Chimps, AIDS, And Immunity 464
Anonymous Coward writes "Researchers at the Biomedical Primate Research Center in The Netherlands have come up with a theory as to why modern chimps don't develop AIDS and its variants.
The chimps in the study were found to share a usually uniform cluster of genes in the area that controls their immune systems' defenses against disease. This lack of genetic diversity suggests that a lethal sickness attacked chimps in the distant past.
The theory postulates that approximately 2 million years ago an AIDS-like epidemic wiped out a large portion of the chimpanzee population. Those that survived developed an immunity to AIDS and its variants.
If this theory holds true it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick."
SIV? (Score:3, Interesting)
"IV). From what I've read in the past, they are remarkably similar...
Re:SIV? (Score:2)
Re:SIV? (Score:2)
(emphasis mine). They don't actually say SIV, but it is quite clearly what they are talking about.
Practicing animal husbandry? (Score:2, Funny)
How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:3, Interesting)
Those that survived developed an immunity to AIDS and its variants. If this theory holds true it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick
What does one have to do with the other? Besides the fact that there is a quote in the article that states the only way this has a bearing on human immunity is if the submitter is suggesting that those humans with AIDS immunity are evolved from chimps two million years ago which seems highly unlikely.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
First of all, we share roughly 97% of our DNS with chimpanzees
Actually I don't think we share any of our DNS servers with chimps, unless you count MCSEs.
haven't had a catastrophic disease like HIC deicmate our population
I was picturing an entire population of humans dying of HICups. *HIC*....*HIC*....*HIC*...<collapses on the floor>, "Well Billy Bob, it looks like anuther one died of that ach eye see virus."
Sorry, I know HIV is not a laughing matter, but I found the mental picture of the 'HIC' virus quite entertaining and thought I'd share. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have.
Sharing DNS with chimpanzees (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, now, that may be true, but I don't think ICANN would appreciate you categorizing them thusly.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
Even though you mean DNA, it's actually 99% (+).
But that only shows a degree of closeness. Of course you know that we are closest to Bonobos and then they are related to Chimps then on down the line. All of these similarities in the DNA only show that we evolved from the same common ancestors. It doesn't mean we evolved from chimps themselves.
But there is something that bothers me about your understanding about genetics. If we assume that everyone was infected with HIV, there is no reason to assume that anyone would be resistant to the disease. There is nothing that guarantees us that our DNA will make a mistake in the reproduction process(es) which will provide an advantage.
The chances of mutation are millions to one. There are so many safeguards in place. There is also very little chance that a mutation will be in our favor. Your DNA has no way of knowning what is coming up next.
But the proliferation of this gene was likely based on the fact that the ones without it died, mixed with the ideas of genetic drift and etc. There isn't really a chance that we also have this gene just because they do. If that were the case we would have found this years ago.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
we share nearly 97% of the same DNA as Chimps. Unless the Genetics experts at MIT are wrong, which I kind of doubt.
human DNA is 99.9% similiar to any other human.
In fact, any two humans are closer, DNA speaking, then any two chimps.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
However, I think it had more to do with the "A" and "S" keys being beside each other on the keyboard.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
He was just making a harmless joke. The tone of his reply was very light hearted compared to the "I wish everybody'd burn in hell for making an innocent typo" crap that a lot of people seem to think they have the right to do.
Ya haveta admit, a typo like that is fairly topical. If chimpanzees did get on the net, they would have to be regulated. Geocities.com would become Geocities.chimp.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's relevant by implication only. HIV can do to humanity what the unnamed-disease did to the chimps two million years ago -- wipe out most of us except the few who have a natural genetic resitance to the virus. Then, two million years from now, someone will comment on how our "immunity genes" are very similar.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
No HIV cannot do to humans what it did to chimps. As far as I know chimps do not know about protecting themselves from HIV and similear dieses, while many humans do.
I know that HIV is an issue. I'm careful not to have sex with anyone at risk for HIV. (ie, only others who are also careful about partners) This isn't perfect protection; not all partners are fully honest, but my odds of HIV are extreemly low. Therefore it is likely that my genes will survive even if I don't have any of the HIV resistant ones.
I'm not an expert on chimps, but my understanding is when a female is in heat she will mate with every male she can find (the entire tribe, subject to some rules which we don't need to get into) in a day. In that enviorment STDs will spread quickly. Any resistant genes will be a great benifit, as the rest of the population dies.
PS, comments that I'm a geek and so I'm unlikely to pass my genes on, HIV or no are not relavent.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
The implication still stands. If not HIV, then an as-yet-unknown disease can do the same thing. What if HIV was highly infectious -- spread through casual contact or through airbourne transmission. The disease that supposedly wiped out most of the chimps might not have been transmitted sexually.
I think you are being far too literal. I think the comparison applies to immunity in general, not specifically to HIV, although it is a colorful example.
