5 Things to Know About the First Drug to Prevent HIV

[CountDeMoney]

Truly a godforsaken way to die, though, not that there are a lot of good ones.

But see, that's OK, because you have the right to die that way.

[garbon]

Truly a godforsaken way to die, though, not that there are a lot of good ones.

But see, that's OK, because you have the right to die that way.

Oh, massa sir, please let me know how to get to the promised land. Please Unca Seedy?

[merithyn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS

Check out the "management" and "prognosis" sections.  Main points:

Truly a godforsaken way to die, though, not that there are a lot of good ones.

Thanks.

It seems that a lot of that information is outdated now, but was a good overview.

[CountDeMoney]

Oh, massa sir, please let me know how to get to the promised land. Please Unca Seedy?

Only if you sing for me, boy. When you was slaves, you sang like birds.  Go on, how 'bout a good ol' nigger work song?

[Fate]

You know, in reading this thread, I've realized just how out-of-date my knowledge of AIDS is. I think my education stopped somewhere in the mid-90s.

Can someone please point me toward a good source of information that is neither all scare tactics (for teens) nor all goodness and light (for those in the danger zone)?

I don't really know what type of information you're looking for. I would start with this. It's written for patients, but I'm not sure how helpful it really is for the lay person. The pay version of that website is what doctors tend to use for a primary source when they're looking up the latest evidence based medical practices and information.
http://www.uptodate.com/contents/search?search=HIV&sp=3&searchType=PLAIN_TEXT&source=USER_INPUT&searchControl=TOP_PULLDOWN&searchOffset=

I guess just to start off with - there's a difference between HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). HIV is the virus that causes the infection. Think of AIDS as more of an end game. If you don't receive treatment, the likely end result of an HIV infection is AIDS when your CD4 white blood cell count drops below a defined level. If a patient adheres well to their HAART drug therapy the virus can essentially be held at bay. They will develop AIDS eventually when the virus escapes suppression, but they can live long lives relative to what was possible in the 80s and 90s.

If you have any specific questions I can try my best to answer.

[garbon]

Oh, massa sir, please let me know how to get to the promised land. Please Unca Seedy?

Only if you sing for me, boy. When you was slaves, you sang like birds.  Go on, how 'bout a good ol' nigger work song?

Reply hazy, try again.

[Fate]

I'm told that eating an albino is the holistic approach.   As for real medicine Fate would know.  But Grumbler drove him off.

He didn't run me off (yet). Medical school just keeps you busier than college.

[merithyn]

I don't really know what type of information you're looking for.

Current prognosis, treatments, and general ways to contain the infection when living with and/or around someone with HIV/AIDS, mostly. Obviously, all of that will have changed since Freddy Mercury died.

I would start with this. It's written for patients, but I'm not sure how helpful it really is for the lay person. The pay version of that website is what doctors tend to use for a primary source when they're looking up the latest evidence based medical practices and information.
http://www.uptodate.com/contents/search?search=HIV&sp=3&searchType=PLAIN_TEXT&source=USER_INPUT&searchControl=TOP_PULLDOWN&searchOffset=

Thanks. That'll be helpful.

I guess just to start off with - there's a difference between HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). HIV is the virus that causes the infection. Think of AIDS as more of an end game. If you don't receive treatment, the likely end result of an HIV infection is AIDS when your CD4 white blood cell count drops below a defined level. If a patient adheres well to their HAART drug therapy the virus can essentially be held at bay. They will develop AIDS eventually when the virus escapes suppression, but they can live long lives relative to what was possible in the 80s and 90s.

If you have any specific questions I can try my best to answer.

Whoa there, Sparky. Don't go too fast for me.

This was kind of known even back then, but thanks. I'll read the article, and if I still have questions, I'll look you up.

[dps]

Fuck it, everyone for themselves.  Fuck the poor that won't be able to afford the test, fuck the illiterate that won't be able to read the instructions, and fuck the emotionally hanicapped that won't be able to follow up with doing the right thing.

None of that makes any sense unless you're assuming home tests will somehow eliminate the availability of professionally administered tests, rather than providing an alternative for those who want it.

[Berkut]

Fuck it, everyone for themselves.  Fuck the poor that won't be able to afford the test, fuck the illiterate that won't be able to read the instructions, and fuck the emotionally hanicapped that won't be able to follow up with doing the right thing.

None of that makes any sense unless you're assuming home tests will somehow eliminate the availability of professionally administered tests, rather than providing an alternative for those who want it.

It makes perfect sense as long as you operate under the presumption that people are not capable of deciding for themselves between those alternatives in an appropriate manner, and hence it would be best for the state to make one decision that applies to everyone, all the time.

This nicely illustrates the "liberal" (and I use the term *very* loosely in this context) end of the spectrum when it comes to the anti-liberty pressures. Conservatives (and of course I am generalizing) are happy stomping on liberty because they think people will make immoral decisions ("lets force people to remain married, because that is good for them and divorce is immoral!"), liberals stomp on liberty because they think people are too stupid to make good decisions ("lets force people to go to a clinic to get a HIV test because they are too stupid to handle the results on their own".

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/nobel-laureate-discoverer-hiv-says-cure-sight-071316447.html

The Nobel laureate who helped to discover HIV says a cure for AIDS is in sight following recent discoveries, in an interview with AFP ahead of a global conference on the disease.

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008 as part of a team that discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, said scientific research was zeroing in on a cure for the illness.

She cited a patient in Berlin who appears to have been cured through a bone marrow transplant, "which proves that finding a way of eliminating the virus from the body is something that is realistic."

Other sources of optimism are the small minority of patients -- less than 0.3 percent -- who exhibit no symptoms of the virus without ever receiving treatment; and a small group in France who received antiretroviral drugs and now live without treatment or symptoms, Barre-Sinoussi said.

"There is hope... but don't ask me for a date because we do not know."

She also said that it would be possible "in principle" to eliminate the AIDS pandemic by 2050, if barriers to drug access could be eliminated.

The main barriers there were not scientific but political, economic and social, she said: the problem was lack of access to testing and drugs in poor and rural areas, as well as the stigma around the virus, which undermines early detection and treatment.

Some 25,000 people -- including celebrities, scientists and HIV sufferers -- are expected in the US capital on Sunday to call for more strident global action to address the three-decade AIDS epidemic.

Deaths and infections are down in the parts of the world most ravaged by the disease, while the number of people on treatment has risen 20 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching eight million people in needy countries.

However this is only about half the people who should be on treatment worldwide, suggesting much more remains to be done
.
More than 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, a higher number than ever before, and around 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s, according to UNAIDS.

[grumbler]

This nicely illustrates the "liberal" (and I use the term *very* loosely in this context)...

It has always amused me that, in the US, "liberal" means, in fact, anti-liberal.  You and I are liberals, and CdM is not, pretty everywhere but the US.

[derspiess]

Oh, massa sir, please let me know how to get to the promised land. Please Unca Seedy?

Only if you sing for me, boy. When you was slaves, you sang like birds.  Go on, how 'bout a good ol' nigger work song?

Reply hazy, try again.

sing "The Camptown Ladies"   

[derspiess]

It might not be a good idea to abandon the fight for justice in your homeland.

I've got Ed Schultz.  He's my daddy bear.

You're also got Rev. Sharpton.

RESIST WE MUCH!

[grumbler]

Oh, massa sir, please let me know how to get to the promised land. Please Unca Seedy?

Only if you sing for me, boy. When you was slaves, you sang like birds.  Go on, how 'bout a good ol' nigger work song?

Reply hazy, try again.

sing "The Camptown Ladies"   

"Gwine Run All Night" aka "De Camptown Races"