# HIV. Couldn't you drain out your blood and replace it to halt the virus?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 16, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399 "2005-11-16T22:18:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/1 "2005-11-16T22:18:59Z")
Ok, here’s my crazy idea. I have a feeling it wouldn’t work if actually put into practice, but I’d like to hear why.
Ok. So we have an HIV positive person. Couldn’t you stop him from getting full blown AIDS by periodically draining out most of his HIV infected blood and replacing it with new clean blood? Ignore the practical difficulties of this and pretend I’m a billionaire that can bribe my way into getting nearly unlimited amounts of blood. Would I be able to go the rest of my life without developing AIDS?
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/2 "2005-11-16T22:29:53Z")
Draining your gas tank and filling it with higher-octane gas may improve performance, but it won’t clean the peanuts out from under the front seats.
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/3 "2005-11-16T22:31:40Z")
Another idea is to pass your blood through a heater that heats the blood sufficiently to kill the virus. Both have been tried IIRC with I believe mixed results. I seem to recall that one of the attempts actually killed the patient.
The problem with your own method of course is that the new blood coming into the infected body could in turn become infected…you have to keep SOME blood in the body to keep the patient alive, right?
Well, maybe one of the medical types will help out…I don’t see how it would work. Intuitively I would have thought the heat thing would work but that doesn’t work either.
-XT
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### Author:  [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2005, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/4 "2005-11-16T23:34:06Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#):
>
> Draining your gas tank and filling it with higher-octane gas may improve performance, but it won’t clean the peanuts out from under the front seats.
Thank you for making me laugh-spit Fresca all over the computer monitor.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2005, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/5 "2005-11-16T23:37:03Z")
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> I seem to recall that one of the attempts actually killed the patient.
Yes, yes, but was the operation a success?
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/6 "2005-11-17T00:02:26Z")
As others have mentioned, you need some blood in your body to stay alive. And in that blood, the HIV can hide, I’m assuming. When the new blood gets put in, the HIV just spreads and mutiplies once again.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/7 "2005-11-17T00:10:42Z")
HIV isn’t in just the blood. It can also infect cells of the brain, nervous system, lymphatic system, and digestive system. So virus from these other reservoirs will just re-infect the new blood.
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/8 "2005-11-17T00:12:27Z")
HIV doesn’t reside only in the blood. [Reservoirs](http://www.thebody.com/niaid/reservoirs.html) of virus can exist throughout the body.
> [@](#):
>
> Reservoirs of HIV include certain immune system cells – notably resting (non-activated) CD4+ T cells of the blood and lymph nodes – and probably cells of the brain, gut, bone marrow, genital tract and other organs.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/9 "2005-11-17T01:16:38Z")
HIV infects cells and adds its genetic material to your own cells. So I don’t think it’d matter as sometimes those cells don’t actually rewrite new viruses, they just stay dormant.
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/10 "2005-11-17T02:36:11Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#):
>
> HIV infects cells and adds its genetic material to your own cells. So I don’t think it’d matter as sometimes those cells don’t actually rewrite new viruses, they just stay dormant.
Umm, IIRC that is entirely the purpose of infecting cells and adding viral genetic material to them. Cells use genetic material as the recipes for building proteins. Viri co-opt this mechanism and trick cells into building new protein sheaths for them… and possibly also use the cell’s mechanism for backing up its genetic material to duplicate their own genes. In any event, this is the only method viri have of reproducing - using infected cells to create copies of themselves. Virally infected cells can rarely be described as ‘dormant’ – sometimes they’re sending new viral copies out into the bloodstream or through other channels to reach fresh uninfected cells, sometimes they’re just time bombs waiting and building up a huge viral population that doesn’t move on until the infected cell is dead, but…
Okay, I’ve started to ramble beyond my direct experience. Anyone else want to chime in here? 😃
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### Author:  [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/11 "2005-11-17T02:44:00Z")
I believe the OP is already aware that the remaining infected blood and the virus reservoirs would reinfect the “clean” blood upon re-entry. He’s not asking if this can cure anyone, he’s asking if this method would _halt_ the progression of the virus (IE: an HIV patient would remain infected but never develop full-blown AIDS).
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/12 "2005-11-17T03:51:51Z")
> [@chrisk](#):
>
> Umm, IIRC that is entirely the purpose of infecting cells and adding viral genetic material to them. Cells use genetic material as the recipes for building proteins. Viri co-opt this mechanism and trick cells into building new protein sheaths for them… and possibly also use the cell’s mechanism for backing up its genetic material to duplicate their own genes. In any event, this is the only method viri have of reproducing - using infected cells to create copies of themselves. Virally infected cells can rarely be described as ‘dormant’ – sometimes they’re sending new viral copies out into the bloodstream or through other channels to reach fresh uninfected cells, sometimes they’re just time bombs waiting and building up a huge viral population that doesn’t move on until the infected cell is dead, but…
>
> Okay, I’ve started to ramble beyond my direct experience. Anyone else want to chime in here? 😃
I think you misunderstand what **Wesley** was getting at. HIV is different from many other viruses in that it is a retrovirus, with the genetic material consisting of RNA rather than DNA. A retrovirus does not merely co-opt the host’s cellular aparatus to make new copies, it makes DNA that becomes permanently integrated into the host cells genome. Because of this, it can be exceptionally difficult to eradicate.