The Plague wiped out 1/3 of the European population. Smallpox wiped out huge numbers (not sure of exact number) of American Indians. A theoretical disease more virulent and infectious than both of those, combined with the relative inability to treat or cure it as with the HIV virus, and we could see similar genetic culling as with the chimps.
Strep is becoming immune to our anti-biotics. We don't know how to treat West-Nile yet. Ear-infections, urinary tract infections are becoming resistant. Lots of human illnesses are becoming resistant to our treatments.
Let's hope bio-tech research can do an end-run around evolution and beat the bacteria and virii before they beat us.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
It's quite possible for a disease to be too virulent to become a plague. What you often tend to find is that both disease causing organisms and their hosts tend to adapt to each other. It isn't in the parasite's interest to kill it's host.
Strep is becoming immune to our anti-biotics. We don't know how to treat West-Nile yet. Ear-infections, urinary tract infections are becoming resistant. Lots of human illnesses are becoming resistant to our treatments.
It's at least partly due to overuse of such chemicals. Hospitals can easily become breedings grounds for very tough bacteria.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
Is that true? I don't know.
Is it possible? Yes.
Imagine an isolated tribe of humans a few thousand years ago. Imagine there being an epidemic that a few survive, the survivers have children, which have the same genetic advantage. By now, those desendents could be anywhere do to how easy it has become to travel.
Re:How Does It Explain Human Immunity? (Score:2)
HIV is only spread by direct intimate contact and only affects [some] primates.
Light on Details, of course... (Score:2)
AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a little young, so I didn't realize it until much later, but this was a pretty "in your face" demonstration of how timing, in the sense of where you are in the course of human technological development can have a serious impact on your expected longevity.
There are, of course, the obvious facts that a long, long time ago your life-expectancy would be 30 years, whereas now (depending on where you live) it might be near 80. This is a development over thousands of years, though.
It's a bit shocking to think that if my uncle had developed his complications a few years later he might still be around today. I've always taken solace in the fact that the same could be said of my father's friends who were drafted for Vietnam, or my grandfather's friends who died in Korea, etc.
Illnesses seem a bit "different", though. Wars are arguably preventable, illnesses kinda just happen. I'm hoping and hoping that startling achievements in fighting "natural causes" will reach some sort of threshold where we might be expected to live for a ridiculously long time.
Longevity treatments, anyone?
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Meaning absolutely no disrespect to either you or your late uncle, AIDS does not "kinda just happen"; nor, for that matter, do many other illnesses.
The vast majority of AIDS cases stem from sexual activity and shared needles. It is conceivable that, given enough education, focus and effort, AIDS could be effectively eradicated in the span of a couple of generations with technology that is currently available. AIDS is not something that just kinda turns up in your system one fine morning; is an epidemic that can be effectively prevented with some very basic safeguards.
Again, I say this neither to inflict pain nor insult on you and your family. Rather, I say this to combat the notion that AIDS "just kinda happens", a view that will cause more harm than comfort in the long run.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the latency period of HIV is up to ten years (which is the last I've heard of it), and if my uncle died in 1992 (which he did), then if we also give a few years of wasting away (I don't know when he first developed symptoms), then he could have been infected way back in the 70's.
There was little to no information about HIV at the time. Think about all of the people who were infected by blood transfusions and whatnot. We only know that these things need to be checked out now. For my uncle, who probably got it from sex, and for blood transfusion victims, the disease basically "did just happen".
The only way it could have been prevented, because the vector was unknown, and, actually the disease was practically unknown, would have been to not engage in sex. Hah.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
I posted out of frustration at the fact that the AIDS epidemic is showing every sign of spiralling out of control, and that this epidemic will be aided every step of the way by undereducation, religious agendas, poverty, politics, and ignorance.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
In fact, we basically lost a whole generation of hemophiliacs, recently. A large percentage of them require intermittent blood transfusions, and nearly all of them contracted HIV before screening of blood products (overly delayed thanks to the govt). Pretty much all of them are dead now, since they contracted the disease generally before any other group did, and all died before the development of effective medical treatment.
We have probably lost a lot of sickle cell patients to AIDS too, but they generally have a rather limited lifespan for various reasons, though that is starting to change with newer medical treatments and immunizations.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
This is exactly the problem with winning the war against AIDS by suffocating it. People who are HIV+ or have AIDS would have to be singled out with their freedoms sucked away. It is really hard to justify doing that to somebody, like in the case of your friend's dad. He did nothing wrong. Boom, it just happened.
This is why I don't think 'prevention' is the best cure. Personally, I hope that nano technology results in the creation of microscopic robots that can be programmed to act like antibodies. I think that'll be the ultimate cure for most disease. (please don't correct me if I'm wrong about the bots, my imagination is allowing me to look at the future a lot more brightly.)
robots? (Score:2)
Of course prevention isn't the best cure - it's not a cure at all. It's called "prevention" for a reason.
