Crocodile's Immune System Kills HIV 628
ASEville writes "In an ongoing effort to stop the spread of HIV, scientists in Australia have discovered that crocodiles can fight off HIV and kill the virus. This is a major boon to medicine because the crocodile serum can also fight things that are penicillin resistant such as staphylococcus aureus."
This research... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This research... (Score:5, Funny)
One helps you plow and the other can be the result after getting plowed?
Re:This research... (Score:3, Informative)
Silly mods need to watch more Monty Python, or do we need a sheep dip reference to get them to understand. Maybe if we mentioned that Prof Wilkins first name is Bruce...
Re:This research... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This research... (Score:5, Funny)
personally, I use "+1 underrated" to award points to funny posts. Shows that I probably knew it was funny. It also preserves the "funny" marking, even if it only gets one "funny" and three "underrated"
Re:This research... (Score:3, Informative)
Is this is one of those worste jobs ever stories? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah that cloaca is a two-way street too... (Score:3, Funny)
Crikey! (Score:3, Funny)
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, how many other species might save us? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, how many other species might save us (Score:5, Insightful)
Conversely, it would really suck if a new mutation of a plant appeared in the future that could cure a horrible disease...and was subsequently overwhelmed by plants that we'd saved.
It's a two-way street. If species don't die off, new ones can't flourish. Don't pretend that you can comprehend what's best for a system as large as the earth.
Anyway, it's not as if it would be catastrophic if say, an entire species of crocodiles died tomorrow - there are hundreds of species of crocodile, and most are very similar in characteristics. The article doesn't mention a specific species of crocodile because it's probably not important.
Same goes for any other species.
Re:Seriously, how many other species might save us (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a two-way street. If species don't die off, new ones can't flourish. Don't pretend that you can comprehend what's best for a system as large as the earth.
That's not what's been happening - we've been eradicating species left and right for a good 200 years, and new ones usually don't pop back up in their place because we're there.
Re:Seriously, how many other species might save us (Score:3, Insightful)
Animals can be disease vectors (see Asian flu scares) or sources for cures or vaccines for certain diseases (e.g. smallpox vaccine using cowpox virus [wikipedia.org]).
Re:Seriously, how many other species might save us (Score:3, Interesting)
For e.g. we kill rats to stop the spreading of plague, and mosquitoes to stop the spreading of malaria.
Yeah, like that'll ever happen - may as well try to kill all the roaches. Most of the species we eradicate live in isolated habitats, which we then bulldoze for whatever reason.
Re:Seriously, how many other species might save us (Score:3, Interesting)
-aiabx
Re:OK, so... (Score:4, Funny)
Nobody plans on fucking a crocodile, but drink enough beer, and you just never know. Try to avoid the blowjob if possible.
Re:OK, so... (Score:5, Funny)
Apologies (Score:3, Funny)
"Look at my teeth so clean and white, you other fools bet'ah get out'ah my sight
Yeah you bet'ah run before I break you fools metatarsals, Oh yeah, I got more rapping than a game of 'Pass the parcel'.
You think this shit comes from a whack immune system? If you believe that then you be lacking wisdom."
"Nooo, it's too late, it's so awful"
Re:OK, so... (Score:3, Funny)
Gotta Wonder.. (Score:3, Funny)
Scientist: Perhaps pigs can fend off HIV?
*Lab_Assistant injects Porky with HIV
*Porky leaves channel (AIDS)
Scientist: Nope! Time to try eagle next!
Re:Gotta Wonder.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gotta Wonder.. (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:3, Funny)
Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Ummm.... So? The same thing can be said of chlorine bleach.
There are lots of known chemicals that kill HIV. The trick is finding one that leaves the patient alive. I know the
"However, the crocodile's immune system may be too powerful for humans and may need to be synthesized for human consumption."
There is nothing in the article to suggest that they have isolated the specific component that kills HIV, let alone determined that it is safe for human injection.
-Chris
Mod down yet Another Misleading Slashdot commentor (Score:5, Informative)
I know the /. commentor's don't read the articles submitted all the way to the end, so here's a bit towards the end that really matters:
Re:Mod down yet Another Misleading Slashdot commen (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry. The economy you are dialing cannot be reached. Please hang up and try again. If you need help, dial "G" for Google [google.com].
-Adam
DON'T CURE AIDS (Score:3, Insightful)
If you find the fucking cure for AIDS you'd best not be trying to fucking profit from it.
