Man Cures Himself of HIV?

IZ Reloaded writes "A 25 yr old British man could be the first person in the world to have cured himself of the deadly HIV virus. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 2002. After another test done the following year, he stunned doctors when his test results turned negative. He is now a wanted man after researchers and doctors want him to come back for further testing but he has so far refused. Experts think he could have something in his immune system that may help in producing vaccines against HIV."

How sure?

[jrockway]

What if the test was wrong? Maybe he didn't have AIDS when first tested, or maybe the test didn't pick it up this time. And why is the guy afraid to be retested?

First test

[KiroDude]

And who can guarantee the first tests he made were REALLY positive?

Most likely explanation

[Zog The Undeniable]

Occam's Razor suggests that the original tests were wrong. I know he had multiple tests, but they're not 100% accurate.

There's something fishy about the way this story is being stage managed by the News Of The World (a notoriously downmarket and sensationalist paper). I predict an expose and retraction within the week.

It's not surprising

[ReformedExCon]

It's certainly unusual and unexpected in such a short period of time, but it ought not be surprising that some people may have immune systems that can fight the HIV virus. It's evolution in action.

The Plague, which ravaged Europe and decimated its urban populations may be one reason the immunity (or strong resistance, if you prefer) to HIV was found first in a European. Those who survived the Plague, among those who were exposed to it, had a genetic trait that gave them immunity. This may be one reason why Europeans are generally less susceptible to the virus than other ethnicities whose populations were not exposed to a very widespread and violently virulent disease.

Good news for this guy! Hopefully the answer to the disease is found in his bloodstream.

he's not the first

[PermanentMarker]

There have been more reports of people who cured themselves alltough they are exremly rare. Anyway it is how evolution works, by random creations and statistics i gues in the end a few survive. How would they test this man i wonder? Would they clone his bone cells to to make white bloodcells? what's next in genetics analyse thos cells and combine with people who survived other diseases, and then give everyone a DNA upgrade ?

First? What about the African Prostitutes et.al.?

[Xyleene]

I'm sure I am not the only one that has seen documentries that include African prostitutes that have gathered a similar immunity to the virus. One of them was a Nova episode that aired on PBS last week (atleast I think it was last week). The women are exposed to the disease many times per day but seem unnafected by it. This sounds like a similar case for the following reasons:

Article [aegis.com]

The article states that 1) The prostitutes are completely void of the virus and 2) The trait is not genetic. Therefore I assume that the people contract the virus and their immune system then deals with it. In this man's case if the first test was done before his immune system kicked in and the second one after then this could explain the result.

P.S. I am not a doctor or in the medical field so I leave myself open to corrections. (and not just for my english ;0)

Re:How sure?

[ilitirit]

For interest's sake:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4432564.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Some 14 months later he was offered another test by doctors, which came back negative.

He sought compensation but has apparently been told there is no case to answer because there was no fault with the testing procedure.

Old news... already happened in africa...

[Hurricane78]

Already some years ago I read that some aficans born in those areas with high aids distribution were born with a natural mutation making them immune to aids. Several laboratorys tried to extract a medicament out of it.

I wonder what happened to it...

But to have a second mutation for immunity are great news... Now i hope it does not get sweeped unter the carpet from big companies earning money with selling syptopm-fighting medicaments that don't *really* help at all...

Re:Infect Him Again

[arivanov]

Well... Obvious question is "Which test?".

If it is bog standard ELISA it does not actually detect HIV. It detects antibodies produced against it. So if you do not have any immune responce to HIV whatsoever you will return a negative result.

There are other tests of course which are based on amplifying DNA off the original virus RNA template. Most of these are alpha quality and they are not done as a part of the normal testing procedure.

So the obvious question here is - what tests did he undergo.

Other cases of HIV immunity

[jurt1235]

In some countries in Africa scientists also discovered that certain prostitutes did not have aids. Since the infection rate is extremely high, they interviewed does prostitutes and concluded that the only reason that they did not have aids was or extreme luck (win powerball lottery everytime), or immunity against the virus. They also thought they could use these women for their research. After the initial news I have not seen any other news about this anymore.

