HIV Vaccine Discovered!

Apparently, an HIV vaccine has been discovered by students attending the University of Paris.

Nov. 29, 2004 -- It worked in mice. It worked in monkeys. And now in humans, a therapeutic vaccine has stopped HIV in its tracks.

The vaccine is made from a patient's own dendritic cells and HIV isolated from the patient's own blood. Dendritic cells are crucial to the immune response. They grab foreign bodies in the blood and present them to other immune cells to trigger powerful immune system responses to destroy the foreign invaders.

HIV infection normally turns these important immune system responses off. But animal studies show that when dendritic cells are "loaded" with whole, killed AIDS viruses, they can trigger effective immune responses that keep infected animals from dying of AIDS.

Wei Lu, Jean-Marie Andrieu, and colleagues at the University of Paris in France and Pernambuco Federal University in Recife, Brazil, tested the vaccine on 18 Brazilian patients. All had HIV infection for at least a year. Their T-cell counts -- a crucial measure of AIDS progression -- were dropping, meaning their disease was worsening. None was taking anti-HIV medications.

After getting three under-the-skin injections of the tailor-made vaccine, the amount of HIV in the patients' blood (called the viral load) dropped by 80%. After a year, eight of the 18 patients still had a 90% drop in HIV levels. All patients' T-cell counts stopped dropping.

The findings appear in the December issue of Nature Medicine.

"The results suggest that [these] vaccines could be a promising strategy for treating people with chronic HIV infection," Andrieu and colleagues write. "The significant decrease of viral load as well as maintenance of ... [T-]cell counts observed at one year after immunization are particularly promising."

The researchers warn that their study is only proof of principle. It's still not clear which patients do best with the vaccine, although there's evidence that vaccination should be given as soon after HIV infection as possible. Only clinical trials comparing people who get the vaccine to those who don't can show whether this vaccine really is an effective AIDS therapy.

Similar approaches are being explored for the treatment of cancer and long-term viral infections such as hepatitis C.

Hmm...I wonder if this is really it?

my.webmd.com...

sounds promising, and I hope human testing is successful and many lives are saved......but I have to wonder, if a vaccine for HIV becomes readily available to the general public, would people take a shot and then live a more promiscous lifestyle, leaving themselves vulnerable for other stds?

The HIV virus can turn into such an epidemic, and, as hinted at above, it is due to the promiscuality of our nation. There does need to be some kind of class for people who recieve this treatment. Hopefully, we wont look this gift horse in the mouth.

THAT is bigtime news, great find! I wonder how many people with HIV will die while this vaccine tries to make it through all the usual red tape. You can bet their phone is ringing off the hook right about now. It's about time a piece of good news like this came out- they have been working sooooo hard at trying to cure it for so long. I know someone down at a local restaurant that has HIV, must tell him soon, although wouldn't doubt he already knows.

Originally posted by Kidfinger
There does need to be some kind of class for people who recieve this treatment

What? A sexual morals class? As a requirment for receiving the treatment? But not one for the promiscuous in general?

I do agree with your general sentiment, aids is ludicrously easy to prevent the transmission of, its only spread thru sex (and infected needles or blood transfusions of course, and the needle route is thought to account for -huge- numbers of cases in the african outbreak) and even then its not particularly guarenteed to be transmitted (wouldn't recommend trying that probability tho), so its rather horrible that its so hard to control. But I don't think that people should be punished for being promiscuous or for having the disease. People with other STDs aren't punished for this sort of thing.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by Kidfinger
There does need to be some kind of class for people who recieve this treatment

What? A sexual morals class? As a requirment for receiving the treatment? But not one for the promiscuous in general?

I know what you are saying here, but something, anything has to be done to educate the 15 - 25 year old crowd. Something similar to the education of the 80s when C. Everett Koop went against the administration and issued his "use a condom" advisory. I found this today:

Dec. 1, 2004
MSNBC

ATLANTA - The number of newly diagnosed HIV infections in gay and bisexual men has risen in many U.S. states, according to a federal study Wednesday which stoked concerns AIDS may be poised for a resurgence in the country.

In a study of HIV/AIDS data from 32 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 11 percent more infections were diagnosed from 2000 through 2003 among men who have sex with men. The study was released to commemorate World AIDS Day.

This kind of increase is frightening to say the least. And for those who say "so what, it's only gays" - what occurs in the gay/bisexual population is usually an early indicator of what is about to occur in the straight.

IMO a renewed HIV/AIDS education and awareness program is absolutely necessary.

B.

Link

I pray that this new vaccine is effective and can lead to the stop of this horrible disease.

Meanwhile though, parents need to learn to educate their children. Learning by their example is making young people today sexually active even before high school.

Hello Every one:

I studied to become a E.M.T. in Orlando ,Florida in 1990
and I rember taht at the end of the 14 wks of that class.
The instructor show us a video of a Doctor that was saying
that the H.I.V. virus was craeted by the U.S. Army and relised
on the population for texting! NOT from a monkey.
I'm glad there is a vaccine for H.I.V. but my opnion is that they
had this vacine all along.

Originally posted by jupiter869
I pray that this new vaccine is effective and can lead to the stop of this horrible disease.

Unfortunately it's not a vaccine to prevent infection but one to prevent the disease from taking hold. But I guess it is better than what's currently available. From the article:

"The results suggest that [these] vaccines could be a promising strategy for treating people with chronic HIV infection," Andrieu and colleagues write. "The significant decrease of viral load as well as maintenance of ... [T-]cell counts observed at one year after immunization are particularly promising."

The researchers warn that their study is only proof of principle. It's still not clear which patients do best with the vaccine, although there's evidence that vaccination should be given as soon after HIV infection as possible. Only clinical trials comparing people who get the vaccine to those who don't can show whether this vaccine really is an effective AIDS therapy.

B.

It seems France isn't the only one to have found a cure for HIV. It appears that Sweden has found one as well:

www.thelocal.se...

Gotta love Europe !