Right. You better run and go tell the pharmaceutical companies and all the scientist pouring millions of dollars are years of research into this quickly. I am sure they would hate to spend millions of dollars and years of their lives only be told fuck you when they finally develop a cure. If your asinine knee jerk opinion ruled policy, research into new medicines would grind to a halt as scientist
Money & AIDs (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, any siezure of property has to be (1) in the public interest, and (2) fairly compensated. I know I'd happily support a politician who advocated such an action, regardless of how much money it might cost.
The other interesting scenario would be an ultra-rich executive or even a company who wanted to secure their place in history. Could a private individual purchase the rights to such a thing? Would a company think the forgone profits were worth the enormous PR boost? Wishful thinking perhaps.
What's the alternative? Have the same pharmacuitical industry complex distribute the drug? I mean we have drugs that cure malaria and all sorts of other things, and we still can't/won't get it to the people who need it. I'm not a naive bleeding heart -- I know the distribution and other problems in Africa (in particular), but we have to at least try, right?
Re:Money & AIDs (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, any siezure of property has to be (1) in the public interest, and (2) fairly compensated. I know I'd happily support a politician who advocated such an action, regardless of how much money it might cost.
Congratulations: that's the stupidest thing I've read on Slashdot today. Why do you want to kill millions by demonstrating to HIV and cancer drug researchers that you're going to steal their work?
Your conditions are even worse:
1) It's almost never in the public interest to prove that you're willing to remove the incentive for creating new things.
2) Fairly compensating someone for what you stole from them is inherently impossible. Either you pay full market value (which gives you a net gain of zero for the "public interest"), or you pay them less than it's worth (which is hardly fair, is it?).
I am not a huge Ayn Rand fan, but you owe it to yourself to read "Atlas Shrugged" if for no other reason than to see what motivates industry. Hint: it isn't the idea of having government confiscate the work on which you've spent billions of dollars.
Re:Money & AIDs (Score:3, Informative)
The government would look at the total value of the patent, adjust it for the time value of the money, and pay out a whopping big check.
The whole concept of seizing something by eminent domain is that the
Re:Money & AIDs (Score:3, Insightful)
Once a drug is researched, developed, and tested, the actual cost of production is quite low. An independent company, if allowed to do so, could reproduce the drug and sell it for pennies a pill and still make mone
Re:Money & AIDs (Score:5, Insightful)
I am Mr. Evil Big Drugs. I just spent $5 billion on AIDS research. The government takes my work from me and gives it away without my consent. What does the public get today? A cure for AIDS. What does the public not get tomorrow? A cure for any other disease I was currently researching, because I'm pulling all funding so that I can bail out with whatever capital I can still scavenge from my dying company.
And who should be the one entitled to "Get rich" from this cure? The scientist who read some charts and took some samples? Or the people who built his lab; built, delivered, installed, and repair his equipment; the power company, the water company, et. al.
What is it exactly that you think scientists do? Stand around until the answer to their problems magically appears? Assuming that the lab owner paid the utility bills and its employees according to their contracts, those parties have zero right to any additional profits - they were already paid for their contribution. That's a strawman, and if you're smart enough to know it, then you should be ashamed. If you're not, then this conversation is pointless.
Your "solution" feels good, as if the government would finally be Doing Something. Too bad it kills millions as Mr. Evil Big Drugs and all of his associates that aren't too stupid to read the writing on the wall jump ship and switch to a different industry.
Economy 101: you fail it.
Re:Money & AIDs (Score:3, Interesting)
You're making a common mistake, one that a lot of people made about the whole rent control issue in decades past. They figured that, as long as the landlords and builders etc. could still make a decent amount of money, they'd stay in the business. But it's not about whether or not the investors can make money -- it's *how much* money they can make, relative to their ability to make money investing in
Re:Money & AIDs (Score:3, Interesting)
My parents work and live in Africa, and they can afford the best antimalarial medicines there are, and they still get malria every couple years. When I go there to visit for a month or so whatever the current medicine is likely to keep me safe for that amount of time, but if I were to live there it would not.
Malria keeps coming back with new varieties, like
Re:Mod down yet Another Misleading Slashdot commen (Score:3, Insightful)
The scientists may answer with 100,000, but the marketers (or should that be 'marketeers'?) would answer, "We don't want to cure anyone - we want to treat the symptoms for life." There's a lot more money in life-long dependence on drugs than any cure. Sad, but true.
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm.... So? The same thing can be said of chlorine bleach.
