aids

Because of the fallout from the revelation by Brian Deer that very likely Andrew Wakefield, hero of the antivaccine movement but, alas for his worshipers, one of the most dishonest and incompetent scientists who ever lived, had almost certainly falsified data for his infamous 1998 Lancet paper that launched a decade-long anti-MMR hysteria that shows no signs of abating, I ended up not coming back to a story I was very interested in. Although this story is about Holocaust denial, the questions raised by it are applicable not only to history and Holocaust denial, but to any area of science or…
Scientists across the globe have put out a call to help two AIDS researchers being held prisoner in Iran. Accused of forming a "velvet revolution" and charged with "communicating with an enemy government," the researchers were reportedly exchanging scientific information with colleagues—a crucial scientific practice—in order to successfully implement public health measures in Iran to slow the spread of AIDS. Several ScienceBloggers have posted information on how to support these doctors.
AIDS, to me, is such a scary horrible disease that it seems that all of us would naturally support a cure and work together stop it from spreading. I even forced my family to watch a movie on AIDS over the holidays. (And the Band Played On, based on a book with same title by Randy Shilts, who died of AIDS in 1994). That's why I was astounded to read last night, at the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) news site, that the Iranian government has put two doctors in prison - doctors who specialize in treating AIDS patients. The PHR, if you're wondering, is well known for supporting human…
tags: book review, HIV, AIDS, Africa, epidemic, public health, Helen Epstein, The Invisible Cure "AIDS has come to haunt a world that thought it was incomplete. Some wanted children, some wanted money, some wanted property, some wanted power, but all we have ended up with is AIDS." -- Bernadette Nabatanzi, traditional healer, Kampala, Uganda, 1994. The occurrence of AIDS in East and southern Africa is uniquely severe: even though less than 3 percent of the world's population lives here, this region is home to more than 40 percent of all those people with HIV infections. Throughout much of the…
Lots of people are talking about this latest paper on HIV. It is an "open access" paper in the PNAS, and you can get it here. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that can cause AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). It is a member of a larger group of viruses (the Smian immunodeficiency viruses) which are generally thought to be of African origin. There are two types of HIV (HIV-1, and HIV-2), with HIV-1 being the more virulent and, in human populations, most widespread. There are several theories as to the origin of HIV. When I was in Zaire in the mid 1980s, people in…
One reason that treatments for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are particularly difficult to develop is that HIV is quite good at adapting resistance to drugs. Many of the virus' surface proteins--natural targets for inhibitory drugs--have a high turnover rate and are easily changed. There are a few exceptions; a few well-conserved surface proteins that are integral to HIV's function. One of these is the protein gp41 (below), which is required for HIV to attach onto a host cell, and infect it. However, a recent paper in Cell describes a naturally-occurring blood molecule called VIRIP…
India has almost 6 million people living with HIV/AIDS, the world's highest number of people in one nation (although the prevalence is lower than in Africa). However about 40% of women in India have not even heard of AIDS, let alone know what to do to prevent its spread. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the most extensive study on health and nutrition in India, said in its latest report only 57 percent of women have heard of AIDS. In rural areas, where most Indians live, less than half the women -- 46 percent -- were aware of the disease. In the past few years, there has been a…
I was perusing the blogs that were included in the latest edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities when I cam across the heart-breaking blog of an AIDS worker in Botswana called Where in the World is Connor MacEachern. From his blog: AIDS has infiltrated every facet of Botswana's society, so much so that one of my colleagues at BONASO [the aid organization] fell victim to it in August. Some might say that if someone at BONASO, who has all the information, can still become infected, how can we expect to help? The answer, in this case, is in the question. Information can only go so…
A Dutch vaccine developer, Crucell, received a $16 million contract to develop a vaccine for the AIDS virus. The contract was sponsored by the NIH's allergy and infectious disease group, and involves a collaboration with Charles River Labs and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard. I hypothesize that the reason that Crucell was chosen was due to their AdVac technology, which uses the same viral vector that I use in my research---an adenovirus. So, it seems that this vaccine may use a competing virus (which is engineered to be helpful and replicate a gene of interest) to combat…
Orac of Respectful Insolence is on vacation this week, and in the hiatus is posting some "classic" Insolence from the old blog. In his absence, I feel the need to continue the fight against woo (and also, I happened to receive this story via email---Hat tip Darkman). The 35-year-old high school teacher named Bheki was lucky to be alive, thanks to the free antiretroviral pills that kept his HIV in check. He felt strong and had no side effects. Life was normal, as normal as it gets with an incurable disease. Then in February, he ditched the pills and started taking a mystery potion sold here…