HIV returns in two patients after bone marrow transplan

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

In southern Africa it has not been easy to prevent HIV for straight men at all, and "drugs" had nothing to do with it.

Be consistently faithful or condomize - that's what prevents HIV for all men.

There's a big debate around circumcision and heterosexual transmission.
I wouldn't endorse it as prevention, although it might lessen the risk.

reply to post by halfoldman


It is EXTREMELY difficult, bordering on insanely unlikely, for a male to get HIV from a woman during consentual sex unless there are tears on his penis. Circumcission further reduces this risk.

Women are not so lucky.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

It is not extremely difficult at all.

I recall there was a study done a while back that some people misread to show that heterosexual male risk was very small.

This was capitalized on and pushed (also by different schools of AIDS dissidents), however what most people who abused that study failed to mention was that the research subjects were counseled on safe sex and urged to use condoms.
It was more a study of safe sex and transmission.

The chances of getting HIV as a man from unsafe heterosexual sex is about 20-25 percent in SA.

I'm referring to the Nancy Padian study of heterosexual HIV transmission (1997), although my context is found in this piece by Nicoli Nattrass: www.csicop.org...

OccamsRazor04
reply to post by halfoldman

 

It is EXTREMELY difficult, bordering on insanely unlikely, for a male to get HIV from a woman during consentual sex unless there are tears on his penis. Circumcission further reduces this risk.

Women are not so lucky.

Bloodlust is (can be) consensual... I digress, sent you a U2U, but would prefer linkys here, I'm all about transparency. Sorry.

Actually, my own AIDS scare was because of bloodlust, lets leave it out there.

(Friend mentiond was IV drug user, not a person inolved in bloodsport)

OccamsRazor04
reply to post by halfoldman

 

It is more difficult, (removed), for a circumcised male to get HIV from a woman during consentual sex unless there are tears on his penis. Circumcission GREATLY reduces this risk. (by a factor of 6 to 10 times less).

Women are not so lucky.

Very misleading. I corrected your statement with three words changed, four words removed, and a statement added. Now it reflects a different reality.

Circumcision removes special immune cells (langerhans cells), exposed on the foreskin surface, that include both receptors needed for the virus to attach and infect. This is why circumcision dramatically reduces the rate of infection.

Statistics of populations infected (majority gay male or IV drug users)in the U.S are skewed simply because of the large percentage of circumcision at birth. Statistics in Africa tell a dramatically different story.

Needed to throw that out there for the uninformed that believe they are invincible. Met too many heteros that thought the same, and learned the hard way they were NOT.

Back to the OP, I would NOT have expected success with the bone marrow transplants using 'normal' (not mutated with removal of CCR5 receptor) donors. It only showed success for a short time simply because the patient had a new infusion of uninfected T-cells. It was only a matter of time until failure.

So these results are neither shocking or surprising, if anything they should have been expected. It has been well-known for years that the virus remains after the blood is cleared.

No news here, either bad or good (well except for the two patients that were given false expectations based on a temporary unexpected result).

The fact that the patient that got the transplants with the mutated gene is still doing well shows that it works - of course there is still that 75% chance of dying from the procedure that makes it not a viable option.

This still keeps other methods of instilling this result (gene therapy to remove the receptor) continued hope for a 'functional' cure (ability to keep the virus at bay, much like most of us do with the chickenpox infections we still carry today).

FYI, the antiretrovirals work, even with the new virilent strains. Life expectancy is close to normal. Still no picnic, being chained to a strict schedule and a medication with side effects for the rest of your life.