HIV vaccine turns muscle into antibody factories

It's hard to say. I think it would also vastly depend on how far gone the patient is. If you caught it in the early stages you might be able to eradicate it all together.
 
What I want to know is... what then? I mean your muscles are meant to do one job and this adds strain... I wonder what the side-effects of this "vaccine" (for lack of a better word) will do. Would it impede any of the other functions of the muscle, would it use all the muscles in the body and most importantly... for those who do not have well developed muscles... what happens in those cases?
 
smokey said:
What I want to know is... what then? I mean your muscles are meant to do one job and this adds strain... I wonder what the side-effects of this "vaccine" (for lack of a better word) will do. Would it impede any of the other functions of the muscle, would it use all the muscles in the body and most importantly... for those who do not have well developed muscles... what happens in those cases?
Click to expand...

+1

I was thinking just that. I mean, what viruses do is infect certain cells (Lung tissue-Flu, Immune system-HIV), which means they destroy those cells. So if you inject a virus that pretty much hi-jacks the normal muscle cells and makes those cells produce loads of anti-bodies, then you are losing those muscle cells, which, to my recollection are used for frivolous things such as movement, breathing, heart beats, talking, eating, digesting and so on.

However, I think they inject say 10ml of fluid with about a 1000 000 viruses into your blood stream, but the viruses don't reproduce, rather, they just produce the anti-bodies, which means if you start with 1000 000 viruses, you'll have >1000 000 infected cells, so it would ravage your body...

There's one thing that makes me wonder though... say they inject all these viruses into your body, what if they all infect a muscle, say part of your bicep, would that mean you'll have to re-build up that muscle? and wouldn't that mean you'll have this massive "clump" of tissue there?

What if the viruses decide "hmmm, well, arteries are muscles too, lets just infect them", at which point you have arteries bursting, causing massive hemorrhage in that area, then you die a week of two later of internal bleeding.

I dunno, this whole using fire against fire business isn't my sort of thing... We don't control mutations in viruses, and since we using viruses, mutations are bound to happen... So what if the virus mutates into something that just infects muscle tissue and when it does, it manufactures more of itself, meaning your bodies muscle could get completely wasted away in a matter of weeks (since we are made of muscle, that would result in death).

I suppose, if people don't want to wrap up there genitals with a little latex, then other, more risky measures are needed to combat one of the most preventable viruses.
 
Well i think it's too early to say as it has only been 85 weeks since the monkeys were originally infected with the virus. So far though there has been no mutations or side effects.

However, you are both quite right. All sorts of things can happen which is why they've been struggling to find a suitable vaccine. It's an extremely clever virus that adapts to the environment it finds itself in.
 
I still think it's a great stride forward as i'm all for a vaccine even though people aren't clever enough to protect themselves initially. It would prevent HIV transmission in children and innocent victims who had no idea their partner has HIV.
 
smokey said:
What I want to know is... what then? I mean your muscles are meant to do one job and this adds strain... I wonder what the side-effects of this "vaccine" (for lack of a better word) will do. Would it impede any of the other functions of the muscle, would it use all the muscles in the body and most importantly... for those who do not have well developed muscles... what happens in those cases?
Click to expand...

True enough but most side effects will be better than death don't you think:p
 
"WHAT if we could rid the world of AIDS? The notion might sound like fantasy: HIV infection has no cure and no vaccine, after all. Yet there is a way to completely wipe it out - at least in theory. What's more, it would take only existing medical technology to do the job.

Here's how it works. If someone who is HIV positive takes antiretroviral-drug therapy they can live a long life and almost never pass on the virus, even through unprotected sex. So if everyone with HIV were on therapy, there would be little or no transmission. Once all these people had died, of whatever cause, the virus would be gone for good.

It's a simple idea, but the obstacles to implementing it worldwide are enormous. Persuading everyone with HIV to start therapy purely for public health reasons could be ethically dubious. To identify everyone who is HIV positive would require such widespread testing that some may feel it breached their civil liberties. Then there is the question of who would fund such a massive undertaking.

Yet the idea of eliminating HIV is so appealing, and the benefit to humanity so huge, that scientists and policy-makers are seriously considering the concept, albeit on regional scales. In the next few months the World Health Organization (WHO) will meet to discuss how the idea could be tried in developing countries, and something approaching elimination might be attempted in the UK within the next decade. "You could eliminate transmission overnight," says Marcus Conant, an HIV specialist in San Francisco."

More: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126966.100-are-we-about-to-eliminate-aids.html?full=true
 
Just goes to show how people have more compassion for animals than they do for their fellow human beings.
 
Serqet said:
"WHAT if we could rid the world of AIDS? The notion might sound like fantasy: HIV infection has no cure and no vaccine, after all. Yet there is a way to completely wipe it out - at least in theory. What's more, it would take only existing medical technology to do the job.

Here's how it works. If someone who is HIV positive takes antiretroviral-drug therapy they can live a long life and almost never pass on the virus, even through unprotected sex. So if everyone with HIV were on therapy, there would be little or no transmission. Once all these people had died, of whatever cause, the virus would be gone for good.