HIV is getting milder

[circletimessquare]

it is not in the interest of any disease to kill its host. the disease wants your body to replicate it and spread it. a dead body for a disease is a dead end

so what happens after the initial explosion of cases is that a disease evolves to limit mortality: the germs that get passed on are the ones that are able to somehow keep the host alive as long as possible to continue the spread. the point is to commandeer the body to replicate as many copies as possible and spread it for as long as possible, but not to sap the body's resources so much as to kill the host. the HIV you could get today can kill you, but not as fast and with not as much certainty as the HIV you could get in 1985

killer pandemics happen because a virus or bacteria stumbled by mistake into the good fortune of easy spread amongst a population of animals, the mortality is just an unwanted side effect. this is true of the spanish flu of 1918 too: what once could kill you easily, well you yourself probably got that exact same strain sometime in your life, and it was probably a mild case of the flu or sniffles

this attenuation is true of all diseases. but don't let it fill you with false confidence. the flu or HIV can still kill you, easily. just a little less easily

Please consider this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone really stopped to consider the statistical problems here? How many people have potentially "cured" themselves of HIV without ever knowing they were infected? How many cases never turned into part of the statistics on infection rate vs fatality rate by never being detected and never presenting the symptoms? It is like finding 10,000 dead bodies in an area that all suffered the same death and assuming that whatever killed them was 100% fatal just by the sheer number, however, without some investigation into what the original population was, how many were infected, etc, the assumtion is horribly flawed. Let's not jump to conclusions about him being the potential saviour of HIV/AIDS patience. Given his apparent attitude about not going back to help, his lip service about wanting to help, and the issue of seeking compensation...he is hardly deserving of any of that type of attention beyond being disected to check his biology out.

Everything old is new again

[Kawahee]

It's nothing 'new', there have been reports from Africa of this happening ever since the outbreak, but because of their developing nation status they haven't had the technology to confirm it, and nobody's bothered investigating.

It's sort of sad that it's taken this long to confirm.

Re:First? What about the African Prostitutes et.al

[Senjutsu]

From his link:

"The most probable explanation for the finding of HIV-specific CTL, able to kill virus-infected cells, in apparently uninfected but repeatedly HIV-exposed women is that they have been immunized by exposure to HIV," notes Dr. Sarah Rowland-Jones of the Molecular Immunology Group at Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

That would seem to contradict your genetic theory.

Some explanations...

[John Leeming]

First, his wanting compensation was his initial reaction...you are told you have HIV, an incurable disease, and you plan what remains of your life. Then, the doctor says, "Ooops! We're wrong! You're going to live!"

Immediate reaction: Sue the moron who screwed up your test. And anyone who says otherwise is a liar, because you know we all would do just that in any typical situation, right?

However, in his likely initial investigation, with solicitor in tow, he finds out that, DAMN! He is cured after all!

WTF?

Now...stop and consider the situation.

He's cured. He's alive. Barring suicide or accident, he's now the world's documented repository for The Cure for AIDS.

He's facing a life sentence now, literally, of being drained of his blood on a regular basis, having it shipped all over the world, and essentially being better protected than George W. Bush visiting a gay cowboy coke bar.

Unless and until they can isolate his factor, whether blood, genetic, mutational or whatever, he is going to be a prisoner of his condition...and Ghod help him if some pharmaceutical corporate patents his blood and makes him pay up or give up.

Whether he wants to cooperate or not is going to be moot...sooner or later, he will be drafted/conscripted/incarcerated under some obscure public safety law and turned into State property in the UK/SCotland. If he were in the US, he'd be stamped "PROPERTY OF HALLIBURTON" and turned into a rich person's personal inoculation center.

He may _want_ to cooperate and be sure everyone who needs to be is cured.

Reality, on the other hand, is likely smashing him in the face and making him well aware of what the future holds for him.

His only hope is that we find others like him, or find out it's a relatively simple procedure to duplicate what his body is doing and mass-produce it...and even then, it's highly doubtful that the medical companies will ever let him see a penny for it.

Too cynical? Too bad.

Re:HIV is getting milder

[DaveV1.0]

And you have proof of this?

There is no reason for HIV to become "milder". It is a long term infection which provides its host ample time to reproduce and begin raising a child. It is spread only through close contact and, most likely, repeated contact (See the study comparing infection rates between Africans and S.E.Asians).

To be honest, with the 5 to 20 year dormancy, HIV is rather well suited for a host with a reproductive cycle that starts at in the early to mid teens. It would be perfect for a creature who had a life expectancy of up to mid thirties, begins reproducing at around 15 and has repeated sexual contact with a number of different people.

Kind of like prehistoric man.

Re: The real deal.

[EddyPearson]

In 2002 this guys was tested, now they found HIV Fighting T Cells in his blood stream (Expected for an HIV patient) but no sign of the virus (Again, normal in the early stages) then, when the tested him later there was no virus, and no T cells.

So they claim a cure, However this could just as easily been a results as a localised infection (perhaps in a few skin cells) that had then died.

If the guy really did kill off the HIV virus, then those anti-bodies will still be readily available (If you kill it once, your body will kill it again, no problem)

Re:How sure?

[AuMatar]

This is a disease thats killing hundreds of thousands a year. The very least he can do is have some blood taken and get some physicals. I'm not at all certain he should get the choice not to.

I would, however, be very leery of the original test. The aids test does give false positives, I would expect him to be one.

Donna Maclean, Europe, and the WTO

[bitkari]

Seriously, this is not "Funny". Check out Donna McClean from Bristol UK who HAS successfully patented herself and her entire genetic code

No, she *applied* for a patent, but it has not been granted. There is a vast gaping chasm between applying for a patent and actually being granted it.

In Europe you cannot patent genetic codes for people, animals or plants - at least not right now. The fear is that if large corporations [slashdot.org] manage to enforce bio-patents on the rest of the world via pressure from the WTO.

Re:Infect Him Again

[Warshadow]

The article is sort of vague on that. They say:
"Every two months he was going for blood tests and checks on his liver, heart and immune system."

Blood tests doesn't mean HIV tests. Especially sinde they follow up with:
"So in October 2003 he was offered a repeat HIV test -- and the result came back negative."

That makes it sound as if that was his first HIV test since he tested positive.

Given that he continued to have intercourse with his partner who was known to be infected (maybe he should be rechecked too if they went to the same clinic!) then I'd guess he really did have it and just might have beaten it in some way.

Regardless it was bound to happen. There are always people who are immune (or their immune system is better equipped to fight) any given disease, virus, etc.

Re:CCR5 mutation

[Antifuse]

Ummm... if people with this gene mutation cannot get infected with HIV, how was his first test positive?

Re:Infect Him Again

[RobbieGee]

Well, it says that after he got the negative result, he sued the hospital for fucking up the first time and making him think he had AIDS.

I'm not surprised. If it is/were true, the hospital exposed him to the risk of actually getting infected since he thought he had nothing to loose.

Re:CCR5 mutation

[afaik_ianal]

However that doesn't explain how someone can get infected, and then cure. If he had that mutation, then he would never have got infected in the first place.

Assuming all the tests were correct, I'd say this is something completely different.

Similar event in 1998

[vuzman]

In january 1998 a 13 year old faroese girl received a blood transfusion contaminated with HIV. She was treated with powerful anti-HIV drugs (zidovudine, lamivudine, and indinavir) for 9 months, when the treatment was stopped because of the strong side effects. HIV was never found in her blood. She received a compensation of DKK 750,000 (~$120,000). More on this here [annals.org] and here (in danish) [dagensmedicin.dk]

Re:It's not surprising

[Hal_Porter]

Both attack the same T cells in the immune system, and both even bind to the same CD4 receptor of the T cells. Thus, mutations in the CD4 receptor that are still functional to the organism but disallow the binding by the pathogen would create a form of immunity.


I heard about some research that claims that this is the case

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s714968.h tm [abc.net.au]

So if you're from N Europe, have upto a 14% chance of immunity to Aids.

Interestingly enough there's an analogue to African restistance to malaria -

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disease/sickle.html [nih.gov]

Sickle cell anemia is obviously not a good thing to have, but it does give you some resistance to malaria.

Makes you wonder what the downside to not having CCR5 proteins is.

the first test was done during primo infection ?

[dario_moreno]

Maybe he had the first test while he was developing primo-infection ; his body managed to kill off the virus before it entered his marrowbones and infected his immune system : hence the initially positive test and then the negatives ones and the immunity. Maybe it's much more common than we think since excepted for lab workers who are accidentally contaminated I don't think that many people have an HIV test if they fill feverish a few days after unprotected sex, the tests are usually routine ones done several years after the primo-infection or during the first outbreak of full blown AIDS. Besides, there are a few cases of contaminated lab workers (or newborns) saved from HIV by a massive tritherapy just after the contamination, killing off the virus before it can hide itself in the marrows : same phenomenon here ? This would explain that the probability of being infected during unprotected sex is less than 1% (however, once a day on several years is a sure winner, which would contradict the fact that the guy is now immune). No connection but if someone is dumb enough to sleep with an HIV positive person would he also be dumb enough to refuse to help science ?

JD Shapely, aids martyr ...

[Gopal.V]

Virtual Light [geocities.com] has a guy called JD Shapely, who was a gay prostitute who was the first to become immune to AIDS. And a vaccine was based on his blood cells.

Science and Fiction ... sometimes meet in a book.

Re:Refused?

[erroneus]

As funny as that may sound, THAT may be exactly what he should be doing. Forget about "scientists" studying him, he should be signing up with some pharmaceutical company and reap some MAJOR benefits from it. I'd want to set up some sort of contract to allow testing of specific types requiring some VERY high payment and THEN to own the patent on whatever drugs they come up with.

It's a pretty amazing opportunity if you think about it.

Re:This guy wants compensation?!

[dcw3]

Uh, no. He sued them when the first negative test came back, on (what would normally be) the sound theory that was evidence that the original positive test had been botched. The hospital then did extensive testing on both the positive and negative samples, at which point they came to the stunning conclusion that both results were correct. The lawsuit ended at that point.

So, in order to cover their legal arses, the hospital came up with this miracle?
1. Botch HIV test
2. Get sued
3. Generate Hocus Pocus theory
4. Profit (or at least don't lose a few million)

AIDS test unreliable in African countries

[Dr_Phil_McGraw]

Having lived many years in an african country (Zambia) with a high degree of AIDS victims I know these tests are unreliable. Maybe a few times a year you would get a cover story: "Man cured of AIDS: Tests say he is negative". On a different note you can't help to be a little skeptical. This man refused beginning AIDS treatment and believes he is a miracle. Sounds a little hokus pokus to me.

Re:How sure?

[onepoint]

I look at this situation from 2 views, one personal experience and one on a business level. My father had the chance to become a test subject to a new device, a rather important one.

At the meeting which my father wanted me at, he asked " since it's me you are testing on, what is the cut of the action I will get for each one sold" Honest questions ask jokingly. The reply was: you got to be kidding, we don't do such a thing.

my father turned serious and said to them, "OK, I'm no longer interested". They replied, "but you'll be dead in a year", dad said " OK, so what, find someone else". We just got up and left... this was 10 years ago and dad is still alive, he's got some special rare blood that they pay ton of money for, but instead he finds children research places and gives it away as charity.

From a business stand point, the guy is sitting on a gold mine. I would offer myself up to the back end residual bidder and get the royalties.

From a human level, I would negotiate that the cure should be offered straight out as generic drug. everyone could win.

The guy has a right to do nothing legally. Now the question comes, does he have the moral rights to do nothing?

onepoint

Re:How sure?

[hfnarqkh]

...anyone who is cured might want to help humanity...

I agree. Anyone who is cured would and should want to help. I got the impression from TFA, however, that this particular individual doesn't believe he was cured. The only logical reason I can see that he would want to sue is that he believes that the first test that showed him as HIV positive was the result of some kind of error on the part of the lab.

He mentions being depressed and suicidal afterwards. Assuming that the company who tested him was at fault for a false positive result, I can see him being very angry about the entire situation.

There is, of course, no proof that I'm aware of to validate that position, but if we're going to speculate on this guy's motives, it can't hurt to speculate from any side we can think of....

Re:How sure?

[rufty_tufty]

Ok, you've developed a computer program which microsoft say will save millions of people by it's analysis of the human genome and help with the construction of a life saving wdiget.

Microsoft wants it for this purpose. You don't trust their motives, you think they'll just use it for their own profit and exploit people and you just want to be left the hell alone.
And saying that you'd release your program under GPL is not an option, as this option doesn't exist in the medical world.

Should I piss in your eye now?

You have a right to your property, if my body isn't my property, then what the hell is?

Re:No need to ask

[Anonymous Coward]

They do retest it, they just don't always tell you. I donated blood and "tested positive". I of course found that to be highly unusual as:

1.) I am a virgin (I know, I know, you must be in shock)
2.) I have never done drugs (needle or not)
3.) I have never had a blood transfusion (pre early 80s or not)

It turns out that if you have a virus of any kind when you donate you'll get flagged. I had a cold the next day. They performed three tests, the first one was positive, and the second two, which I suppose are more refined, tested negative. Great relief, but you think they could have mentioned that in the letter they sent me!

HL-60 and $$$

[Deanasc]

Back in the 1970's a woman with a very rare case of leukemia donated cells that have been kept alive for decades after her death due to her ailment. They are one of the cornerstones of cancer research and countless therapies have been developed using her cell line as test material. That being said, she didn't get to benefit from her donation. It didn't save her life or make her any more comfortable as she died.

If I was that guy, knowing that drugs are a 500,000,000,000 dollar a year industry and it could be reasonably assumed that a cure to aids is wortth billions I'd want some considerable financial consideration. Say $100,000,000 down and %10 thereafter.

Re:Science subject

[Seigen]

I think he has a right to refuse to be tested, but I still think he should do it within reason. I think they should pay him a premium for his time though. Altruism is all well and good, but considering most drug research appears to be, primarily, for the purpose of enriching those that pay for the research, I see no reason why he should not be compensated.

Drug development costs

[spineboy]

It costs roughly 1 Billion dollars $1,000,000,000) to bring a new drug to the marketplace, after all the FDA testing, long term studies, phase 3 trials are done. Your estimate of the marketing costs is off by a factor of 10.

Re:How sure?

[canajin56]

Good point, and it got me thinking...I tried looking up how accurate the HIV test is. All the websites I found initially claimed its between 99.99% - 100% accurate, with false positives being essentially impossible. Research papers, however, put it between 98.6%, and 99% accurate. So out of 100 people without HIV, at least 1 will yield a false positive. Note that these errors do not include lab errors and faulty tests, which can be countered by redoing the test, but the actual chance of somebody without the disease reading positive no matter how many tests are done. (In other words, its the accuracy of what you are testing for, rather than how you are testing for it)

The most interesting thing about HIV tests is that they actually check for AIDS instead! The most common test, the one claimed to be false-positive proof, works by counting your white blood cells. If you have HIV but not AIDS (Yet?) it will read negative. If you are feeling under the weather due to job stress and the flu, it will read positive. If you have lukemia, positive. If you have been exposed to radiation, positive. If you are taking certain herbal anti-fungal agents that supress the immune system, positive. In other words, it is all but useless.

Re:Science subject

[IsoRashi]

Modded funny but true in some cases :-/ I lived over in England for 3 years and the Red Cross won't take my blood because of it.

Re:Science subject

[mink]

I seem to remember a couple years ago a news broadcast on the radio about a new AIDS drug cocktail that reduced traceable levels of the virus to the point tests could no longer detect it, but the person was not cured of HIV/AIDS.