There are lots of known chemicals that kill HIV. The trick is finding one that leaves the patient alive. I know the
Yes but I'm guessing that bleach along with most of those chemicals will also kill crocodiles. The encouraging part here is they've found something that leaves crocodiles alive, there's a good chance that if it leaves a crocodile alive and kills the virus it may be able to do the same for humans.
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm.... So? The same thing can be said of chlorine bleach.
True, but since this agent doesn't kill or harm crocodiles there's a decent chance it'll be safe for humans.
There is nothing in the article to suggest that they have isolated the specific component that kills HIV, let alone determined that it is safe for human injection.
Very true. It's called research. You start with knowing very little, and eventually you might get something usefull. They're still at the knowing very little stage. Maybe they might get to the knowing a bit more stage sometime later.
I guess what I'm confused by is why you expected some announcement of a cure. Haven't you ever seen articles that talk about new research, breadcrumbs of information, etc? The answers don't arrive all in one big piece. This article merely talks about one stage of one search.
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Of course they do, along with a short full motion video clip, and then you get that character unlocked so you can fight as him as well.
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune system kills the HIV virus.
Since antibiotics are agents that kill bacteria rather than viruses, this paragraph is a non sequitur.
Similarly, the phrase However, the crocodile's immune system may be too powerful for humans mak
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Oddly enough, the research started when someone decided to look into why crocodiles, who get injured all the time in fights and live in muck, never seemed to get infections from their injuries.
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, if it isn't clear that this news report is crammed full of factual errors, then perhaps it isn't obvious that what I said may have been completely misquoted? After all, the guy almost had me describing a new type of "crocodile antibodies"! This was "quoted" from a phone interview where I could hear the journalist typing in the background, so it's hardly a direct quote. The only part I definitely said word for word was the "gun to the head" line.
And I'm not Australian, by the way (not yet at least) so I have no idea how to operate a sheep dip.
Yes, we did discover an antimicrobial peptide (probably a defensin) several years ago. This is a continuation of that research.
Adam Britton
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:4, Informative)
I apologize if I'm being redundant, but as of the time I'm writing this, there are 442 comments when browsing at -1, so I can't guarantee that I haven't missed something.
In any event, I thought it might be helpful to post a link on PubMed [nih.gov] to the abstract [nih.gov] of the journal article to which the author of the Reuters article seems to be referring. At least, it's coming from the same lab and institution with which Dr. Britton (on his site [crocodilian.com]) mentions having a collaboration. Any other references would be greatly appreciated.
Here's the full text for those who are interested:
Human immunity has been discovered before... (Score:4, Informative)
A study in 2000 proved that 3 South African prostitutes were resistant to HIV strains from the region. They also found a significant group of kenyan prostitutes with relative immunities to small doses of HIV virii. Interestingly as soon as the women started getting money from the researchers for co-operation with the studies, they lost their immunity [bbc.co.uk].
Should it come as a surprise that the Human immunodeficency virus is killed by something in crocodile serum ?. There are things in the human blood stream which can kill off HIV, but most of us lack these mutated T-cells (which are killed off by the normal cells) in sufficent quantity to beat the infection completely.Re:Yet Another Misleading Slashdot Summary (Score:5, Informative)
It was Reuters who picked up on the HIV aspect and blew it out of proportion. It was never the goal of the study to combat HIV - it was just an interesting test. They even managed to misquote me almost completely. The main focus has been the antibacterial properties of the blood.
Also, the part about the immune system being "too powerful" is something they pulled out of their cloaca. We're quite aware, as scientists, that it's far too early to start talking about marketable antibacterial drugs. The various factors that provide crocs with their powerful immune systems may not have any safe human medical use whatsoever. The fact that they *could*, however, is obviously interesting, but too many people here are taking this dodgy news report too literally. Don't get me wrong - this is exciting stuff and it could have health benefits down the line, but I don't like seeing this work getting misrepresented like this.
There are peer-reviewed papers out there (check Merchant, principal author) and this work is being written up at the moment (check Merchant and Britton). They'll be far more informative than anything you'll read in the paper.
Incidentally, we can't submit this to Nature because back in 1998 we did a pilot study, the lid of which was blown off from an unexpected source in a fit of excitement! So it's far too late for that - croc's out of the bag, etc...
Adam Britton
Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
What a hack (Score:5, Informative)
Antibiotics kill living bacteria. There isn't a single antibiotic that can disable a virus (like HIV), which isn't even alive.
