So Thursday Nov. 13th started all the clamor about the purported "HIV Cure" (Here's the NY Times report on it http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/health/14hiv.html?bl&ex=1226811600&en=69c9c3988c55907d&ei=5087%0A) and at first I was definitely interested to read about it. But then after the initial round of reporting I began to see all the smaller blogs, forums, and newspapers start babbling about how this is the cure for HIV. That's when I started worrying.

It seems a small group of people think this is a realistic way to combat HIV infection but what's crazy about thinking that is 1) 30% of all bone morrow transplants are unsuccessful 2) the actual cost and time such a treatment would take is an immense undertaking. I mean think about it, your own immune system is destroyed via irradiation/chemo and then you have to have it repopulated by the new cells introduced by the bone marrow. So while the treatment could work the costs and risks involved are astronomical.

Oh and one note if you read the NY Times article. They mention in the end about artificially editing the immune system to introduce HIV immunity but they don't mention (which I don't begrudge them as it's beyond the scope of the article) that the Delta 32 mutation increases your succeptibility to certain bacterial infections. Basically the same study that found the Delta 32 mutation yielded immunity to HIV infection also found these individuals were at a much greater risk for developing bacterial menigitis and other infections resulting from a more permeable blood-brain barrier. It's hypothesized that this unfortunate affect of the mutation is the reason it's not more prevalent in the european population as while it would provide protection against HIV it would have some negative selective pressure due to the unfortunate increased meningitis rates. Basically every up has its down.  I guess some good news is better then no news at all, especially in the wake of Prop 8 passing. Here's hoping to even more promising research develops in the future.