Rare Drug - Resistant HIV Found in N.Y.

NY Times ^ | February 11, 2005 | NA

[rdcorso]

This is a real shocker for a guy having anal sex with multiple partners who are HIV positive.I watched a TV show the other night about young men who go out and purposely get infected with HIV.The older gay guys were trying to blame it on the feeling of being left out of the club.The other excuses were mostly on the emotional hell of watching a partner die from AIDS while you remain alive.If this type of behavior continues they will end up creating a super AIDS virus that no medication can reverse.I always knew homosexuals had mental disorders but we could now add stupid and suicidal to the list.

[Drew68]

More $$$$$$$ We need More $$$$$ for AIDS research

Exactly.

The gay lobby seems to be saying, "Don't worry about cancer. To hell with MS sufferers and all those other diseases that strike arbitrarily. We demand a cure for AIDS now so we can continue having unprotected gay sex with multiple partners without fear of consequence. How dare this virus take away our fun! Find a cure immediately!

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

WTF??? Yeah, right on, employers fire smokers for a risky lifestyle. Meanwhile thanks to gays, our health insurance rates go throught the roof. This while the feds and states pour out billions of tobacco tax monies (that was touted as earmarked for tobacco related health problems) onto the poor sweet gay innocents.

Lacking of moral courage, this PC speak no truth society of ours is one sicko bunch of puppies.

[printhead]

they quarantine those most likeky to not continue a tuberculosis regimen. may be time to rethink drug resistant aids policy?

[neverdem]

they quarantine those most likeky to not continue a tuberculosis regimen. may be time to rethink drug resistant aids policy?

How about we ask Fidel to quarantine our HIV/AIDS cases, and we'll resume diplomatic relations with Cuba? /sarcasm

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I have to admit that when the AIDS epidemic was first emerging - I thought the there would be a backlash against the risky behavior that causes it to spread, mainly due to the cost shifting it was going to bring about as all Americans, through the tax system and through the private insurance system's subsidy to public health. But no - the $Billions upon $Billions were shifted onto the backs of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the spread of this disease. The main stream media reports about the AIDS cocktail pharmaceuticals as a great accomplishment but, lo!, they forget to describe how much it costs or who, in the end, is paying for it.

So this little twist occurs, as it will in the world of mutating viruses. Additional $Billions will be requested and no one will dare question the possible behavioral controls that could put the brakes on this disease. Ugh!

In 1986 I attended a series of lectures by Dr. Howard Temin, Nobel Prize winning retro virologist, on the AIDS epidemic. At that time they projected a cost per patient of about $100K from diagnosis to death. In those days there was not a great life expectancy and there were few of the complex and expensive drug combinations. So the HIV+ are living longer and consuming resources at a much faster clip. Does anyone out there have authoritative estimates of the cost of this behavioral tragedy?

[neverdem]

Does anyone out there have authoritative estimates of the cost of this behavioral tragedy?

http://www.healthcouncil.org/aicp/exsum02.pdf

[GSlob]

From the most general ecological principles - namely that every ecological niche is going to be filled, at least eventually - it would appear strange if human immune system (in existence for several million years) would not have its own parasite(s), viral or otherwise. Thus I'd tend to think that HIV is far from a recent phenomenon, but rather a recent discovery.

[SalukiLawyer]

Another factor that may have contributed to the careless sexual behavior was his use of crystal methamphetamine

Of course using drugs in and of itself could not possibly have an effect on someone's immune system. I am always amazed how regularly these hysterical AIDS articles come out in the press, counting on the fact that everyone will have forgotten the last everyone-in-Africa-is-already-dead-of-AIDS-and-straight-white-folsk are-next story, and the thousand before that as well.

They have one case that is has progressed more rapidly than normal, and has "not responded" to drug therapies. From this we jump to a "new drug-resistant strain of the virus"?

AIDS might not be the best thing for the drug companies (I would say "mental illness" is better) but it is pretty darned good. Best of all, they're learning to stretch people's lifespans out longer while never curing them. It's a beautiful thing.

[neverdem]

They have one case that is has progressed more rapidly than normal, and has "not responded" to drug therapies. From this we jump to a "new drug-resistant strain of the virus"?

IIRC, all these drugs for AIDS eventually encounter a mutation in the virus that confers resistance. This patient probably had sex with someone who was taking AIDS drugs for a long enough period of time that a resistant strain developed. There's a chance for a new mutation every time the virus replicates , more so with a retrovirus that needs an extra step to make DNA from its RNA before it can insert the DNA into the chromosomes of lymphocytes for replication.

[SalukiLawyer]

Why don't these mutations ever render the virus harmless? :-P You'd think a virus that was in such a constant state of mutaton would eventually become less of a threat instead of more of a threat, just on the law of averages. But what do I know?

[unlearner]

This was bound to happen sooner or later.

There are many different strains of AIDS which can be cross-infected. (This means that someone who has AIDS can catch another form of it.)

Someone who has multiple strains may develop a mutation like this.

There is a real danger of a deadly disease like this mutating from being infectious to highly-infectious to even contagious (possibly).

Why are we to believe that education can change "risky behavior" but not homosexuality itself. If we just throw more money at the problem, homosexuals will stop engaging in unprotected anal intercourse, right? But trying to educate not to engage in homosexual intercourse at all will not work, right?

This is not a privacy issue. It is both a moral issue and a public health issue.

[jusduat]

I think that we should just let the illness take it's course, and in a few years.....no more aids problem

[neverdem]

I think that we should just let the illness take it's course, and in a few years.....no more aids problem

Unfortunately, men who have sex with men are only responsible for about half the new cases of HIV/AIDS in the last year that I saw CDC numbers. There are bisexuals, heterosexuals, intravenous drug users and medical mishaps that account for the rest in this country.

[ApplegateRanch]

What do you call mutations that confer resistance to drugs in formerly sensitive organisms?

In most cases, Natural Selection.

In the case of HIV, its Unnatural Selection.

[ashtanga]

I haven't touched anyone intimately since I first heard the term GRID, which soon became a politically correct AIDS. I am not married, so this seemed the gentlemanly way to do things. I have a few worries, but blood borne illness is not one of them.

[MRMEAN]

Intelligent Design?

[TheMole]

...another factor that may have contributed to the careless sexual behavior was his use of crystal methamphetamine...

Excellent reading comprehension. Here's another detail. In the opening line of the story, the hack writes ...is ``a wake up call'' to anyone who has unprotected sex, the city's health commissioner said Friday. Then in the next paragraph, there is a direct quote from that very commissioner that reads ...diagnosis ``is a wake up call to men who have sex with men,'' Frieden said at a news conference. So "everyone"="men who have sex with men"? Hmmm.

I do give the hack or hackette credit for giving the direct quote and the crystal meth reference. Perhaps at AP that is the equivalent of subversion.

[pepsionice]

The key item in this story is the reference to this dude using meth. There are alot of things about meth we know...but just as many that we don't know. I'm guessing meth helped to alter the AIDS strain. When you consider how many folks out there are using Meth (across the heartland)...this 3-month speedy AIDS strain ought to filter across the US very quickly. We ought to see 10,000 cases by the end of this year...and these meth AIDS members...will quickly meet their end.