The scientists probably hope to use modified crocodile immunoglobulin the same way we use animal-developed immunoglobulin as a tetanus antitoxin for patients who haven't been immunized... kind of a booster shot for patients fighting an HIV infection. The problem with animal-developed antibodies is that the human body recognizes them as foreign, and soon starts to mount an immune response against them as well.
Re:What a hack (Score:3, Interesting)
This will come as a great surprise to the many people who have taken antiviral [google.ca] drugs and been cured of various viral diseases. I was cured of some strange recurrant yuppie flu [google.ca] using Acyclovir [google.ca]. Thank $DEITY that I had a GP who had trained as a pharmacist.
I guess we can be pedantic and say that antibiotics and antivirals are not similar things, but as far as the patient is concerned they are.
Re:What a hack (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not being pedantic though. We want to know what this does. Explaining how it deals with bacteria doesn't tell us a lot about how it deals with a virus.
This is a technical site, with a lot of scientists. Even though the majority of readers specialise in Engineering and physics, there are quite a number of biologists, and many who have at least some education
CFS .vs. Acyclovir (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? yuppie flu is just a fancy name for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Following your google search link, the first real site it found was wrongdiagnosis.com and this is what it has to say about CFS.
It then goes on to advise taking steps to treat the symptoms of CFS as a way of improving life.
Acyclovir (brand name Zovirax) is used to treat herpes infections.
So you're trying to tell us that you were cured of a disease that as no known effective treatment by a herpes c
Re:CFS is treatable (Score:3, Insightful)
Psychosomatic illnesses are related to the interaction of body and mind and are caused or aggravated by mental factors such as internal conflict or stress.
If your brothers girlfriend was treated using uppers and downers, which change the way the mind functions by changing brain chemistry, then isn't that by definition a psychosomatic illness? Sounds like it to me.
Re:CFS is treatable (Score:3, Insightful)
"Psychosomatic" is often a term thrown around by doctors unwilling to admit that they can't figure out why the patient is sick. As far as upp
Re:What a hack (Score:3, Interesting)
I have little idea about this kind of stuff but will this matter? I've been taught that HIV/AIDS destroys the immune system.
Yes it Does Matter (Score:3, Informative)
It matters. When you inject a foreign protein (or most anything for that matter) in your body you mount a defense to it. This can lead to flu-like symptoms and flat out rejection of the treatment. Even when you have HIV your immune system is still kicking around albeit in a weaker state. The last thing you need is to deal with HIV and some foreign protein.
What will probably happen with this knowledge, assume it's viable, is the generation of chimeric antibodies, i.e. those with human and non-human com
Re:What a hack (Score:5, Funny)
Conversely, the crocodiles hope to collect large quantities of scientist blood...
Oblig Steve Irwin quote (Score:5, Funny)
"See what the HIV does is just go, nene ne ne nene ne all about looking for its food. ne nene ne ne nene all day long BANG! fucken huge croc grabs him, drags him under, death roll. CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP end of story."
If I wasnt married.
not what it's cracked up to be (Score:4, Informative)
The human immune system is fully capable of killing HIV. However (dumbed down enough for Reuters readers) HIV infects T4 Lymphocytes, so killing the virus means killing your own immune system, and you die of obscure diseases.
The antibacterial angle sounds promising, though.
Re:not what it's cracked up to be (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not what it's cracked up to be (Score:5, Insightful)
Look Stonehenge. The point, and reason it's promising, is that -somehow- the crocodile is able to fend off this virus. A complex biological system more similar to us than "chlorine bleach" (as some other erudite poster mentioned) can destroy this. I don't see what the problem is in understanding this. No, we're not marketing some immunoglobulin or antiviral yet, but how can this not be an important discovery? Most antibiotics/drugs come from plants or molds afterall.
Re:not what it's cracked up to be (Score:5, Interesting)
I might be wrong here, but I was under the impression that the human immunity system cannot kill HIV - otherwise it would simply kill it before it destroys all the T-cells, after which the bone marrow would produce new ones to replenish the supply.
Human immunity system uses a kind of "smart bomb" tactic - it has marker cells, which release chemicals that stick to foreign objects (like viruses or bacteria), and devourer cells that will attack anything that is so marked. This system allows the immunity system to fight effectively without causing too much damage to the host body it is defending. Unfortunately, the marker chemicals need to be custom-tailored for any particular intruder, and this creates a lag between a marker cell noticing a foreign object and devourer cells destroying it (which is why you get sick, get better and then won't get the same sickness for a while - it takes a while to get enough marker chemicals to your bloodstream to mount an effective defense, but once it's there, it stays there at least a while).
