Does HIV cause AIDS?

[Tonko]

It's a problem, if as you say Tonko, that it's used arbitrarily, as AIDS carries quite the negative stigma.

Yeah, it is a serious problem.

Imagine this:

Guy gets HIV, doesn't get tested for a couple years for whatever reason, and when he does get tested finally, and comes back reactive, they do a T-cell count as part of normal blood work, and uh oh, it's at 194. Let's say his normal t-cell count while healthy was only 300-350. But he's got AIDS now, and this will impact many parts of his life.

Many people have normal T-cell counts in the 200s, or 300s. It's not a far slip for them into AIDS classification.

[Shinryusan]

Peer reviewed:

Forman, R., Weiss, R.A. 2008. Why is HIV a pathogen? Trends in Microbiology, Epub ahead of print (Oct. 30)

MRC/UCL Centre for Medical Molecular Virology, Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, 46 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JF, UK.

The pathogenesis of HIV begins with a profound depletion of CD4+ T cells in the gut followed by a long period of clinically silent but dynamic virus replication and diversification with high host cell turnover before the onset of AIDS. The AIDS-defining opportunistic infections and tumors mark the end-point of a long balancing act between virus and host that occurs when CD4+ T cell numbers fall below a level that can sustain immunity. Comparative studies of lentivirus infections in other species show that AIDS is not an inevitable outcome of infection because simian immunodeficiency virus in natural hosts seldom causes disease. What distinguishes pathogenic from 'passenger' infection is a systemic activation of immune responses followed by destruction of the integrity of lymphoid follicles. Macrophage and dendritic cell infection also contribute to pathogenesis. Maedi-Visna virus infection in sheep, which targets these cells but not T lymphocytes, also leads to progressive disease and death that resembles the wasting and brain diseases of HIV without the T cell immunodeficiency. Thus, lessons from pathogenic and nonpathogenic lentivirus infections provide insight into the complex syndrome called AIDS.


AKA: HIV causes AIDS. Anyone who says otherwise is a douche, plain and simple.

EDIT: unless you're a sheep, in which cause other stuff causes AIDS too, lol.

[Titanss]

This Guy:

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/g...nson-magic.jpg

can cure AIDS

[Aerin]

Well I believe many of the treatments work, but they only treat part of the problem, there's no cure, and that seems to correspond with the idea that we haven't found the actual cause yet. We can simply manage HIV.

It just seems odd that HIV is supposed to be a retrovirus, yet it doesn't act like one at all. We all have plenty of dormat retrovirus' in our bodies, but they don't become active very often, and if they do, our body attacks them and we become immune (Chicken Pocks, Measles, etc). The main argument I'm reading is that HIV doesn't kill off nearly enough T-Cells to cause AIDS. Many times an AIDS patient shows that only 1 in 100,000 T cells even has the HIV virus, when you would need half infected to even be prone to the amount of T-cell loss attributed to AIDS.

Edit: Yeah my teacher is a fuckup, but I just couldn't help pursuing this avenue. Thanks for input Sept, gonna read that thoroughly.

Septimus already said it, but I want to say it again. You can cure something that's bacterial, like an infection. There are no cures for virus' yet.

The rhinovirus (common cold), STD's, just because we haven't found the "cure" for them yet means we haven't found the cause?

[Faithe]

Virus cannot be cured. Virus can be prevented.

[Olo401]

So a professor of mine has decided to turn a Logic class into a class, more or less, about AIDS. We're using a lot of studies on AIDS and HIV to dissect and analyze.

One of the articles we've been delegated to Analyze is Peter Gallo 1984, which is supposed to be the original article proving that the HIV (then called HTLV-III) virus causes AIDS. The article itself doesn't seem to provide strong evidence at all....and it's rather baffling how it because so widely accepted in such a short about of time. One of the main problems that isn't apparent is that that article he wrote based on his data was not submitted for peer review, which seems to be a scientific no-no. Also the article itself showed only about a 50% correlation with having HTLV-III and having AIDS, which doesn't suggest a strong correlation at all, even less a cause.

Well, first off let's start with the logistics. HIV is a virus that attacks human t-cells, which eventually causes immune deficiency. The deficiency causes a collection of various rare diseases, which normally would be prevented by the t-cells, to ravage the body. This condition, where the body can't fight off the rare diseases, is what AIDS actually is.

Second. You said you're using the original notes from Dr. Gallo at NIH, from back in the early 80s. Besides his results being not subjected to peer review, his studies were also the result of his testing being contaminated (deliberate or not, we will never truly know) by the sample tissue sent to him by the doctors at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France.

Unfortunately Gallo is also known for his stubborness, ego and temper and he insisted that he discovered HIV. The French offered to share the discovery of the virus; Gallo backstabbed them and took the credit for himself publically. The resulting lawsuits helped complicate matters and did nothing but cause further frustration and distraction in the medical science community and delayed research, donor blood testing (which led to unnecessary infection of transfusion and blood product recipients), and discovery of drugs to control the virus such as AZT and interferon.