The fact is, very few problems like these ever have just one solution. Prevention is one strategy, and there is no reason not to persue it. Yes, if little robots are invented as a cure, I'll welcome them with open arms, but they ain't coming anytime soon, no matter what your imagination allows, and prevention is available right here and now.
Re:robots? (Score:2)
Not what I said. Not even close. I can see why you'd think I said that if you only skimmed my original post. Here's a tip though: When it sounds like somebody's being absurd, ask them questions instead of assuming your interpretation is correct. It's commonly known that nano tech to do something like that is decades away and we need a cure sooner than that. What I was saying was one day (decades from now) we'll have a single cure for nearly everything. Guess I should have fleshed that part out a bit.
"Of course prevention isn't the best cure - it's not a cure at all. It's called "prevention" for a reason."
I forgot to mention something: There used to be posters floating around that promoted safe sex by saying 'prevention is the best cure for AIDS'. It didn't occur to me that not everybody reading this may have seen that. Heck, it may not even have appeared outside of the town I live in. My mistake, understanding of that detail makes my point clearer.
" Prevention is one strategy, and there is no reason not to persue it."
Never said it shouldn't be pursued either. I said it's not the best way to approach it. As a matter of fact, its a very problematic way of stopping the virus.
Yeesh, now I know why legalese was invented.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Among us people that actually have sex, yes HIV does just happen. Of course you can precautions (condoms, limiting the number of partners) but if you are getting laid there is a chance that you could get it. So maybe for those of you that can't get a date its not a problem, but for the rest of us it is.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
For non-sluts, the chances of getting it are far lower than they are for others. Especially when they keep the number of their sexual partners low, and keep it in their pants long enough to determine if those partners are indeed non-sluts too.
There's always some astronomical chance that AIDS will slip through in some blood transfusion or similar, so it's not perfect. But it does tend to help alot. Too bad it's a little too late for you to become a non-slut too, isn't it?
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Nor does it have anything to do with whether you are married or not... HIV ignores wedding rings, apparently.
Nice attempt at trollbashing, but pegging me as a biblethumper was the wrong call. Go sit in the corner.
As for "unprotected sex just once your at risk", this is stupid propaganda, at most. If you want to get technical, being alive means "you are at risk". Ever had a blood transfusion? Ever had someone bleed on you? Let's talk about reasonable risk factors, and knowing someone well enough to be able to trust them to tell the truth when you ask how many people they've fucked.
Let's say you've only had two sex partners, one was a virgin at the time (so were you), and another one claimed to have only ever had one previously. And she claims that that guy doesn't fuck around all that much. Well, assuming she is telling the truth. And you meet another girl, whose history is much like your own... is she more of a risk, than the IV drug-using prostitute that looks like she's seeing whether being beaten by pimps or OD will kill her first?
Now, the nice girl you've met... drop her history even lower, and yours. Are you both safer?
Thank you for reading this Public Service Announcement, and remember kids, don't fuck around like rabbits, you'll live longer!
Re:consequences (Score:2)
And then 20 seconds later...
sorry couldn't resist - congrats...best wishes.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:3, Informative)
Rape is a huge problem in Africa, especially in the kwa-Zulu Natal area that has been described as the 'epicenter of AIDS' now that Uganda has gotten things under control. AIDS really can just kinda turn up in your system one morning without you having any choice in the matter - for many people, it's often not as simple as wearing a condom and not sharing a needle.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
If they could be made even smaller, they could be used to extend telomeres (sp?) on chromosomes, so that aging could effectively be halted.
Put enough of these in one's bloodstream, load them up with a few communal behaviors (CLOT@DISMEMBERMENT), and a human being could be made pretty damn near immortal.
The only real problems then would be disorders we truly didn't understand, and thus a fine degree of control would be irrelevant.
Proviso: I'm a geek, not a doctor. Commence the hole-punching in these ideas...
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
But you are overlooking one of the safeguard effects of mortality.
Until now, no matter how evil a person(s) is, they will die someday. Unfortunately the decent ones need to die too, because mortality isn't very picky. But what happens with the next Hitler, the next Stalin? Or god help us, Jeffrey Dahmer? That sounds dumb at first, but what happens when a 300 yr old serial criminal has enough practice to avoid detection no matter what?
And it's truly shitty luck on our part, that the Hitlers and Stalins are likely to be the first to benefit from such technology.
This is something I don't want to see happen, ever. At least not until humanity collectively learns how not to be such shitheads.
Life expectancy (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't dispute your basic statement that average life expectancy 200-300 years ago was about 30 years. However, you need to look at what that number means.
200-300 years ago a *lot* of people died of childhood diseases. Once you made it past about age 15, you had a reasonable chance of living to see 50, and 70 wasn't completely unreasonable for the non-poor.
The "average life expectancy of 30 years" combined with "most people that live past 18 live to see 50" means that a good third of all people never lived through childhood, and most of these died before age 9.