Unfortunately, this doesn't work well against HIV viruses, because they mutate their outer shells at such rabid pace that by the time the immunity system is geared to fight one generation, the next generation is already immune to it. HIV is a bit like a criminal that keeps changing disguises constantly - by the time the police force gets wanted posters of him in the latest disguise, he has already switched to a new one.
An effective HIV medicine would not neccessarily need to kill HIV outright, it would just need to be able to stick to any HIV mutation and look like the marker chemical on the outside.
Disclaimer: I'm not a biologist, virologist or a white blood cell, and therefore don't have any first-hand knowledge of human immunity system. All the claims in this post are my own and do not reflect the official position of my immunity system. This means that I could be completely wrong.
Re:not what it's cracked up to be (Score:4, Informative)
When a person becomes infected with HIV, the amount of virus in the blood explodes - it goes from 0 zero copies per mL to several million copies per mL. This triggers an immune reaction (which is why a large percentage of patients get flu-like symptoms during the earliest stages of infection). But guess what, after a few additional more weeks the body has sort of taken control and the viral load drops so low that it is undetectable (and we can measure down to a few hundred copies per mL). The initial symptoms go away and for some period of time it may be impossible to give any direct evidence of the infection. Note that this is what occurs with treatment of any kind!
HIV-tests detect the body's own antibodies against HIV but it may not be possible to detect the virus itself.
Replication must however continue to occur on a low level because over the years most HIV patients experience a steady decline of CD4+ cells, the cells that HIV most frequently infects. After some time this decline starts to accelerate until the CD4+ count is so low the patient gets sick from all kinds of diseases.
It is not known exactly what is the cause of this decline. It seems weird that the body can fight off the virus at millions of copies per mL without suffering much damage while the last bit of replication (probably caused by latently infected cells) is so damaging. One thing that is known is that the CD4+ cells do not die as a direct result of being infected with HIV. In fact it is a very small percentage of CD4+ cells that are infected at any given time. CD4+ cells may be dying because of apoptosis (cellular suicide) triggered in some way by chemicals in the blood stream or actions of other cells infected with HIV. The hole flow from HIV infection to AIDS also involves certian mutations taking place in the virus' gene. It may be these mutation that causes the accelerated decline but the causation may also be the other way around.
Re:not what it's cracked up to be (Score:3, Informative)
Sing with me (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sing with me (Score:3, Informative)
Schnappie, das kleine Krokodil [schnappi.tv]
Amusing, even if you dont know german, more so if you do.
Brief descript for the lazy non-clicker types: German kids webpage (tv show too?) with an animated crocodile as the main character that likes to sing/dance/etc. Think of an animated version of Barney the purple dinosaur where barney is a little green croc instead.
tm
Re:Sing with me (Score:3, Funny)
favorite quote! (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, they first make the bacteria an offer they can't refuse.
Crocodile Spam (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is the FDA's warning [fda.gov].
The worst thing about it is to realize that some desperate people are actually falling for this scam.
Re:Crocodile Spam (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we have tried suing them (mainly for defamation, because they claim we endorse this crap) but it's very difficult to sue companies that apparently don't exist.
Adam Britton
While crocodile blood may not pan out (Score:5, Interesting)
sex with crocs ok (Score:3, Funny)
Re:sex with crocs ok (Score:5, Funny)
I would strongly advise against oral sex though. Crocs tend to have a poor sense of humor. Kind of like
Quick, damage control! (Score:5, Informative)
Time to clarify things.
TFA contains a number of errors. First the statement I made about HIV is true, but as others have pointed out it does not mean we've found the cure for AIDS. It simply means that we've compared alligator serum and human serum and found the former significantly more effective at killing the HIV virus than human serum. It was intended to illustrate the overall efficacy of the crocodile / alligator immune system, that was all.
Second, these are not antibodies. Croc immune system works primarily through the innate or complement system, which does not involve antibodies. It's a simpler and more primitive immune response than the adaptive immune system that is key for mammals, but the advantage is that it's very direct and hence difficult for bacteria etc to evolve resistance to. It's "primitive" nature may be behind its effectiveness.