It's a simple idea, but the obstacles to implementing it worldwide are enormous. Persuading everyone with HIV to start therapy purely for public health reasons could be ethically dubious. To identify everyone who is HIV positive would require such widespread testing that some may feel it breached their civil liberties. Then there is the question of who would fund such a massive undertaking.

Yet the idea of eliminating HIV is so appealing, and the benefit to humanity so huge, that scientists and policy-makers are seriously considering the concept, albeit on regional scales. In the next few months the World Health Organization (WHO) will meet to discuss how the idea could be tried in developing countries, and something approaching elimination might be attempted in the UK within the next decade. "You could eliminate transmission overnight," says Marcus Conant, an HIV specialist in San Francisco."

More: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126966.100-are-we-about-to-eliminate-aids.html?full=true
Click to expand...

Nice article, hmm we might see the end of this epidemic in our lifetime - who would have thought.
 
Serqet said:
"WHAT if we could rid the world of AIDS? The notion might sound like fantasy: HIV infection has no cure and no vaccine, after all. Yet there is a way to completely wipe it out - at least in theory. What's more, it would take only existing medical technology to do the job.

Here's how it works. If someone who is HIV positive takes antiretroviral-drug therapy they can live a long life and almost never pass on the virus, even through unprotected sex. So if everyone with HIV were on therapy, there would be little or no transmission. Once all these people had died, of whatever cause, the virus would be gone for good.

It's a simple idea, but the obstacles to implementing it worldwide are enormous. Persuading everyone with HIV to start therapy purely for public health reasons could be ethically dubious. To identify everyone who is HIV positive would require such widespread testing that some may feel it breached their civil liberties. Then there is the question of who would fund such a massive undertaking.

Yet the idea of eliminating HIV is so appealing, and the benefit to humanity so huge, that scientists and policy-makers are seriously considering the concept, albeit on regional scales. In the next few months the World Health Organization (WHO) will meet to discuss how the idea could be tried in developing countries, and something approaching elimination might be attempted in the UK within the next decade. "You could eliminate transmission overnight," says Marcus Conant, an HIV specialist in San Francisco."

More: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126966.100-are-we-about-to-eliminate-aids.html?full=true
Click to expand...

can't work, most of the AIDS infection is in Africa, where there's pretty much no government system that can effectively supply the anti-retrovirals... this means that the AIDS virus may die out in the western world, but in africa it will still be quite predominate, this means that out breaks will form and seize in the western would.

The most effective and unethical method would be to kill all who are AIDS infected...
 
It would have to be a conserted effort on the part of the (WHO) and could not be left up to the governments alone to ensure everyone receives the drugs.

Is it a long shot? Definitely! But i do think it's possible if strict infrastructure were put into place with no deviations allowed.
 
Yadda yadda yadda... The government doesn't want to help people with AIDS because it isn't viable financially. You get Person A - unemployed, 30-40 years old with AIDS. X is the cost of the medicine (which is so specific, that if it is missed by one/ten minutes - the body rejects it later) and Y is the difference between the amount of tax he pays indirectly (by buying VAT rated goods etc) and the amount of money he gets from his social grant. You do the maths...

The ARV program now is a token program to make people believe that the government is helping. If a proper program were in place - our country would be decimated from the money spent.
 
smokey said:
Yadda yadda yadda... The government doesn't want to help people with AIDS because it isn't viable financially. You get Person A - unemployed, 30-40 years old with AIDS. X is the cost of the medicine (which is so specific, that if it is missed by one/ten minutes - the body rejects it later) and Y is the difference between the amount of tax he pays indirectly (by buying VAT rated goods etc) and the amount of money he gets from his social grant. You do the maths...

The ARV program now is a token program to make people believe that the government is helping. If a proper program were in place - our country would be decimated from the money spent.
Click to expand...

Agreed,

I know this might make me sound like the Lord of all things evil, but the majority of people in South Africa who have AIDS live with minimum wage of at the poverty line.

With only 5 or so million tax payers in South Africa, where the hell in the money gonna come from to feed these people ARV??? I know the UN and other countries wouldn't dare help out.
 
But the only solution to actually bring out the annhiliation of this disease would be the help of the EU, UN, WHO etc.

Of course the chances of this happning are slim but hell it could work if they just banded together and said enough of this crap!
 
scotty777 said:
can't work, most of the AIDS infection is in Africa, where there's pretty much no government system that can effectively supply the anti-retrovirals... this means that the AIDS virus may die out in the western world, but in africa it will still be quite predominate, this means that out breaks will form and seize in the western would.

The most effective and unethical method would be to kill all who are AIDS infected...
Click to expand...
Your argument presupposes that anti-retrovirals stop the spread. In fact, some say that by keeping people alive and feeling healthy, the virus is given more time to multiply.
 
Sackboy said:
Your argument presupposes that anti-retrovirals stop the spread. In fact, some say that by keeping people alive and feeling healthy, the virus is given more time to multiply.
Click to expand...

well, um, yeah, my argument was actually to kill all who have AIDS so that the rest of us can live :). but alas, that's not "ethical" and people should have rights no matter there physical state...

I suppose what the world needs is someone to take over (one world government) and just put all AIDS infected on an Island...
 
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