A cure does not necessarily mean a total destruction of the virus in a persons body. A cure is giving a person the ability to keep HIV inactive without having to take any more drugs. A Vaccine that does that could be considered a cure.
A cure does not necessarily mean a total destruction of the virus in a persons body. A cure is giving a person the ability to keep HIV inactive without having to take any more drugs. A Vaccine that does that could be considered a cure.
I think that in order to tackle most of these problematic ailments, targeted drug delivery is very important. The human body is complex and difficult to understand in order to create an appropriate drug delivery mechanism. The biggest handicap now is that nobody has a good understanding of the mechanics of the body - ie how to get a drug from outside to inside the problem area without the drug becoming inert, the host getting sick, or other problems. The ability of a drug to travel through the human body requires many properties (so that they dont get destroyed during their journey), some of which could be very detrimental at the actual target site. Understanding these types of complications is a tough subject and takes quite a bit of trial and error due to a lack of complete understanding of the System.
Advances in genetic recoding of bacteria and virus could pave the way to very targeted treatment with minimal side-effects. Unfortunately, not much is known in this field either and experiments are mostly trial and error without a theoretically grounded direction.
Nanomachines could be an interesting field for targeted treatment as well. However, nanomanufacturing is still quite a young field and getting repeatable results with good yield is not easy.
Until fields like these are advanced, I don't think modern medicine will make many improvements in terms of the mentioned problems.
Advances in genetic recoding of bacteria and virus could pave the way to very targeted treatment with minimal side-effects. Unfortunately, not much is known in this field either and experiments are mostly trial and error without a theoretically grounded direction.
Nanomachines could be an interesting field for targeted treatment as well. However, nanomanufacturing is still quite a young field and getting repeatable results with good yield is not easy.
Until fields like these are advanced, I don't think modern medicine will make many improvements in terms of the mentioned problems.
That's the problem. Trying to create complementary proteins for other proteins, say that of the surface of a virus is difficult because you don't know what that protein should be. Lots of computation is going to be necessary here. Viral infections better make the most of their time, it won't be a free ride forever.
oiprocs
Diamond Member
- Jun 20, 2001
- 3,781
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Uhh, wrong you are Mr. Genius. Do you see me advocating starvation? Is that some feasible idea you have? YOU are pushing a "population control" agenda, by proposing things that are generally unwanted. Nobody wants to starve, and nobody wants war.
On the other hand, people want sex. They enjoy it. That means AIDS will be around.
An INDIRECT result is that the population will, most likely insignificantly, be limited.
Btw, Oklahoma sucks.
Chaotic42
Lifer
- Jun 15, 2001
- 33,929
- 1,097
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Hopefully. I'm not a biologist, but isn't AIDS a syndrome that is caused by the HIV virus, but would theoretically still be a problem for the person even if they had no HIV virii in them?
At any rate, I see no reason not to fund AIDS research. Even if you have no problem with AIDS sufferers dieing, some information that you actually find valuable will probably come about in the source of AIDS research.
At any rate, I see no reason not to fund AIDS research. Even if you have no problem with AIDS sufferers dieing, some information that you actually find valuable will probably come about in the source of AIDS research.
RadiclDreamer
Diamond Member
- Aug 8, 2004
- 8,622
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0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,862
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well maybe, you never know, penicillin was a mistake basically...
aids could be wiped out pretty much if people really wanted to.
lock down borders
aids screen everyone by force
tattoo those who have aids as the marked
enforce harsh punishments if the marked go after relationships with the unmarked
repeat testing year after year....
its a lot of trouble, so its just an accepted cost. frankly a lot of the coutries ravaged by aids are reproducing far too quickly anyways so they really don't care.
aids could be wiped out pretty much if people really wanted to.
lock down borders
aids screen everyone by force
tattoo those who have aids as the marked
enforce harsh punishments if the marked go after relationships with the unmarked
repeat testing year after year....
its a lot of trouble, so its just an accepted cost. frankly a lot of the coutries ravaged by aids are reproducing far too quickly anyways so they really don't care.
RadiclDreamer
Diamond Member
- Aug 8, 2004
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BeauJangles
Lifer
- Aug 26, 2001
- 13,941
- 1
- 0
Do you even know what HIV is or how the disease develops? Can you even tell me what the symptoms are?