The main finding here is that the alligator / crocodile immune system is far more effective at killing a wider range of bacteria (gram +ve and gram -ve), viruses and fungi than our own immune system. When you've evolved over 235 million years, and your daily social behaviour involves biting limbs off other crocs, you need a good immune system! It clearly has potential medical implications down the line, but that's a long way off yet. First we have to fully understand what makes croc immunity tick. We are still trying to purify a protein which we believe is an antimicrobial peptide, but hopefully that will happen very soon after this recent work.
Eventually if anything does come of this, and we can isolate a "factor" that has human medical implications (and is safe for humans, unlike the far more effective chlorine bleach) it would indeed be synthesised. Adam Britton
Re:Quick, damage control! (Score:3, Interesting)
So if their immune system is more "primitive", is it in some way inferior? The reason I ask is, we usually assume that evolution doesn't add complexity to organisms to make them weaker with absolutely no benefit (which I know is debatable, but
Re:Quick, damage control! (Score:5, Informative)
Adam Britton
Re:Quick, damage control! (Score:4, Interesting)
Antibodies.... or not? (Score:3, Interesting)
These defensins have been found in many different organisms, from fish to plants to humans. I think this article is actually talking about an innate immune response, since adaptive immunity requires previous exposure to a pathogen, leading to production of specific antibodies. Defensins have a fairly broad anti-microbial activity, and some have already been isolated and shown to be effective against gram-positive and -negative bacteria, fungi, viruses and insects (no one defensin acts against all these, though)
Re:Antibodies.... or not? (Score:5, Informative)
We don't talk about defensins because we're not sure yet that defensins are involved. We suspect they are, but until we purify and sequence the proteins we're looking at we can't be sure. Hopefully this is only weeks away.
easy does it (Score:3, Funny)
Really, is there any other way.
Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)
We prefer to be addressed as "Republicans".
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:3, Funny)
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:3, Informative)
HIV is a retrovirus which attacks and weakens the immune system immensely , AIDS is a syndrome resulting from an acquired deficiency of the immune system.
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:5, Informative)
As for funding: Would you give funding to 'scientists' that claimed the earth was flat or created in 7 days with no evolution? Lunatics don't get money because they are lunatics, not because their ideas need to be suppresed by gouvernment.
There are more countries in the world doing AIDS research than the US, so any errors caused by your strange funding policy would be quickly corrected in the rest of the world. The first breaktrough successes were made in Europe(france) IIRC.
As for the causes of death with AIDS: that is what you get when AIDS takes out your immune system: you die of the first petty illness that comes along.
So this 'AIDS is not caused by HIV' meme is nothing but FUD, please don't spread it any further.
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:3, Interesting)
AFAIK no one claims that drinking wine makes you better educated.
When I worked in this area (Approx 18 years ago), there was good statistical evidence that you needed HIV and some other second factor to get AIDS. However, the HIV gives you AIDS explanaiton was simpler, so there was no fundin
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:3, Interesting)
True, the only way to directly prove that HIV causes AIDS would be to infect someone with HIV and find them developing AIDS later. To make that statistically significant (and account for the long incubation period) you would need to do that test on a lot of people, are you willing to volunteer?
No sane doctor or gouvernment will allow such a dangerous test. But you can do something less cert
Regarding Peter Deusberg (Score:5, Interesting)
To start off with, he's not a nutcase. He's done some important work with oncogenic viruses, and was the recipient of an outstanding investigator grant.
This grant was revoked because of purely political reasons, which is blatantly unethical.
My genetics professor for my senior year in college (2000) confirmed this when I talked to him about Deusberg, saying that Deusberg had been treated unfairly.
Of course, neither I nor my college professor agree with Deusberg's hypothesis, but the criticism of HIV research done by Deusberg and others has suffered a lot of political suppresion, particularly when HIV was first being discovered and people were in panic mode. Deusberg has not been treated fairly, and the political suppresion has had the effect that unjust censorship often does. If you want shoddy science, frankly, Fauci's early HIV research contains more than enough of it to go around. And the scanning electron microscope pictures of HIV attacking CD4 cells deserved to be questioned, since SEM photos are easily biased (take 100 photos and pick the one you want.)
AZT was approved for HIV treatment quicker than almost any drug in FDA history because it was rushed through. There's still no valid scientific study that I'm aware of that proves AZT extends lifespan, and the Concord Study was horribly flawed, with people in the experimental group sharing their medication with those in the control group to try and "help" them - a criticism of Deusberg's which is relevant to the current debate. As of 3-4 years ago, AZT was still a component in antiviral cocktails with scientists unwilling to do a controlled study for "ethical reasons" comparing it to the tuskeege institute study, etc. ( not sure about presently)
AZT is a highly toxic DNA chain terminator and was used some time ago as chemotherapy against cancer. Ironically, it's capable of simulating the effects of AIDS (i.e. immune suppression.) If you take AZT, you will get chemotheraputically induced immune suppression that mimics AIDS.
