confirms the weakness in HIV is in its injection method. There is no "magic" going on, its simple biology helped along by a generous donation from natures evolution process. The virus relies on that receptor to get into the cell, with that receptor it can't infect a cell and shortly dies.

Thanks theotherguy1234 for your consistently informative posts. It's nice to have some reason in all this madness!

BTW, there is a CCR5 receptor antagonist that is used to treat HIV in selected patients with this virus phenotype. It's called miraviroc. The bone marrow transplant success was last year's news. There are groups trying to study this and make it a practical approach--it's possible to manipulate donor cells to remove the CCR5 receptor. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, for patients without drug resistant virus, there is very effective therapy to control, but not cure it. As always, prevention is the best form of therapy.

I think this is making news because after three+ years he still as no sign of HIV lingering in this system. First person to be declared "cured" in that before he had HIV, now he doesn't have HIV and is immune to that strain of it.

You gotta find a way to completely remove the receptor to prevent HIV from taking hold, its an amazingly aggressive virus once its inside. Antagonists can retard the spread of HIV but it would take an unusually high dose to neutralize HIV. Thankfully the human body's immune system is capable of fighting and killing HIV on its own, it just needs protection from HIV's own attack methods.

call it a last resort-lucky stop gap measure

Do you believe everything you read?

If this had been an actual cure, the book would have been a bigger seller than it is and we would not be having this discussion today!

Because that's absolute bull@!$%#, that's why.

so all those families that were cured hundreds all over the world unrelated to each other, just lies.... right.. makes sense.

when will you learn that big pharma doesn't have the answer, natural healing is the way to go.

Yes, go out and eat a few goat turds, drink some gillyweed juice mixed with rattlesnake urine...and you'll live forever!

anecdotal nonsense.

numb-nutz.

Ummm, some "Zach's" spell their name that way! And this is not "research" as in a study done targeted toward these results. If you had read closely, you would know this is about a specific patient treated for leukemia, and the AIDS remission/cure? was INCIDENTAL to that treatment. This isn't a laboratory study, but a "real world" case that suggests a possible avenue of investigation.

You're missing the point, spiritd. Rettner is reporting on a study by German researchers Kirstina Allers, et al. published in the journal Blood this week, and yet Rettner does not even mention the authors. It is nearly obligatory, and certainly required to journalistic ethics, to provide the names of authors of research one is getting paid to report on. It is important to these people that their names are associated with their work, particularly in high-profile media.

As to Zack and Zach, yes, different people spell the name different ways. But when a reporter is quoting a guy named Zack, does she have the right to spell the name any way she wants? Or should she spell it the way he does?

Incompetence in journalism is rampant, but let's not be making dumb excuses for it.

Well I wouldn't say completely incidental. The doctor who did this procedure decided to specifically look for a doner with the mutation on a hunch that it might slow down the HIV as well. He had to conduct the full bone marrow procedure anyway as the patient was terminally ill, it was kind of a personal experiment for the doctor on fighting AIDS. He didn't think it would completely kill off the virus just slow it down.

That patient was literally given a second chance at life, he went from terminally ill leukemia with HIV to working immune system and no HIV.

check this doctor Dr Gero Hutter then you will find what spiritdance is talking about

Exactly! Some people just want to be critical because it makes them feel "smart," not because they have any legitimate to say.

Fully agreed. This is so significant because it shows the virus has a weakness. We now know how to shut it down and prevent it from infecting people. Time to take this knowledge and work out a much safer method of removing it. At the least it shows us how to make a vaccine for healthy people.

completely agree with you..this was one of the featured articles in technology review and i was blown away after reading it..i was surprised it wasn't up here sooner :) though until they find a way to reduplicate the type of rare DNA needed for this prcedure and make it compatible to a majority of HIV/AIDS victims it isn't the silver bullet cure

I agree, a miracle indeed. I say get a move on with the research.

AIDS is "very dangerous," but I suppose people dying from it should disregard this because it "does not always work." Try testing sound logic before condemning for the sake of condemning.

The cost of a bone marrow transplant - ONE TIME PROCEDURE - is far less than the costs of a lifetime of AIDS cocktails. Besides, I find it pretty reprehensible to put a price tag on a human life.

both true...i hate to open this can of worms but if obama had figured out some kind of cap per year on insurance premiums....i only say this because im in canada

Good Luck. My daughter is a Chem/Bio Engr working for a leading vaccine manufacturer. There are thousands for people working everyday to produce a cure and a vaccine to prevent the spread.

I hope they are in-time for you.

Ignore the latest CDC data if you want.

refrences - http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/reports/mmwr/index.htm &

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/mortality/index.htm