No, you can't. HIV symptoms appear shortly after infection (7 - 21 days, I believe). The initial signs are cold-like symptoms for a few days. Then it clears up. The disease then goes dormant in your body. This dormancy can last from 1 - 7 or 8 years. Once the disease becomes active again, an HIV+ person will have a suppressed immune system and thus will contract a number of small-symptom diseases.
My point is that most people don't know they have HIV until they've already engaged in sexual activity.
BeauJangles
Lifer
- Aug 26, 2001
- 13,941
- 1
- 0
Reproducing far too quickly?
Seriously, what the is wrong with you? We aren't talking about rocks or potatoes, these are people's lives. People who have just as much of a right to live as you do. Your 'solution' is nothing more than a genocide in the making.
edited, I shouldn't attack people like that. thanks, RadiclDreamer
edit: What your proposing to 'solve' the problem in Africa would just be more pretext for violence those countries. It would solve nothing except creating the largest humanitarian crisis the world has ever faced. I guess that would be alright with you, though. "Out of sight, out of mind" right?
I cannot believe there are people on these forums who fail to respect even the most basic of human rights. Most of you live in America. Remember that whole declaration we signed? All men born equal? Does that ring a bell? Have you not learned anything from history? The holocaust? The Armenian genocide? Rwanda? Darfur?
RadiclDreamer
Diamond Member
- Aug 8, 2004
- 8,622
- 40
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It was a stupid thing to say but personal attacks get you nowhere but will get this topic closed. Try to be civil
Advocating population control by letting people with AIDS (or any disease) just die is the same as letting people starve or advocating war for population control. Population control is also a INDIRECT result of these things but you are not advocating doing nothing about these issues. AIDS is just as unwanted as starvation and war. Nobody wants AIDS either.
I again say your logic is flawed. At least in Oklahoma they teach logical thinking.
Gee
Did you go to the Nazi school of disease control. Isn't this what the Nazis did to the Jews?
Yeah, they would have rounded everyone up with AIDS or in a high risk group and gassed them to death to keep the disease from spreading.
Along with political dissenters, jews, poles, people who are multiracial, communist, democrats ect ect ect.
Edit:
Lets not forget those with physical ailments, birth defects and mental health issues.
Advocating violating human rights for disease control is immoral. Our grandfathers fought and died in a nasty war to prevent this.
HIV is a provirus. It will integrate into the DNA within your cells. Not infect every cell with viral particles, but insert its genetic code right into your code, and your cells won't know the difference. Even if you eradicated every single viral particle within your body, the blueprints for making more will ALWAYS be with you.
A great many other viruses act the same way (such as HPV), but your immune system can deal with it, reaching a standoff with the virus over time. HIV selectively attacks your immune system, and left untreated, it will always win that war.
This makes it (and every other virus like it) nearly impossible to "cure". There is no chemical compound that can tackle that problem. Something would literally have to enter your cells and deactivate the code. That is simply impossible with current technology, and any forseeable future technology. It might take 50 years to even come up with a prototype for some sort of nanomachine that could even attempt it, and then maybe another 50 years to figure out how to do it without killing the cell in the process.
A *cure* is a very, very, very, very long ways away. Treatments may get better, in fact, they are so effective now that its likely that anyone that contracts the virus today will not die from it, as new drugs are discovered to replace the older ones when they lose effectiveness. Besides, to even attempt to develop a cure would be an incredible investment of resources by a pharm company - and investing in a product that can destroy a disease that you could otherwise treat and make money off of for decades is an investment that no company with any concern for their financial well being will make.
You can either not get it in the first place, or you can take medications for decades. If you can afford them. Dont hold your breath for a cure.
A great many other viruses act the same way (such as HPV), but your immune system can deal with it, reaching a standoff with the virus over time. HIV selectively attacks your immune system, and left untreated, it will always win that war.
This makes it (and every other virus like it) nearly impossible to "cure". There is no chemical compound that can tackle that problem. Something would literally have to enter your cells and deactivate the code. That is simply impossible with current technology, and any forseeable future technology. It might take 50 years to even come up with a prototype for some sort of nanomachine that could even attempt it, and then maybe another 50 years to figure out how to do it without killing the cell in the process.
A *cure* is a very, very, very, very long ways away. Treatments may get better, in fact, they are so effective now that its likely that anyone that contracts the virus today will not die from it, as new drugs are discovered to replace the older ones when they lose effectiveness. Besides, to even attempt to develop a cure would be an incredible investment of resources by a pharm company - and investing in a product that can destroy a disease that you could otherwise treat and make money off of for decades is an investment that no company with any concern for their financial well being will make.