Further, almost none of the "AIDS" cases in Africa (possibly excluding S. Africa) are confirmed via western methods - i.e. either an ELISA test or PCR. If you have a disease associated with immune suppresion, you're assumed to have HIV. Starvation combined with other stressors can also cause immune suppression.
The grandparent poster was correct in that HIV almost never infects a person by itself - there's almost always some other co-infection, in part because HIV is such a weak virus. Deusberg's claim was that HIV was a marker virus, which remains an accurate description even if HIV does cause AIDS. HIV is almost always an indicator of other infections. Even people who have been subjected to HIV contaminated needlesticks are unlikely to actually get HIV. HIV is often an opportunistic infection itself, that takes advantage of a strained immune system or a break in the body's defenses.
As for this article, it seems a bit overblown to me. Scientists have been searching for an animal model for HIV for a while. I haven't kept up in the research recently, so what I'm saying is about 3 years behind the times or so, but frankly I'd be more impressed if human HIV was found to replicate inside crocodiles and cause illness rather than the opposite. There are plenty of animals which are not harmed by the HIV virus and the lack of effective animal models was a longtime problem in HIV research. Nothing new here.
I'm not so interested in crocodile antibodies, which I doubt would help humans. But if crocs have an interferon-like component to their blood, perhaps that could be useful.
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:4, Insightful)
Education, Condoms, Blood testing. One of the reasons that AIDS hasn't exploded in the West is that people headed the warnings and started using Condoms. There are programmes with drug addicts to ensure they get clean needles, education of teenagers in using condoms etc etc
Why is the disease profile so very different in third world countries?
First culprit has to be the wonderful folks in the Vatican who forbid the use of Condoms and have a large degree of control in the 3rd World. The US Goverment is beginning to match the Vatican by trying to promote celibacy as a primary driver rather than tackling the problem in situ with a piece of latex.
Second up of course is plain poverty and lack of education.
Re:HIV-AIDS (Score:5, Insightful)
First, it's asbestos, not azbestos. Second, asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma, not lung cancer. Asbestosis in the lung is no fun at all, but you don't get lung cancer. The mesothelioma is a cancer of the pleura, a membrane that is next to the lung, not the lung itself. Third, asbetos is an irritant that your lung cannot get rid of. This constant source of irritation causes the release of chemicals by nearby cells called growth factors. The constant local exposure to growth factors is one of the things that "takes off the brakes" in the cell cycle, and this, combined with mutations, causes the start of the cancer. Not everyone exposed to asbestos will get cancer from it. You need to have the initiation step (the mutation) as well as the promotion step (the exposure to growth factors). Fourth, this has absolutely nothing to do with HIV and AIDS.
Now to address the other part of your argument.
The HIV virus is an RNA virus. This RNA is changed to DNA by an enzyme called reverse transcriptase, that comes with the virus. This DNA can and IS merged with our own DNA. It becomes a fundamental part of you. When it's like this, there is no way I can get rid of it without killing the cell.
Some infected cells start to produce copies of the virus, and they eventually die. Other "healthy" cells are infected with the virus DNA, but those genes are not currently expressed. We're still not sure what causes a cell to suddenly switch the virus production switch to "on", and when we know this we will be one step closer to curing this disease. Still other cells (the macrophages) are capable of being infected by the HIV virus, and producing a limited amount of copies of this virus. The macrophages are not normally wiped out by this, but all you need is one copy of the virus to re-infect the whole T helper cell colony again.
So we have: 1) cells that die quickly 2) cells that take a long time to get sick and die and 3) cells than never die from the disease, but are capable of re-infecting you at any time.
This explains why HIV is a chronic infection, unlike the common cold, or viruses that cause diarrhoea which are SO aggressive they basically kill ALL the cells within days, and run out of hosts. With HIV, you create new, healthy hosts a lot quicker than the infection can kill them. But these hosts are getting constantly infected. Eventually the amount of infected cells and virus production is so great that cells are infected and die the moment they are produced or become active. This is when you get AIDS because the immune system is now collapsing.
