“What we did was give instructions to the immune system so it could learn to destroy the virus, which it does not do naturally,” said Felipe Garcia, one of the scientists in the team at Barcelona University’s Hospital Clinic.The therapeutic vaccine, a shot that treats an existing disease rather than preventing it, was safe and led to a dramatic drop in the amount of HIV virus detected in some patients, said the study, published Wednesday in Science Translation Medicine. […]The vaccine allowed patients temporarily to live without taking multiple medicines on a daily basis, which created hardship for patients, could have toxic side-effects over the long term and had a high financial price, the team said.“This investigation opens the path to additional studies with the final goal of achieving a functional cure — the control of HIV replication for long periods or an entire life without anti-retroviral treatment,” the researchers said in a statement.
HAART
Have a HAART... (part II)
A lot happened over the weekend….
I started HIV-treatment… just 3 pills a day… I’m feeling just fine… no side effects
I also, went on a date… first date in a very very very long time. Had a wonderful time… we did kiss… first kiss in over 2 years for me… He says that he would like to see me again… He is HIV negative; that kicked up a few things with me. This would be first for me as well; I have only ever dated someone that is pozitve since my diagnosis 10 years ago.
Let’s see… what else… I started taking lessons in sign language… 1-on-1 for an hour on Sundays.
I am still transitioning off of public assistance. Starting next month, I will be paying about 90% of my rent… I can still receive Food Stamps for about a year and keep Medicaid because my employer doesn’t offer health insurance at this time.
In just 2 months, I will be 40 years old. I am still working on my 40lbs by 40yo Challenge. I need to lose 13 more pounds. However, I am not sure how much fat I have actually lost. I know that I have gained muscle and my waist size is getting smaller. So, there is a chance that I might hover around my current weight of 171lbs if I continue to gain muscle mass and shed some fat. Anyway, I feel great.
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Just wanted to give a quick update on what’s happening with me.
Numbers Game
Well, my blood work results were given to me on Tuesday. My T-cells are back up and my viral load is down to 9K. That being said, I will not be starting treatment. My next appointment is in October.
Covering AIDS in America: a NY Times analysis →
Where are we in the struggle to end AIDS? How far have we come?
A piece in the New York Times today explores these questions and more, exemplifying the huge amount of work that must go into accurately covering a topic as significant as the AIDS crisis.
It turns out we’ve come a long way in the AIDS epidemic, and much of our generation has no idea how different things were 30-odd years ago. The writer of this article, linked above, also wrote the first New York Times piece about AIDS, when it was thought to be strongly tied to homosexual men.
This piece speaks volumes to journalists’ role in uncovering AIDS. My favorite section:
The epidemic has brought a new focus on the power of epidemiology to identify a disease’s transmission patterns long before discovery of its cause. In the early days, epidemiologists provided the evidence to show that AIDS could be transmitted through contaminated blood transfusions, a fact many blood bank officials initially refused to accept. Later, lessons learned from AIDS were instrumental in helping control tuberculosis and curbing the spread of SARS.
Yet AIDS still presents extraordinary challenges — not least to journalists trying to chronicle the epidemic’s unfolding story, to remind a new generation of the importance of safe sex, and to follow the sometimes halting effort to make effective drugs available to all who need them.
Read the article above to brush up on the history of AIDS and get a feel for what we’re hoping to accomplish soon. This is extremely important work and we need to recognize it.
To think, they called it GRID (gay-related immune deficiency) is appalling. I remember, as kid, that it was also referred to as the Gay Cancer.
Vaccine is found to clear the body of HIV virus →
An experimental vaccine could prove to be the ultimate weapon against AIDS, research suggests.
Studies indicate it has the potential to clear the body of all traces of the AIDS virus, HIV.
Uniquely, the injected vaccine is carried by a persistent virus which remains in the body for life.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) enables the immune system to be constantly on the alert for HIV.
Researchers in the US used different versions of the vaccine against a monkey form of the AIDS virus, Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), with outstanding results.
More than half the rhesus macaques monkies treated responded to the point where even the most sensitive tests detected no signs of SIV.
To date, most of the animals have maintained control over the virus for more than a year, gradually showing no indication they had ever been infected.
Unvaccinated monkeys infected with SIV went on to develop the monkey equivalent of AIDS, caused by the collapse of their immune systems.
The findings suggest the vaccine could be effective enough to rid the body of immunodeficiency virus completely, according to the scientists writing in the journal ‘Nature’.
Conventional antiretroviral therapies are able to control HIV infection, but cannot clear the virus from its hiding places within the immune system’s white blood cells.
Study leader Dr Louis Picker, from Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, said: “The next step in vaccine development is to test the vaccine candidate in clinical trials in humans.
"For a human vaccine, the CMV vector would be weakened sufficiently so that it does not cause illness, but will still protect against HIV.”
CMV belongs to the herpes family of viruses, and like other members of the group never leaves the body once an infection has occurred.
An estimated half of all adults in the UK carry CMV but suffer no or few symptoms.
The virus is spread through bodily fluids such as saliva and urine.
When symptoms do occur, they are similar to those of flu including a high temperature and swollen glands as well as tiredness.
People with weakened immune systems can have a more severe response.
Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/health/vaccine-is-found-to-clear-the-body-of-hiv-virus-15154765.html#ixzz1N9MacfdV
To Treat or Not to Treat?
Today I have to try and get myself to the doctor’s office to pick-up a copy of my most recent bloodwork results. I need to submit them to the COBRA case management agency that helped me find the APT I currently reside. This got me thinking about my last visit to doctor to discuss the lab results.
I have been HIV positive for over nine years now and, thus far, I have never been on antiretroviral therapy. Well, my last results were not the best and my doctor recommended that I start on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy, or HAART. My numbers are nowhere near full-blown AIDS but recent studies have shown it to best to start treatment if the patient’s CD4 cell count have gone below 500/µl. This is now the case with me.
I told him that I still wanted to wait. He then told me that it doesn’t appear to be one time thing; for the past nine months my CD4 count has been declining and it is percentage of each that concerns him. I told him I would think about it.
My fears: I know that there have been advances in treatment
Allergies: I grew up with many, and many I grew out of, and I have, in recent years, discovered new ones particularly to prescribed medications. I asked my doctor, “Are there tests to determine which of these HIV meds I might be allergic to?" He said, "No.”
Side-effects: Besides allergic reactions. I know these are not the meds of the 80s and early 90s but a friend of mine died from kidney failure a few years ago. His partner told me it was the medication. The very thing that prolonged his life killed him slowly. Recently, someone else I know, HIV positive and receiving treatment, stated that there may be problems with his kidneys due to the medication he is taken for HIV.
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OK… I shouldn’t project… if I were to start treatment it doesn’t mean that any of the above will manifest. Nor does it mean that I will experience any other of the common side-effects that I did not mention.
I am not looking to scare anyone. If you are newly diagnosed, listen to you doctor, do research, find other HIVers and ask questions.
I, myself, will begin to research treatment options available to me. I will decide in July during my next visit to the doctor. My lab results then will most likely make the decision for me.
Any comments, questions, or suggestion would be gratefully appreciated.