You can either not get it in the first place, or you can take medications for decades. If you can afford them. Dont hold your breath for a cure.
Talking is apparently a lot easier than reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_silencing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_regulation
Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Talking is apparently a lot easier than reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_silencing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_regulation
Do you actually understand that or do you just link to stuff that sounds like it has the answer?
How exactly are you going to get into the nucleus of a cell *without destroying it* to deactivate (by methylation or otherwise) a specific sequence? Not only that, but how are you going to *find* all the cells that have HIV Proviral DNA in the first place, and not only that, but find them without destroying tissues in the process? And how are you going to prevent the immune system from doing something about it when you try?
RNAi wouldnt require entering the nucleus to deactivate the proviral sequence, but again, how are are you going to get microRNAs or the machinery to produce them into the cell, and how are you going to keep the RNAi continually transcribed and flowing? And with a quickly mutating virus like HIV, how are you even going to know what exact sequence to look for and interfere with?
Its one thing to play with these ideas in a lab. Actually putting them into practice in the human body something entirely different. A chemical compound is far too crude a tool to achieve what needs to be done in order to effectively "cure" the disease.
Getting DNA into the genome is a *much* easier job than controlling its regulation - and we can't even do that very well right now.
Legalize gay marriage. Give gays some respect.
Test everyone, new born babies, the old, everyone. When ever you see a doctor for any reason, a yearly aids test should be done and required.
The new drugs can turn off the virus but not kill it. The down side is taking these powerful drugs daily is very hard on the body. They have to penetrate the brain layers to attack hiv hiding in the brain. This action also can make someone non functional for hours after taking a dose. Brain fog is a term often used by people taking hiv meds.
Now a day you'd never know someone has aids or hiv. The meds are that good, but many have very bad reactions and a terrible time on them. Others don?t.
Actually, hiv is the virus and aids is a condition when the immune system drops below the normal state. You can have hiv and never get aids. But most that do get aids find out of the blue with a visit to the ER with some aids related illness. Its then they discover their immune system is badly damaged by hiv. Thats how 99% find out they even have hiv. And recovering on meds after that immune damage can be possible, its much harder. Its a long battle. HIV meds can make the hiv virus undetectable in the blood within a few months. But a damaged immune system takes years to recover. And for many it never quite does even though they have no detectable hiv after starting the meds.
The idea you can be irresponsible and just pop a pill if you do get hiv is bad thinking and unrealistic. The treatment can be near as bad as the virus. Like taking chemo daily for the rest of your life. You don?t want to go there.
If there were a vaccine, who would even take it??? Most would just think they are not at risk. And who would pay for the vaccine given to you? Your insurance would probably not pay. Most could not afford it, not the ones that might need it, like prostitutes or drug addicts. A doctor would ask, "why do you want it, are you a high risk person?". And naturally most would reply "no", just to avoid a feeling of shame.
Test everyone, new born babies, the old, everyone. When ever you see a doctor for any reason, a yearly aids test should be done and required.
The new drugs can turn off the virus but not kill it. The down side is taking these powerful drugs daily is very hard on the body. They have to penetrate the brain layers to attack hiv hiding in the brain. This action also can make someone non functional for hours after taking a dose. Brain fog is a term often used by people taking hiv meds.
Now a day you'd never know someone has aids or hiv. The meds are that good, but many have very bad reactions and a terrible time on them. Others don?t.
Actually, hiv is the virus and aids is a condition when the immune system drops below the normal state. You can have hiv and never get aids. But most that do get aids find out of the blue with a visit to the ER with some aids related illness. Its then they discover their immune system is badly damaged by hiv. Thats how 99% find out they even have hiv. And recovering on meds after that immune damage can be possible, its much harder. Its a long battle. HIV meds can make the hiv virus undetectable in the blood within a few months. But a damaged immune system takes years to recover. And for many it never quite does even though they have no detectable hiv after starting the meds.
The idea you can be irresponsible and just pop a pill if you do get hiv is bad thinking and unrealistic. The treatment can be near as bad as the virus. Like taking chemo daily for the rest of your life. You don?t want to go there.
If there were a vaccine, who would even take it??? Most would just think they are not at risk. And who would pay for the vaccine given to you? Your insurance would probably not pay. Most could not afford it, not the ones that might need it, like prostitutes or drug addicts. A doctor would ask, "why do you want it, are you a high risk person?". And naturally most would reply "no", just to avoid a feeling of shame.
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