You may not know how HIV works, but we certainly do. Billions of dollars of research money were NOT wasted. In the 1980's we knew almost nothing about how any virus worked. But with HIV there's not much that can be done about it BECAUSE of the way it works. Maybe one day we will find a better way of attacking the virus directly before it gets into the cells. We're not there yet though.
Re:HIV is part of natural selection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HIV is part of natural selection (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but even in the case of IV drug use or promiscuity, no one deserves to die for making one stupid mistake and thinking it wasn't going to happen to them, if that death can be prevented in any way. And nowadays it CAN be prevented.
Re:HIV is part of natural selection (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree entirely. However we are human beings, with brains, capable of rational thought and able to make decisions about our future. Shall we ignore all of this equipment we evolved with, cast medicine aside, and subject ourselves blindly to evolutionary forces?
I am a physician. I admit that my job consists of working AGAINST evolution. I admit that in the long term my work will increase the amount of
Re:HIV is part of natural selection (Score:5, Insightful)
I will remember this when you come into my emergency room, shall I? You are mortal too. You just haven't realized it yet.
What about the dead haemophiliacs? What about the medical staff that have an accidental needle stick? And of course what about the children born into this world with HIV?
If we follow your argument then we all deserve to die because everyone is guilty of something. Even you. When you have your heart attack I will just hold the tPA (aka "clot buster") in my hand and remind you how harsh the world is, and let you die, shall I?
We have a duty to do everything we can to improve the lot of our fellow man - because one day we are the ones who will need all the help we can get. You reap what you sow.
Re:HIV is part of natural selection (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument makes little sense. If it wasn't for STDs, it wouldn't be 'foolish' to have unprotected sex in the first place (assuming some form of oral contraception is used).
Re:If I remember...... (Score:4, Informative)
You are correct. This retrovirus depends on an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to convert its RNA to DNA, which is then used by our cells to make more copies of the virus. Unfortunately this enzyme is not at all efficient and makes very poor copies. This means there is an extremely high mutation rate. The good side of this being HIV becomes a very slow infection and doesn't kill you in a matter of days wiping out your entire immune system. The bad side is that the mutation rate is phenomenal over time, and strains of HIV with drug resistant reverse transcriptase are becoming more and more common.
Part of the problem with the actual AIDS illness is that the patient not only has a compromised immune system due to a low CD4 T-cell count, but the little bit of immune system s/he has left is busy making thousands of useless antibodies to all the different mutated proteins the virus made over the years. It gets you both coming AND going...
Re:evolution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Research Quality (Score:5, Informative)
We're also collaborating with McNeese State University in Louisiana for this project.
Adam Britton
Academic stranglehold tightens (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not sure either how this thought process became so prevalent in the US. It seems that unless you are backed by or hold some sort of certificate of authority from an academic institution, you don't get a chance or the work you do is dismissed as untrustworthy. That is true these days on so many levels, it's scary. Even when you have a hard and fast track record of out-performing academically backed or educated institutions or individuals, the performance is dismissed by many. Is it because those who are 'attached' are threatened in some way? Is it so hard to believe that people and institutions can succeed and think and prosper without the assistance or help of academia? We as a society are severely hobbling our progress by doing this. Many of our greatest thinkers and inventors and scientists in this country (and the world) were actually non-degreed or had immense difficulty and or failures with the academic systems. An academic education or academic backing is simply there to provide an extra step toward success, nothing more. Lack of it is not an indicator of not having the ability to be successful at all. Far, far too many people seem to look at it in the reverse light that it was never intended to be viewed.
BTW- If you think this is a rant by a non-degreed individual, non-post graduate individual, you are wrong. I do hold a degree(s), in the field in which I work, and I feel that it has little or no bearing on my ability to perform my tasks successfully. I work with people every day who have a higher level of education or the same level from a more prestigious institution than I, and I find many of them, well, quite frankly, stupid. I also find many of the people who have succeeded, without the help or backing of academic institutions have a greater demonstrated ability to harness the information presented to them and make efficient use of it. They had to get where they are.
Re:Academic stranglehold tightens (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps that view is nieve but that's pretty much the way of things.
I don't see why this is so special. (Score:3, Informative)
There are a number of forms of *IV - Most of them have major trouble jumping species. Good immune system or not, a virus that affects humans is going to have serious troubles infecting another species, especially a reptile. Many such virii have trouble even jumping between closely related species. (HIV vs. SIV)
This holds true for a number of other virii - Take Ebola Reston for example. Deadly to primates, but can't infect humans. Same for SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency V