DailyTech - New Early Treatment Better for HIV Patients

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Science New Early Treatment Better for HIV Patients
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - February 9, 2006 3:10 AM

14 comment(s) - last by T1.. on Feb 10 at 3:42 AM

Dr. Kenneth Lichtenstein claims that people who start treatment earlier are more likely to get better outcomes

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that fighting the AIDS virus with powerful drugs will yield better results than waiting - even with the sometimes serious side-effects. The study shows that patients now do not have a logical reason to wait to receive treatment especially when it does help.

Furthermore, Paul Savage -- a BYU scientist -- believes he may have possibly found the cure for AIDS. The current treatments available for HIV and AIDS only slows down the virus, not fully destroys it. Savage's new drug apparently kills multiple viruses (including HIV/AIDS), bacteria and other microbes. Although this is surely good news, the recent findings still have to go under peer review and multiple rounds of testing.

Biomedical companies like Chiron and Genentech are also racing to find possible vaccines and cures for HIV and AIDS.

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sounds promosing, but

By jkresh on 2/9/2006 10:31:49 AM , Rating: 4

The antivirals that the article talks about sound realy interesting. However, they also seem too good. Antimicrobial, antifungal and antiviral and seem to work on anything. Would be amaizing if it works, and would make that company very wealthy. I have to wonder, even if their results are reproducible, and even if it shows similar results in higher level organisms, (mice, monkeys... people), could something be that effective on bacteria, fungai, and viruses, and not have a negative effect on the organism (ie massive cell death or cancer?) It will be interesting to see how this plays out over then next few years.

RE: sounds promosing, but

By reiters on 2/9/2006 10:53:44 AM , Rating: 2

That is probably what was thought about penicillin in the early days. A medicine that makes bacteria explode... that's crazy talk. I hope it turns out to be the cure that so many have looked for, it will be a good day for medicine. I hope the people understand the problems in Africa where a large protion of the population has aids and raip is rampid causing it to spread rapidly.

Next step immunization?

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RE: sounds promosing, but

By reiters on 2/9/2006 10:56:21 AM , Rating: 2

I can't be I spelled rape wrong. I am a horrible speller, but that word is too short to be misspelling.

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RE: sounds promosing, but

By jkresh on 2/9/2006 4:25:10 PM , Rating: 2

After reading some more techinical articles on it I will somewhat take back what I said, it does look really promising. My main issue with what was said in the article linked from hear is it appeared that they were saying this was a "wonder drug", something that could work on just about any infection causing organism. The difference between that and an antibiotic is antibiotics target certain things which are different in bacterial cells from mammelian cells as such are not a problem, while something that targets bacteria/fungai/viruses seems to be to broad. Though their explanations (in other articles) of how it targets them are a bit more comforting. As I said before it would be wonderful if this worked (as long as people didnt just assume it was now safe to have unprotected sex), but it will be quite some time before we know for certain.

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RE: sounds promosing, but

By SLIM on 2/9/2006 7:40:07 PM , Rating: 2

Higher level organisms? One of the problems with HIV is we still don't have a decent animal model to test potential new meds. The only higher level organism that they can move to (from test tubes) is people. They will still give it to mice and other mammals to do prelim toxicity tests, but effectiveness on HIV can only be tested in one animal...

Don't get too caught up in the hype though, lots of "breakthrough" meds never see the light of day because of drug toxicity, in vivo failure, etc.

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RE: sounds promosing, but

By T1 on 2/10/2006 3:42:18 AM , Rating: 2

Well, test it on AIDS patients. They'll die from it anyway, so they have nothing to loose, and maybe just maybe a little bit to gain, from experimental drug trials.

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misleading

By j@cko on 2/9/2006 3:46:01 AM , Rating: 2

Your title sounds misleading. It should have been worded "better for HIV patients" not "better for HIV". It sounds as if early treatment actually worsen patients' condition because it is better FOR the virus.

RE: misleading

By j@cko on 2/9/2006 3:46:42 AM , Rating: 2

I thought this is suppose to be a professional web news site???

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RE: misleading

By The Cheeba on 2/9/2006 3:49:15 AM , Rating: 2

I know this is going to seem hard to you.. but let's see if you can process the entire headline:

Early Treatment Better for HIV Patients

Seriously, I am going back to slashdot I think. the userbase is slightly more handicapped here.

Cheeb.

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Great...

By nomagic on 2/9/2006 3:50:11 AM , Rating: 2

So much money has been spent to find a cure for AIDS. It will be great news if this is truly a cure for AIDS.

At the same time, I am also worried because this is one more excuse to not use condoms...

RE: Great...

By nwrigley on 2/9/2006 8:46:17 AM , Rating: 2

You know, I'm not too worried about people not having to use condoms. I'll just be happy that AIDS is cured (whenever that may be). A cure is really more important for third world countries where sex education is laxing and aggressive drug treatment programs are not feasible.

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RE: Great...

By T1 on 2/9/2006 2:02:37 PM , Rating: 2

AIDS isn't the only fatal STD. There are others which can lead to serious health complications, so I don't think condom usage would drop. Not to mention the risk of an unwanted pregnancy.

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