Cure For AIDS?
A new hope? After almost 2 years, and man with AIDS (?) no longer has signs of being infected…so far
An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.
While researchers - and the doctors themselves - caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
“We waited every day for a bad reading,” Huetter said.
It has not come. Researchers at Berlin’s Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.
“A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it’s not present,” Badley said.
This isn’t the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.
Filed under: Changing World
salaams, so how is that different from Magic Johnson?
I don’t think Magic ever developed full blown AIDS
Assalaamu a’laikum,
Let it be said - it’s too early to make bold pronouncements.
When it comes to health news, media deadline demands and the lure of bold headlines, induce many a journalist to publish preliminary findings of studies.
This is not even a “preliminary study,” it seems to be a coincidental finding that may or may not have promise.
Let’s wait and see before jumping on the hype bandwagon. In these times of Obama-mania, it would be prudent to not be swayed by dramatic headlines.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
It would be useful to see how they found out that the virus had gone away, because the HIV test detects antibodies your body makes when it comes into contact with the virus, not the virus itself. In theory, someone who had fought off the virus could be HIV positive; someone with full-blown AIDS whose immunity system had been ruined might not measure as such. It’s also recently been found that a man’s testicles are a “hiding place” for HIV, so if they only measured the viral load in his bloodstream, they might have missed some.
@ Abu Dharr
No one has made a pronouncement yet, but there could be hope
I don’t think Magic Johnson was ever diagnosed with AIDS but with HIV. Also I think it’s kind of ironic that Germany was were one the first AIDS or AIDS like outbreak was found in 1939.
where’s the link for the full article?
@ Zaynab
Sorry about that. Link added above
Thanks, jazakAllah khayr
I’m cautiously optimistic about this, but it sounds like a promising.
Even though there have been news stories that have been out about the ” cure’ to AIDS, no one can ever say say what is /isn’t. It wasn’t that long ago where there were no cure for sickle cell-disease,now doctors have found help for that. There was even an article about Halle Berry battle with Diabetes( I forget which type it is). Her doctors claim that she’s “cured” from that by diet and taking certain types of vitamins. Maybe it could be, maybe not,but I can never doubt what is/isn’t.
If scientist have found cures for former incurable ailments ,AIDS shouldn’t be no exception to the rule.
I’ve recently started taking vitamin c and a multivitam each morning… I got some Emergen-C samples from http://tinyurl.com/healthy09