BTW, now that the lawsuits are done and all, the French doctors were just awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Aside from our class exercise, we're watching a video about a man who we also read about, Peter Duesberg, who has consistently disputed the evidence the fact that HIV causes AIDS since Gallo's article was published. He points out many things, like the fact that HIV doesn't kill enough T-Cells to account for the drop in T-Cell count which results in AIDS, and also the way the HIV virus acts, which isn't consistent with the way that retrovirus' are known to act. He also points out the infection rate of this so called "Epidemic" is not like any epidemic we've ever seen, and the numbers do not correspond. The infection rate has been more or less growing at a consistent, slow rate, whereas "epidemics" are erratic, and cause high amount of infection in a short period of time, then die off. Also Duesberg believes that the medication cocktails such as AZT actually cause AIDS.

Can't say I've ever heard of this. Sounds a bit like tinfoil..

Anyways.. if you want to read further on the subject I'd recommend any articles in the industry publications Science or The New England Journal of Medicine. There's also quite a few books on the subject, some of which also wade into the politics of that time and how research on this disease in the US was almost nonexistent (thanks again Reagan).

[Penthesilea]

Virus cannot be cured. Virus can be prevented.

You guys aren't correct. Neither can be cured because they're both infections (viral, fungal, bacterial). What you can do is prevent them all from maintaining their hold on their infected host or from infecting potential hosts.

[Olo401]

Oh yah.. low T-Cell count (say under 150/500) due to HIV presence is called ARC - AIDS-related complex. It's basically a precursor condition to the full t-cell loss and virus saturation that marks an all-out case of AIDS.

[Mizango]

The rhinovirus (common cold), STD's, just because we haven't found the "cure" for them yet means we haven't found the cause?

God? OH SHI wrong thread!

[Callisto]

I thought AIDS was a direct result of being black and/or gay?

[Denchi]

So let me get this straight. If there ever was a test showing that HIV cannot kill off enough T-Cells to cause AIDS, that test was flawed? Or is there some other complication of HIV infection that kills off all the T-Cells?

[Aerin]

You guys aren't correct. Neither can be cured because they're both infections (viral, fungal, bacterial). What you can do is prevent them all from maintaining their hold on their infected host or from infecting potential hosts.

I suppose it's what you mean exactly by cure.

So let me get this straight. If there ever was a test showing that HIV cannot kill off enough T-Cells to cause AIDS, that test was flawed? Or is there some other complication of HIV infection that kills off all the T-Cells?

Would have to be a lot more than just one test. I don't know as much as some others here do about HIV and AIDS, but from what I've read there's overwhelming evidence showing HIV leads to AIDS. In simplest terms it even says, "If you have a virus killing your immune system(HIV), guess what, you probably wont have one sooner or later(AIDS)."

[Priran]

protip to the wannabe grammar nazis: despite "syndrome" being in the name, AIDS is a disease. a syndrome is just a set of correlated symptoms. a disease is a set of symptoms and its known cause.

actually I'd like to clarify just how fucking dumb this entire post is

This was almost clarified, but AIDS is a syndrome. A syndrome is simply a collection of specific symptoms. HIV is basically asymptomatic AIDS.

Pretend most Herpes infections take 10 years to show a single symptom, and when Herpes sores appear, we call that condition "Ey n...ouch! fuck look at my elephanttrunk syndrome". Herpes causes ENFLAMES, but it's only called ENFLAMES when it's actually showing.

This is the exact same motherfucking thing as AIDS. If it's showing symptoms, it's AIDS. If it's not, but you still have the virus, it's HIV. It's really extremely fucking simple.

HIV is not asymptomatic AIDS, and it isn't "just having the virus". it is the virus, and because it directly causes AIDS, AIDS is not a syndrome.

HIV doesn't magically disappear when you're diagnosed with AIDS. It stays in your body, continues to cause the symptoms of AIDS, and is what transfers to others and gives them AIDS.

[Kaliden]

In all seriousness, if you doubt HIV leads to AIDS, then you should stop listening to spin doctors and try reading some more.

Hey, Spin Doctors is awesome, brb Two Princes.

[Rocl]

I thought AIDS was a direct result of being black and/or gay?

It's true

[Kuya]

Not black; just Haitian.

[Bagel]

You're getting AIDS confused with crazy memory erasing powers again

[Septimus]

Hey, Spin Doctors is awesome, brb Two Princes.

Fucking hate that song. Hate! HATE! H A T E ! ! ! !

[Mytiwar]

Inject large amount of money into your bloodstream to cure it.


anyone?

[Franzer]

this is a pretty interesting read from a couple years ago.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles...5madeinusa.htm