A large percentage of women died in childbirth also. (It's amazing how that percentage dropped drastically when doctors simply started washing their hands.)
When 1/3 of your population lives to average 5, and 1/3 of your population lives to average about 35 (those childbirth deaths for women pull their average down) and 1/3 of the population lives to about 55...
Gives you an average life expectancy of about 30.
But if you lived to see 15, you had a reasonable chance of living to see 50 and beyond.
We haven't really done too much to extend life. Our average life expectancy has gone up so drastically in the last 100 years because we have beaten most childhood diseases, and reduced the childbirth-related deaths in women.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
It's not so much that I object to people lying with statistics... just be aware when you are doing it, okay?
Re:Life expectancy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Life expectancy (Score:2)
Oh, c'mon. You have information to share, no need to be a jerk about it.
I'm sorry that I didn't encapsulate everything in such a form that it couldn't possibly be misinterpreted. Sometimes you have to cut your losses about how much information someone wants to wade through. All I was trying to say is that when we were cavemen, it's doubtful that a person would live to be 80. Now it's the expected age of demise.
I say this:
E{age_of_death;-10000 bc} = 30 years
E{age_of_death;2002 ad} = 80 years
conclusion: I'm glad I'm living now as opposed to then.
You respond
Oookaay, let's look at it another way. Let's say that E{age_of_death} is a damn misleading statistic, and that just looking at some sort of probability function for age_of_death is more useful. According to what you said:
old times function: starts high, ends low
new times function: starts a little lower, end low
conclusion: It's better to be born now.
More complicated, yet better statistics, and I don't feel it gets the point across in as straightforward a fashion.
Now, YOU remember, in order to calculate the efficacy of a message, you need to maximize over an operation like E{confusion*specifity}, where confusion and specifity are usually at odds with each other, but actually have many local minima.
I just made that up.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. Also location (Score:2)
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Not likely. It appears now that the body is simply battling entropy. Mutational errors continually accumulate up over time and eventually become cancer or other problems. The only medium-term solutions seem to be to slow down metabolism, but this buys you only so much time. Many age-related problems tend to be caused by slower metabolism anyhow, as the body naturally slows down to reduce cancer risks, it is theorized.
Maybe some kind of nano-probes that scan and clean mutations is a possible distant solution. The flip side is that it could also make a "handy" terrorism tool.
Just think, McCafee might be in the cell-scan biz one day.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
A good example of this is cancer. Cancer was uncommon in the 19th. century. By the end of the 20th. century it was the primary killer in Western countries.
Was there a sudden upsurge in cancer? Did more virulent "strains" suddenly appear? No. It simpler. Back in the 1800's few people died of cancer because most of the population died of other diseases. Cancer is (with some exceptions) a disease of old age. If you die of tuberculosis in your early twenties as millions did back then, you won't survive to die of the cancer that would have killed you when you hit 60.
Many of these "new" diseases are more prominent now because we have eliminated so many other diseases that used to cull the herd of mankind.
Of course there are exceptions. HIV/AIDS may be one - it appears to have evolved into a mass-transmitable and often fatal disease in recent memory.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Was there a sudden upsurge in cancer?
Well, was there really an upsurge or did we simply discover what 'cancer' was? How many unexplained deaths back then were simply cases of cancer in one form or another?
A possible explanation for the upsurge of "new" diseases is that we now have names for them and know what causes them.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Cancer has never been the primary killer in Western countries. Outside of industrial accidents in the early industrial age (I think), coronary artery disease and its relatives have pretty much held the #1 killer slot in the Western world for as long as such statistics have been available. Even today, heart disease is the primary killer by a fairly wide margin.
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Nice theory except cancer rates in the US peaked about 20 years ago, and have been falling slowly but steadily ever since, at excatly the time when these kind of low-level radition sources have massively increased. The main reason for this is the drop in lung cancer rates due to anti-smoking efforts.
There is little or no evidence that electromagnetic radition of the kind you mention is a major source of cancer. It probably causes some, but not much.
If you think about it, this makes sense. After all more than 99% of the radiation you are exposed to comes not from artificial sources like TV but from the Sun...
Re:AIDS, mortality, and timing. (Score:2)
Or possibly one which was around all the time, but now has a big pool of potential victims, who would otherwise have died of the disease which is now treatable.
unusually uniform cluster of genes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:unusually uniform cluster of genes (Score:2)
For example, the peoples of Africa are arguably the oldest humans on the Earth sharing the most DNA with our early relatives.
But they are also the most genetically diverse. Many people over look this, and I'd put my money on a favorable mutation against AIDS comming from that part of the world.
Not, of course, because your DNA says "oh AIDS! we must change". But because the selection would go for this type of mutation.