From [here](http://www.bookrags.com/sciences/genetics/retrovirus-wog.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Retroviruses are especially lethal to humans because they cause a permanent change in the T cell’s DNA. Other viruses merely commandeer their host cell’s cytoplasm and chemical resources to make more viruses; unlike retroviruses, they do not insert their DNA into the host cell’s DNA. Nor do most viruses attack the body’s T cells. Most people’s cells, therefore, can recover from an attack from a virus. Eventually, the body’s immune system discovers the infection and neutralizes the viruses that have been produced. Any cells that contain viruses are not permanently changed by the viral infection. Because retroviruses affect a permanent change within important cells of the immune system, cellular recovery from a retrovirus infection does not occur.
Such cells can in effect remain “dormant” for some time.
And the plural of virus is not “viri” (or “virii”), it is viruses. The word virus does not have a real plural in Latin.
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/13 "2005-11-17T05:42:15Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> And the plural of virus is not “viri” (or “virii”), it is viruses. The word virus does not have a real plural in Latin.
Oh, thank you, **Colibri**. I think I read a column about that somewhere on some website devoted to drugs or something - the Straight Weed, or something? “Virus” has no attested Latin plural, and likely was simply never used in the plural, as it was a mass noun. The attested forms are somewhat confusing; it’s not even certain what noun declension it can be placed in.
However, it can be said with certainty that it was not a second declension masculine; those nouns are the ones that end in “-us, -i”. _Even if virus could have been pluralized in Latin, it would not have been pluralized with “-i”._ This is of course common in English words of Latin origin, but it makes little sense to generalize it to all English words ending in “-us” (witness the ugly results with “octopus” and the revolting vulgarism “octopi”) when English has a productive plural suffix as is - i.e. “-s/-es”.
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### Author:  [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/14 "2005-11-17T12:20:50Z")
> [@Blalron](#):
>
> Ok, here’s my crazy idea. I have a feeling it wouldn’t work if actually put into practice, but I’d like to hear why.
>
> Ok. So we have an HIV positive person. Couldn’t you stop him from getting full blown AIDS by periodically draining out most of his HIV infected blood and replacing it with new clean blood? Ignore the practical difficulties of this and pretend I’m a billionaire that can bribe my way into getting nearly unlimited amounts of blood. Would I be able to go the rest of my life without developing AIDS?
I often wondered if the same couldn’t be done for those with leukemia (the cases that chemo doesn’t cure).
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### Author:  [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/15 "2005-11-17T14:19:09Z")
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Well, maybe one of the medical types will help out…I don’t see how it would work. Intuitively I would have thought the heat thing would work but that doesn’t work either.
The heat kills good things in the blood too, like red and whiter blood cells and platelets. Now, arguably, you can live with no white blood cells or platelets, just don’t get a cold or a cut until thery are replaced, but not enough red blood cells and nothing in your body gets oxygen and you die. And the temperature at which this starts to happen is suprisingly low, in the range of 104-107 degrees F. That’s why having a lower fever for a shorter period of time is ok, let your body do what it normalyl does to try and kill the invader, but if it gets too high or goes on too long, eventually your body starts to cook itself, and you need to get cooled down.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/16 "2005-11-17T18:07:33Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#):
>
> I often wondered if the same couldn’t be done for those with leukemia (the cases that chemo doesn’t cure).
If the cancer is in the bone marrow, it wouldn’t do much good. Red blood cells don’t last all that long, so fairly soon, the bone marrow has to take over the job of making the blood.
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### Author:  [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/17 "2005-11-17T18:27:57Z")
Ok, so it sounds like that wouldn’t work. Now, with my very rudimentary knowledge of all things medical, HIV kills of white blood cells (or something like that, the parts of your blood cells that fight off infection) and cancer makes white blood cells go crazy? Could you give someone cancer to cure HIV? I am sure I am completely wrong here, but I vaguely remember seeing some Doctor show (ER? Chicago Hope?) years ago where this was hypothesized?
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### Author:  [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/18 "2005-11-17T19:21:10Z")
But can you replace the blood with artificial blood that carries oxygen but does not have human blood cells?
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### Author:  [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/19 "2005-11-17T19:59:47Z")
> [@The Controvert](#):
>
> But can you replace the blood with artificial blood that carries oxygen but does not have human blood cells?
Yep. I am most familiar with the veterinary version, but there is a human product.
[http://www.biopure.com/shared/home.cfm?CDID=2&CPgID=54](http://www.biopure.com/shared/home.cfm?CDID=2&CPgID=54)
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-couldnt-you-drain-out-your-blood-and-replace-it-to-halt-the-virus/331399/20 "2005-11-17T20:09:38Z")
> [@The Controvert](#):
>
> But can you replace the blood with artificial blood that carries oxygen but does not have human blood cells?
Of course, the red blood cells aren’t attacked by HIV so oxygenation is not really the problem. Your immune system is still blinded by the absence of unhijacked T-cells. What you need is a T-cell that is resistant to the virus. Unless I completely misunderstand the operation of the bug.
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