With 2005 technology can a person be HIV positive but never get AIDS? Can they have an immune system that functions well enough to avoid disease well enough so they barely have any health problems from being HIV positive?
We don’t know yet.
Some people are managing for over 2 decades now, but the jury is still out.
The damn virus is mutating fast to the antivirals, so we’re using a lot of triple therapy. Problem is, we’re seeing resistance to these first-line combos popping up when people manage to miss their doses for very brief periods.
My knowledge on this topic was last updated by the local research team about a year ago, so there may be some new data out.
It seems to be very unusual. I know someone who was infected with HIV in the bad old mid-80’s and he still does not have AIDS, although most of his peer group (those infected around 1984-85) are dead now.
Don’t know why or how, except that he has been first in line for every new drug therapy since the day he found out he was pos, both here and in Europe.
It could be genetic mutations. Individuals with mutations of the CCR-5 receptor for example take longer to develop AIDS than people without them. So he probably has several positive biochemical traits that are helping to slow the virus down.
I too have a friend who has been HIV positive for over 20 years. During that time he did nothing to stay healthy. He took no prophylactic drugs, he ate a terrible diet, didn’t exercise, he drank, I think he even took recreational drugs for a while, all because, as he said “I’m gonna die anyway.”
He developed AIDS five months ago. 
THis chap: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4432564.stm might be able to… or maybe not.
Don’t HIV tests spit out a lot of false negatives? That Stimpson guy has refused more tests. It’d be horrible if he was positive after all…