It's a mutation if it's harmful or doesn't do anything, it's a gene if we like it
Rather simple (Score:5, Informative)
It is actually rather simple why certain people can be repeatedly exposed to HIV and not become productively infected. HIV requires its target cells have two cell surface proteins in order to infect it. One is the basic CD4 T cell receptor. The other is one of two different types of chemokine receptor. There is the CXCR4 and CCR5 receptors. The names derive from a common amino acid motif found in these receptors in most people: for CXCR4 it is cysteine-any amino-cysteine-arginine. For CCR5 it is cysteine-cysteine-arginine. Most of the people who appear immune to the infection contain a mutation in the CCR5 receptor (I'm not familiar with the CXCR4 receptor vis a vis mutations and infection resistance). Thus, HIV can bind to CD4 but because of the mutation in CCR5 it cannot complete the process and fuse with the cell. No fusion, no infection.
This common form of resistance doesn't require any cluster of genes nor any mysterious genetic variation or evolutionary alteration.
Re:Rather simple (Score:2, Funny)
That CCR5 is like the 'cells' sendmail?! Hot DAMN!
Btw, can you give me the DNA diff so I can patch it? Thanks
Re:Rather simple (Score:2, Informative)
Virology is admittedly not my area of research, but I'd think that there seem to be two divergent opinions here on simian resistance. Anyone here working in the area care to explain the (seeming) contradiction?
Re:Rather simple (Score:2)
Yes, as a simple mutation it has a potential contribution to evolution of humans. If HIV were to _really_ get widespread and kill lots of people to the point that most remaining people were mutant CCR5 carriers, then they would be the ones to most successfully pass on their genes to the next generation and future humans would be immune...evolution in action.
I simply meant that I don't think one HAS to look at a complex cluster of genes in simians and infer that this is the sort of thing that would have to happen to humans for them to evolve immunity like the simians. For us, all we need in this case is a relatively minor variation in one protein (two if you really want to get decent protection: CCR5 and CXCR4 - and hope that the mutations dont screw something else up in the process of giving you immunity to one virus).
Subject test group? (Score:5, Funny)
Limited genetic diversity (Score:2)
Perhaps some misunderstanding... (Score:5, Informative)
One thing I noticed... (Score:3, Insightful)
The end quote of the article says If the theory of an ancient chimp epidemic would hold true for humans, he said, "the implications are pretty scary."
Just how are the implications pretty scary? Chimps weren't doing anything to stop the spread of the disease, we are. We're educating people and trying to encourage safer practices. The chimps who were almost wiped out didn't have a 7th grade health class where they learned that condoms can significantly lower their risks of contracting SIV. We do. The places where HIV has become an epidemic are the ones where there aren't such classes. They need them.
I worked at the NCI (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I worked at the NCI (Score:4, Interesting)
What else does this gene impact? Obviously it has been changed naturally in some people, so it may not have that much of an impact...
Re:I worked at the NCI (Score:2)
Within weeks or is it months, your entire white cell population could be new and improved, invulnerable to AIDS...
I propose a trade? (Score:2)
I say we trade the language [bbc.co.uk] gene [nature.com] for their AIDS immunity gene.
It would be beneficial to both species. Well, the language gene is arguably more trouble than it's worth, but these monkeys are dumb and will probably fall for it if we throw in a few extra bananas to sweeten the deal.
4-7 millions years ago. not 2. (Score:2, Informative)
2 million years ago, something happening to the ancestor of modern Chimpanzee isn't going to affect us, unless our ancestors were also involved.
duh! i wish these people would do more research before making such crap as 'it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick.'
Re:4-7 millions years ago. not 2. (Score:2, Insightful)
The group posits that, because you have a very specific loss of variability in an area that controls the molecules HIV & similar retroviruses use for infection, and chimps are immune to these viruses, there may originally have been a varied population of chimps (like humans) that were culled down to a very small population that had immunity (and this current, limited genetic make-up).
Punctuated Equilibrium (Score:3, Interesting)
OMG, what? (Score:2)
I've heard this debated millions of times. But what people fail to realize is that our "understanding" may actually cause us to get our "asses kicked".
There is nothing that will throw us out of the evolutionary loop. In fact, the damage we do to our environment maybe one thing which wipes us out. We can't survive on "understanding" alone.
Maybe you would like to explain how the people of Africa are the most genetically diverse peoples of the planet? Maybe you would like to explain sickle-cell anemia. That is one adaption which, although it causes a trade off, helps save lives. Please tell me how understanding will beat malaria.
See, for example if we killed off "all" the mosquitoes they will only come back because some simply won't die. DDT spraying made the population diminish, but some were not susceptable to the toxin. So in fact, our "understanding" made it worse.
While we try to fight AIDS through education, a mutation would be the only real way to eliminate the threat.
Basically: We have sexual reproduction, we have genes, we do have mutations.
Think about it: Even though some "freaks" reproduce, not all do.
