Reviewing Strategies for Draining HIV Reservoirs - Michael Palm HIV Basic Science, Vaccines, and Prevention Project Weblog
The April issue of Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics features an excellent open access review by Thomas Rasmussen and colleagues describing approaches to eliminating HIV reservoirs that are advancing into clinical trials. Prominently featured are histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, which have…
South Africa’s New Super Affordable Pill Could Revolutionize AIDS Treatment
“South Africa’s Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced a new affordable single dose treatment that could possibly revolutionize treatment of HIV/AIDS in the country. The three-in-one anti-retroviral combination will cost each patient a record low $10 per dose…”
read more at Queerty
Possible Path to Vaccine for AIDS Is Suggested
“In what may be an important step toward a long-elusive AIDS vaccine, American researchers have minutely tracked one person’s powerful immune response to the virus to see how a series of mutations led to an antibody that can defeat many H.I.V. strains.
A vaccine still remains far off, but the research lighted up one complex path that may someday be followed to that distant goal.
Thirty-four million people in the world are H.I.V.-positive, and 2.5 million are newly infected each year, 50,000 of them in this country…”
Op-ed: When Is the Right Time to Tell Your HIV Status on a Date?
My right time is to tell them before I even go on the first date.
“As I prepare to say good goodbye to my 20s, I’ve noticed that getting older has its perks. Department store salesmen no longer roll their eyes when I ask to be fitted for a new suit, I no longer feel the need to sleep until just before the sun starts to set, and my car insurance company no longer hates me. It would seem that this so-called “midlife” isn’t so bad after all. That is, unless you are single. Single, and you are about to go on the dreaded first date. Single, dreaded first date, and you have to find a way to casually disclose that you are HIV-positive. Now, I still don’t believe getting older is all that bad, but it is definitely a hell of a lot more complicated.
Over the past several months I have been grappling with the question of just when is the right time to disclose my HIV status. This has led to many hypotheticals posed over bottles of wine with friends, both positive and negative. Several of my friends say that the cliché third date is most appropriate. Assuming sex is still off the table, this is the point at which both parties have had enough time to get to know one another for who they are, not what disease they are carrying. The danger of the “third date rule” is that it allows for feelings to develop, albeit little baby ones. Disclosing your status once a semblance of trust has formed is like placing a loaded gun in front of a person and asking them not to shoot you with it. I don’t know about you, but I am still reeling from the shotgun that tried to take me down when I found out about my status…”
read more at Advocate
STUDY: Pasteur Institute Claims 14 People “Functionally Cured” Of HIV
“A report coming out of France’s Pasteur Institute reveals that 14 people were ‘functionally cured’ of HIV through rapid treatment after early diagnosis.
The institute looked at a group of 70 people who started antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) five to ten 10 weeks after becoming infected but stopped treatment completely after an average of three years. Most saw their T-cell count drop, but 14 patients—four women and ten men, known as the “Visconti cohort”—remained HIV-free.”
read more at Queerty
Gene therapy studies show potential for HIV control without drugs
I hope this potential proves to be right…
“Gene therapy approaches that involve the genetic modification of human haematopoietic stem cells have the potental to engineer HIV control by introducing cells resistant to HIV infection, the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2013) heard last week.
The proof of concept for this approach to HIV control in humans comes from the case of the ‘Berlin patient’, who received a bone marrow transplant from a donor with natural resistance to HIV infection. The donor was homozygous for the CCR5 delta 32 mutation, meaning that cells potentially vulnerable to HIV infection would never display the CCR5 receptor necessary for HIV to gain entry to that cell. As a result of complete ablation of the recipient’s own stem cells by chemotherapy, his CD4 cells were replaced by cells derived from the donor’s CCR5-lacking population. Over three years after the procedure the recipient remains HIV-free without antiretroviral treatment, and has been described as ‘functionally cured’ by physicians.
However, the chance of reproducing this outcome using transfer of donor cells is very low due to the shortage of potential donors who are both HLA-compatible (essential for avoidance of graft-versus-host disease) and CCR5-delta32 homozygous. In any case, the essential elements that contributed to this functional cure are still not fully understood.
