cure for AIDS in 10 years?
Joachim Hauber of the Heinrich Pette Institute for Experimental Virology and Immunology in Hamburg, Germany, is guardedly optimistic.
"We have rid the cells of the virus," Hauber said on Thursday. "No one else has done this before." He called it "a breakthrough in bio-technology."
Hauber said it was his "cautious" hope that a cure for AIDS could be found within 10 years.
The new procedure actually removes the virus from the cells, leaving them healthy again. Exciting stuff. Requires work with stem cells. From Germany's Deutsche Welle.
Update: After I posted this, Brion from New Zealand wrote with the text of an address he's giving at a fundraiser in NZ. I thought it was appropriate to add his words here, as he speaks from the view of being a person living with HIV and having experienced the plague and so many deaths:
"There are any number of reasons why peer support groups, for any number of conditions, medical or otherwise, are the most useful and multi accessed, but also the most underfunded.
One of the purposes of running a peer support group such as 'POZ PLUS' is to increase the options available to positive people, whatever their gender, age , race or sexuality.
Having a condition such as Hiv can seriously limit some of your options. Not everyone with Hiv is able to continue in full time employment. Even part time employment, when suitable and available, doesn't really help to alter the equation.
With the activities we already operate, the most important the monthly luncheons, we hope to involve our members with some of the options they may no longer have the ability to access.
There's a comment I read recently on the internet that has a certain resonance for some of us who have survived fifteen or more years with HIV. When we were told back in the 1980's that we would be "lucky" to live another 10 - 15 years and there are some now past the twenty and mid -twenties mark, we might feel justified in asking for our money back! Certainly the pharmaceuticals that began to become available in
the late 80's and early 90's have made enormous changes.
Some of us can remember those 1980's. It sometimes felt like being at a dinner party when every now and then someone left the table and never returned. Without wishing to sound like it's over egging the custard, there are some of us who look back on those times and mourn the loss of so many of our friends, lovers, companions. We perhaps feel a certain responsibility, perhaps a little guilt, that we survived when so many didn't. I know that for me and some of my colleagues, there is this inner need to do something useful to commemorate those who are no longer with us........."
Maybe in 10 years, more or less, there really will be a cure for this nightmare of a disease. Thanks Brion!!
"We have rid the cells of the virus," Hauber said on Thursday. "No one else has done this before." He called it "a breakthrough in bio-technology."
Hauber said it was his "cautious" hope that a cure for AIDS could be found within 10 years.
The new procedure actually removes the virus from the cells, leaving them healthy again. Exciting stuff. Requires work with stem cells. From Germany's Deutsche Welle.
Update: After I posted this, Brion from New Zealand wrote with the text of an address he's giving at a fundraiser in NZ. I thought it was appropriate to add his words here, as he speaks from the view of being a person living with HIV and having experienced the plague and so many deaths:
"There are any number of reasons why peer support groups, for any number of conditions, medical or otherwise, are the most useful and multi accessed, but also the most underfunded.
One of the purposes of running a peer support group such as 'POZ PLUS' is to increase the options available to positive people, whatever their gender, age , race or sexuality.
Having a condition such as Hiv can seriously limit some of your options. Not everyone with Hiv is able to continue in full time employment. Even part time employment, when suitable and available, doesn't really help to alter the equation.
With the activities we already operate, the most important the monthly luncheons, we hope to involve our members with some of the options they may no longer have the ability to access.
There's a comment I read recently on the internet that has a certain resonance for some of us who have survived fifteen or more years with HIV. When we were told back in the 1980's that we would be "lucky" to live another 10 - 15 years and there are some now past the twenty and mid -twenties mark, we might feel justified in asking for our money back! Certainly the pharmaceuticals that began to become available in
the late 80's and early 90's have made enormous changes.
Some of us can remember those 1980's. It sometimes felt like being at a dinner party when every now and then someone left the table and never returned. Without wishing to sound like it's over egging the custard, there are some of us who look back on those times and mourn the loss of so many of our friends, lovers, companions. We perhaps feel a certain responsibility, perhaps a little guilt, that we survived when so many didn't. I know that for me and some of my colleagues, there is this inner need to do something useful to commemorate those who are no longer with us........."
Maybe in 10 years, more or less, there really will be a cure for this nightmare of a disease. Thanks Brion!!
posted by BigAssBelle at 5:17 PM
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