I am in complete acceptance of your response to this question, until I reached the final line.
“as far as I know, everyone who contracts AIDS dies from it.”
I am not a virologist, but I am quite certain that there are a significant percentage of HIV patients who will never contract the AIDS virus. This begs the question what is the defining point between the two? I assume you consciously made a distinction between the two. But, I don’t believe that AIDS has a 100% mortality rate. All the anti-vilulens that are perscribed have no effect? I was under the impression that there are documented cases in which the AIDS went into remission and the patient, now merely HIV positive, has survived indefinately. While admittedly rare, I am quite certain the mortality is slightly below 100%
The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw…
It must be very difficult to judge who has “survived” HIV infection. I had two friends who contracted HIV at about the same time. One was dead of pneumonia within a year and the other lived more or less normally for about 7 years, but also died of what is usually a non-fatal infection for young adults. (Sorry, I can’t remember what it was exactly.)
Maybe this is just a rumor, but I’ve heard that Magic Johnson has gotten rid of the virus. From what I’ve been told, he’s used his money and power to try several treatments and its helped him in “saving” him. I don’t want to sound like I’ll believe anything I here, but it has too be feasable that this could happen. Anyone else heard of this?
Maybe this is just a rumor, but I’ve heard that Magic Johnson has gotten rid of the virus. From what I’ve been told, he’s used his money and power to try several treatments and its helped him in “saving” him. I don’t want to sound like I’ll believe anything I here, but it has too be feasable that this could happen. Anyone else heard of this?
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
The column was accurate at the time it was written in 1992. Little Ed, unfortunately, did not see fit to check with me before posting it to the Website the other day. So here’s an update, prepared with the kind assistance of Straight Dope Science Advisory Board member JillGat, an epidemiologist in charge of AIDS surveillance for a western state.
To start with your second question, on the dividing line between HIV and AIDS: The term “HIV disease” could be used to cover the whole spectrum, but the difference between the terms HIV and AIDS is that HIV is the name of the virus. A person is HIV infected if they have a confirmed positive test for the virus. “Confirmed,” because the first test, the ELISA or EIA, is a sensitive test which can pick up some false positives along with the true ones. The results are then confirmed by an IFA test or a Western Blot, which are specific tests which weed out those false positives. Some places like plasma donation centers only do the first test because it’s cheaper and they want to be extra careful, even if they end up throwing out some good blood. But it can be alarming for people to get false positive results, so people being tested in such venues should ask whether the test is confirmed when they get their results.
An adult is considered to have AIDS when they meet the specific criteria determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, namely a confirmed positive HIV test along with any of 26 specific opportunistic infections or conditions, or a laboratory result that shows a CD4 cell count of below 200 or below 14
While the theory of keeping an HIV/AIDS patient has been proven to be uneffective in saving lives there are a couple things that I would like to bring into this debate. 1: AIDS doesn’t usually kill the person. As a matter of fact I’m 96% positive that AIDS never kills them. It is only due to oppurtunistic infections and the 0 blood cell count thing. However the other thing that I’d like to say is that if we did put these people in metaphorical bubbles they wouldn’t be able to transmit the disease to other people. If they aren’t having sex then the disease would go away. Now the only debate that remains is: Is AIDS a man-made disease? If not wouldn’t the HIV virus disappear if everyone with the virus stayed away from sex.
Umm, nope. You can get also get the HIV virus from other contact with an infected person’s blood. That’s why donated blood is checked for HIV before being accepted. It’s also why your dentist wears those latex gloves before he/she cleans your teeth.
[[1: AIDS doesn’t usually kill the person. As a matter of fact I’m 96% positive that AIDS never kills them. It is only due to oppurtunistic infections and the 0 blood cell count thing.]]
Uh, yeah. Caused by HIV. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which is exactly what kills people. No immune system means you die.
While “indefinite” can be used to mean “infinite”, it can also be used to mean “having an unspecified end” i.e., it has an end, but the exact time, location, etc, of the end is not specified. Since Cecil was replying to Omniscient’s use of the word, I think that the meaning that Omniscient intended is the relevant meaning. And I’m pretty sure that Omniscient did not mean to say that AIDS patients are immortal.
There appear to be pronounced differences in the effects of different strains of human immunovirus (HIV). What he see in many countries as the “AIDS virus” is, for some (unknown?) reason, likely to sit unnoticed in your system for a while–a few months to several years–before rather quickly wiping out your T-cells (a kind of white blood cell). But there is, I’m told, a variety found in West Africa which is less consistently fatal. Persons infected with it may live to an old age. figuring out why some people live with it, or some variety is less livable, is the million-dollar question.
Or it’s been too long since I read about this and I’m foncused (like confused, only more so).
A new world order has been formed/between the cheque book and the dawn/A new renaissance man is born"
Jim Moginie/Peter Garrett/Martin Rotsey (Midnight Oil), “Renaissance Man”
[[But there is, I’m told, a variety found in West Africa which is less consistently fatal. Persons infected with it may live to an old age. figuring out why some people live with it, or some variety is less livable, is the million-dollar question.]]
You’re probably talking about HIV II, which is not directly related to HIV I.
My understanding is that “AIDS” is not a cause of death. My understanding (which was echoed elsewhere in the thread) is that AIDS=HIV+opportunistic infection/low T-cell count, and that it is the actual infection which is the cause of death. In other words, AIDS is not listed as the cause of death on the death certificate, pneumonia or KS or whatever actual disease is listed as the cause of death and AIDS is listed as a contributing or complicating factor. But I may be splitting hairs.
Otto, yes you are splitting hairs. While AIDS itself may not “cause” your organs to stop functioning, or you to choke on plegm, or drown in your own fluids, or a brain hemmorage, it is still a cause of your death, because you would not have been ill if your immune system was not compromised. That is what AIDS is - a compromised immune system. Thus, as Jill said, AIDS kills you by weakening your body’s natural defense system and leaving you succeptible to things like pneumonia.
An analogy: if someone gets you drunk, puts a racist sign on you, and leaves you in Harlem a la “Die Hard With a Vengence”, he may not kill you by being the one to thrust the knife into your blood vessels or pound you to a worthless pulp, but he is still your killer by removing your defenses (awareness) and putting you in a situation that would get you killed, with the intention that you would be killed.
A similar situation: organ transplants. After getting organ transplants, patients take immune suppression drugs so their bodies won’t reject the new organ. That leaves them succeptible to infection, and is a significant cause of death in transplant patients. The cause of death is a complication to the transplant - the opportunistic infection.
Hey JillGat, in your copious spare time :), could you maybe, perhaps, pretty please tell us more about three circumstances in which “getting rid of HIV” has been reported to occur?
The three I’m thinking about are 1) needlesticks, in which it appears that infection by very low doses of HIV can be reversed with prompt antiviral treatment; 2) newborns, whose HIV infections reportedly can be reversed with prompt antivirals (after birth or in utero? Does it sometimes happen without intervention?); and 3) genetic variations that seem to prevent HIV infection among certain limited populations.
(Just to complicate things, I’ve heard of two different genetic variations conferring some form of immunity. The first, found among some Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans, I remember hearing has been theorized to have evolved in areas most devastated by the Black Death. I was tested for that gene, and came back negative despite being Scandinavian; a friend of mine who’s an Ashkenazi Jew came back positive for one allele, but not both.
The second, which I haven’t heard much about since some third-hand reporting three or four years ago, was postulated among a group of prostitutes in Nairobi.)
Of course, all of the above are tantalizing areas for further research.