Bubonic plague link (Score:2)
When the "black death" hit Europe, it killed as much as 1/3 of the population. The survivors likely had a genetic advantage that helped them survive. This same genetic resistance which was an advantage 700 years ago appears to be valuable today. Sub-saharan Africa did not suffer the same rampant spread of the plague, and thus those genes were less likely to be preserved in the general population.
QUESTION FOR THE BIOCHEMISTS (Score:3, Interesting)
How many strains of HIV are there (or that we know about), and what differences are there in their vectors, mechanisms, and effects?
Secondly, has there been any evidence that once infected with one strain, that there is a resistance to a new one? For example, if a Chimp is infected with SIV, is it less likely to become infected with HIV (or vice versa)?
Just wondering if any evidence has cropped up to suggest there is promise in William Gibson's "benign HIV+" idea (I think it was in Virtual Light).
Re:QUESTION FOR THE BIOCHEMISTS (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a biochemist, but I can answer the second one: Sometimes. Gene mutations are belived to be random. The chimp doesn't have a SIV specific gene, it has a gene that causes certian types of protiens. The protien then allows certian immunities. It might happen that the gene only affects SIV, more likely it affects several things, which might or might not include HIV.
One of the early vacinations for small pox was bassed on cow pox, once infected by cow pox you were immune to small pox. So yes, one infection can make you resistant to a different one. However there are many different viriues. Most people get the flu every year, and each time they get one strain they become resistant to that and several other, however appearently not the one that strikes the next year.
There are too many random factors in immunities and genetics to really answer your second question, but I tried.
of course! (Score:4, Funny)
They are in fact shaved monkeys, and not people after all?
not scary at all (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see anything particularly scary about it: the fact that we have the data from chimps may well let us develop better drugs.
If the biologists are "scared" by the fact that 90% of a population may have been wiped out by a virus--well, welcome to the real world. Those things happen to real world species. Humans are particularly susceptible because of travel and high population densities, but we also have a public health system going for us.
Note, incidentally, that infectious mononucleosis probably was also devastating for human ancestors--very lethal and very easy to transmit. Today, it is a harmless disease only because of an odd quirk of the virus and the human immune system.
you place great faith in the abilities of humans (Score:3, Interesting)
(as it's friday afternoon, I am kinda lazy to provide links, but all should be found on the web here or another)
1) HIV is spreading, and doing so at a faster rate than before. Partly it's because of people are getting the idea that the "cocktail treatment" has effect -- but the truth is that it's not nearly that effective for the amount of casual sex people tend to want to carry.
2) HIV mutates faster than we can come up with drugs for them. some strains, in fact, was resistant / became resistant (through mutation, presumably) even before a vaccine / treatment was made into mass production
3) many leads for possible cure has turned out to be dead-ends. I am sure many have heard about the people (select few, 5% or so?) who contract HIV but does not actually exhibit the symptoms of AIDS for a long time (15-20 years) -- Eventually it turns out that these are people who simply had a combination of good immune system and a "weak" strain of HIV. they eventually got AIDS.
4) vaccination requires a response from the immune system toward an agent (mutated, harmless version of HIV, for example) -- however this response we want to elicit from the immune system is *not a natural one*, meaning that it is not one that occurs, or have been observerd to occur (through much searching, as you could imagine) natually, and worse yet, *MAY NOT EXIST*.
there are a couple others; but unless much more breakthrough level results are obtained, soon, the AIDS epidemic will become a catastrophic event that will have no less impact on the world today as the Black Plague had in times past.
humans may already have some immunity (Score:2)
The creationist cranks have gone home (Score:2)
It seems to be a US-only phenomonum. Here in England most people don't care about that Bible crap.
SO the lesson is: don't mention the e-word and the trolls won't bite.
yoink. (Score:2)
Re:Cure with Chimps? (Score:2)
Re:Cure with Chimps? (Score:2)
THere doesn't exist any global system to prevent public health epidemics.
Wow, I say something about a really simply concept generally described as "not fucking around" and you think I refer to some health departmentesque goverment sponsored bureaucracy.
you are referring to homosexuality
No, I'm referrring to promiscuity in general. Far from being a bible thumper, I don't care if you're celibate or not, married or not, or even queer. If you could keep the number of sex partners in the single digit count, you'd be doing better than most. Even gays, which I don't care for, lose more points with me for being sluts, than they do for being gay.
if by this you mean drug use
Not in particular, but this is a component. If it were the only component, we could have solved your "epidemic" and the IV drug problem in one fell swoop. I'm sorry, being a victim really sucks. But some people try too damn hard to be a victim, for me to have much sympathy. For fucks sake, if you want to ruin your life injecting heroin, is it gonna take too damn long to bleach a needle first? Who cares whether they end up in the ER with an overdose 30 seconds late?
Blaming AIDS on any one practice, or group
This is actually somewhat intelligent, so I almost feel bad pointing out that you are wrong. The one group that I can blame it on, is humanity, and its entire culture as a whole. We were supposed to have evolved in the last few million years, it's time to quit acting like monkeys for fucks sake.
AIDS is now largely a heterosexual
Which only proves my earlier point that it's a promiscuity problem, not a homosexual problem. Go find a person that you feel like screwing for most, if not all of your life. If it doesn't work out, sit back and think about why, before searching for another. If it's more than one, it's no big deal, but if you can't keep count, or someone asks and you have to sit and think about it for 10 minutes before answering, you have a serious problem.
and developing nation phenomena related to poverty.
Hehe. Those poor people are too poor to not be retarded. Aww. Can't we spend $1500 per month, so that they can live longer and have even more opportunities to infect the few that aren't already showing fullblown AIDS symptoms?
Give me a goddamn break. You should hear some of the sexual practices these people have. We don't need morals to prove it wrong, survival of the fittest is likely to show how good an idea it really is. But no, we'll wait for western science to bail out cultures that don't deserve to survive, and are incapable of finding a cure on their own. And before you go calling me racist, let me assure you that I'm only discriminating against what goes on in their collective heads, not how much pigment is in their skin. Nor would I hold any of them ill will, if by some chance they woke up and had some sense. A racist would continue to try and punish them even after they started behaving, or would overlook that even retards with the same skin color as my own are pulling the same idiotic stunts in my own nation.
There are some true victims out there. Babies born with the disease, people infected through tainted blood supplies. Unfortunately, it will continue to happen, as long as people continue to behave as they do. Hell, there are even some true problems in Africa, and other places, that I think we should try to help them with... but instead, we're wasting money and effort treating a what is, or at least was, a preventable "epidemic". Those are dollars and hours that could have been going toward a cure or vaccine for the next ebola... a disease that will kill africans first, and for which they have no reasonable way of preventing. I'd much rather be spending money on things like that, and if you had any sense, you'd rather that be the case too.
So next time, you decide to trollbash, look first and wonder a bit if maybe the opinion isn't so farfetched, or unfair. I'm generally pretty reasonable, and in this case, there are reasons for beinig less than politically correct on the topic.
Re:Cure with Chimps? (Score:2)
It's socially harmful, because even though you deserve to die for being a slut (man or woman, I'm not sexist), you'll likely spread it to others, some of which will no doubt be... true victims. People that were being decent, and doing nothing that they might have avoided with a few morals or even enlightened self-interest. Heroin junkies, next time you shoot up, remember that you helped and did your part in killing the little babies born with AIDS. It's a team effort, and even if you didn't score one, they couldn't have done it without you!
As for promiscuity, well, what can I say? Apparently, there are ways to even minimize the risks you'd be dealing with. But if the statistics say anything, they say that most sluts are generally too stupid or apathetic to even do this. Of course you have the right to fuck around, but when it comes back to you 10 years later, and bites you in the ass, don't wimp out and cry when I laugh at you. I only hope that you managed to destroy your own life, and not those of the other people around you.
Re:My question is... (Score:2)
Re:My question is... (Score:2)
This theory could explain it....
Dickey Chaney (Score:2)
No, but Dick "Stalin in Training" Chaney sure can, and since he's been bending most of America over about a year now, there's a good chance the rest of us over here will bet it too. Our only hope is that he keeps reaming us out with the erstwhile Bill of Rights, rather than his own appendage, but I don't think thats something any of us can count on.
Re:Where does that come from? (Score:2)
I cant give you the details but I remember reading an article about it in "New Scientist" so its not just an urban legend. I read it in the print edition but you might be able to find it on their website.
Re:Where does that come from? (Score:2)
Then, an update about a vaccine built on a study in kenya [stopgettingsick.com].
Essentially, google for "aids immunity africa prostitutes" for more stuff. basically, they found these pockets of women who worked as prostitutes, were repeatedly exposed to the virus, and have never developed HIV. In the Nairobi study, many of them were related.
Of course, there are a couple articles running around that state that these prostitutes were chosen by some diety to be immune to HIV because they live a "natural" life, and aren't pagans. How the rest of Africa is susceptible to HIV/AIDS, then, is unanswerable. Aaah, logic... yummy.
--mandi
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
Based on his theory, Duesberg predicted that the drugs developed to treat HIV would do more harm than good. But in reality, they dramatically reduced AIDS deaths.
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
Oh, you mean like Dr. Gordon Stewart [wanadoo.fr] (the former WHO advisor on AIDS),
or Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein [msu.edu] (who made a thorough study of the AIDS and could not find any evidence to back up the claim that HIV is the cause of AIDS, that AIDS is a new disease, or that it is contagious)
or how about the Perth Group (a group of medical researchers from Perth Australia) who has an excellent set of links on their home page [theperthgroup.com].
Many many more... just don't have time to post them.
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
One has to be careful not to confuse Duesberg's extreme views with the widely-held and far more reasonable suspicion that there are cofactors in addition to HIV that contribute to development of AIDS.
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
I also have to wonder how he can run together so many different chemicals ("recreational drugs") under a common effect. The chemical makeup of such a broad category of chemicals is pretty broad itself; how can they all have the same impact?
It's possible that many drugs used long-term by large numbers of people could be used as recreational drugs (valium, pain killers, even anti-depressants) so why haven't the users of these drugs developed HIV/AIDS?
I love these conspiracy theorists, though. I especially like the one that says it was a FBI/NSA/CIA biowarfare experiment that got out of control.
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
If you had READ the site he says that people in SA show a lot of AID like symptons like diarehha, weight loss, etc... b/c they are malnurished and don't live in the most sanitary of places.
One of the more intersting things that he says is the way the U.S. classifies people as having AIDs. For example if you have TB, then you have TB. If you have TB + HIV antibodies then you have AIDS.
Is this guy a crackpot? Who knows(he has articles from nobel prize winners on his site), but in any case it's an interesting read and makes you wonder about what the media has been feeding us for years about the disease.
Re:Deusberg (Score:2)
I am also skeptical of the AIDS figures that are coming out of poor nations. Even if the doc in the subject is wrong about lack of actual testing it does make you wonder about the methodology. If the country doesn't have enough money to buy drugs to fight the disease then how do they afford to test everyone at over $100 a pop?
Re:Monkey skin condoms!! (Score:2, Funny)
WHAT THE FUCK?
Were you dropped on your head as a child? You must have been, either that, or you know what it's like to be "the defective offspring of an inefective drug user... (that is) nothing more than a drain on society..."
I come from a very low class area of a very drug ridden city, and some of the best people I have ever met, also some of the smartest, came to us from drug ridden parents. You have absolutly no right to say anyone has less of a right to live than you. You are no better than any of those people that you say should die. In fact, I'd probably say you were worse. Not only are you stupid and uneducated on the subject, (like them) but you are also prideful, arrogant, and hateful. Personally, if this is the view of the rest of the aids free world other than myself, let me find myself some aids, and get away from ingrates like you.
Thank you, come again.
Forest C Adcock
Re:Monkey skin condoms!! (Score:2)
Hetrosexual aids victims account for about 20% of victims.
Acceptable losses? Would your hetrosexual aids victims (not deserving, according to you) agree with your conclusion?
48% of adults with AIDS are females. Doesn't do much to support the 'targetting gays' argument.
The majority of HIV carriers are white. There goes the race argument.
Come back when you come up with real evidence to support your bigotry.
Even funnier is the notion that AIDS is smart enough to remove the 'undesirables', but that plane-crashing terrorists are so stupid they only attack the most underserving, right? Thats how you see it, right?
Re:Why some don't get sick? (Score:2)
Presumably, as in the chimps, there are some people whose genes offer them natural protection, and who therefore don't need to take antivirals. If we really understood the genetic basis of resistance, we could identify resistant individuals who could safely be spared the expense and side effects of antiviral medications.
Re:Phbbt, science! (Score:2)
(at least that's what a Star Wars fanatic would say...)
Re:Epidemic? Yes. AIDS? probably not... (Score:2)
Not exactly. Male chimps join a different group when they grow up, females stay in the same ones. If a male gets a STD, and then moves to a different group, he could very well wipe out the new one quickly.
Too effective to be from a lab. (Score:2)
It primarily attacks a bunch of outgroups - homosexuals, promiscuous persons, several african tribes (due to their sexual mores), intravenous drug users - plus a few exposed through medical misadventure.
It is pretty much impossible to come up with a vaccine - mutates too rapidly ("noisy" copying mechanism, several errors per copy, needs two chromosomes per particle to work at all, several active strains from local mutations in a single individual)
Anybody really believe a lab (government or otherwise) - especially with the state-of-the-art in molecular biology at the time - could design something that specific and effective - and get it RIGHT - and KEEP IT SECRET?
No way.
Re:This whole 98% identical business (Score:2)
No, our CODING DNA is ~98% identical. The main difference between the nonhuman great apes and humans is not the proteins as coded, but the way those proteins are expressed (transcribed then translated). The main differences have to do with gene regulation, which has ties in to "junk" DNA (some of it really isn't "junk" at all...and likely more will be found not be be junk in the future).
Resolving Evolution vs. Religion.. (Score:2)
I believe in God and that the earth was created, and I believe in evolution. There is nothing contradictory between them, in my view. I had a HS biology teacher explain this about a decade ago. When he explained it it was like hearing a truth expounded by a sage. He said something like this:
The same teacher was able to clearly explain and resolve potential reasons why things like carbon-dating could be off. (He had many potential reasons and was able to show in literature where the published assumptions can be found, such as the assumtion that the level of Carbon-14 has always been the same, even though some evidence has been submitted which is contrary to that.) In fact all of science is based on assumtions (I think they are correct, but we could all be wrong) that laws of science are Universal, that matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed, and so on.