The introduction of modified genes into stem cells harvested from a person’s bone marrow will be a necessarily individualized treatment, but the costs of gene therapy are likely to come down in the future, and if experimental approaches prove successful in controlling HIV without antiretroviral drugs, gene therapies may deliver a cost-effective form of treatment in the future…”
read more at Aidsmap
Justice Dept. Scores Another Win Against HIV Discrimination
“The Gleinbeigh Hospital of Rock Creek, Ohio, has settled a lawsuit with the Justice Department after a patient was denied services because of their HIV status, which is illegal under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The hospital refused to admit someone into their alcohol treatment program because the patient was HIV-positive. Gleinbeigh officials claimed that side effects from the patient’s HIV medications would put other people in the treatment program at risk. The Justice Department determined the hospital could not prove the complainant would have posed a threat to the health or safety of others. The hospital will pay the complainant $32,500 and fork over $5,000 in civil penalties. This is the fourth settlement the Justice Department reached in four weeks pertaining to HIV discrimination…”
read more at Advocate
NYC Dep’t Of Health Warns Gay Men Of “Terrifying” Meningitis Outbreak, Urges Vaccination
“Men who have sex with men are at risk for a potentially deadly strain of meningitis, warns the New York City Department of Health, which is urging gay and bisexual men to get vaccinated against the virus…”
read more at Queerty
Beautiful story on one man’s HIV-positive journey…
The Needle Prick Project: Jason Thompson on his HIV-Positive Journey
“Jason Thompson had just barely gotten his feet wet in the world of love and dating. He was 20 years old and still stuck in the rural landscape of Southern Illinois. The small town of Aviston was a far cry from a gay metropolis, but he had managed to find a couple of boys around his parts who were worthy of dinner and a movie.
At his age, a gay man is typically allowed a couple ‘do-overs’ and ‘never-agains’ until he learns to operate in the land of one-night stands and no-good boyfriends. But sometimes the wrong guy with all the right words can take away the frivolity that comes with youth before you get the chance to learn your lesson.
He was on his way to work when his friend called and told him the news—his friend was just diagnosed as HIV-positive. With little knowledge of the disease himself, he did the only thing he knew to do to support him. Jason got tested…”
read more at Advocate
Thank goodness for bees.
STUDY: Bee Venom Shown To Kill HIV
“A study in the current issue of Antiviral Therapy reports that nanoparticles loaded with a toxin found in bee venom can destroy HIV while leaving nearby normal cells unharmed…”
read more at Queerty
Why It’s So Hard To Talk About Bareback Sex
“With more than 50% of gay men no longer using condoms consistently, the shame that often prevents candid discussion of bareback sex may prove to be as dangerous as the health risks themselves.
I had been living in New York City just long enough to know about the risks of bareback sex, the statistics, the history, and the ghosts. This is not a cautionary tale; this is about a decision I made, and keep making.
In October 2010, I met a guy online who was visiting from France. That night, after meeting in a midtown Starbucks, we went to his hotel room. I never asked about his HIV status. I watched him do a line of coke in the bathroom, and even knowing that, knowing he was some unfamiliar man doing things I never envisioned myself doing, we fucked each other without condoms. And it felt good. This was the scariest part for me. Not the risk itself, but the fact that I enjoyed it.
The next morning, as I rushed to throw on my clothes to get to work on time, it all came rushing back: the risks, the statistics, the history. And, along with them, the names of authors I’d read who wrote during the onset of the AIDS crisis. I felt ashamed that I was doing something that would put me at risk of an incurable illness, felt ashamed because I knew people in my own life who I was close to who had struggled to come to terms with being HIV positive…”
read more at BuzzFeed LGBT
Monthly injectable drug offers 100% protection against HIV in monkeys – could be dosed every three months
“An injectable, long-lasting integrase inhibitor drug, when given to rhesus macaques exposed to a monkey-adapted version of HIV, completely protected them against the virus. This drug, an injectable version of GSK1265744 (GSK744), has already been given as a single dose to HIV-negative human volunteers, and has a half-life of 21 to 50 days. Levels stayed above the IC90 (the level necessary to suppress 90% of HIV replication) for six months, and above four times this level for four months.
This means that if it proves safe and effective in humans, it could be given as an injection as little as four times a year, though individual variations seen in this study mean that monthly dosing may be safer.
GSK744 is similar to dolutegravir, which is already nearing approval as an anti-HIV drug in Europe and the US. It is effective against HIV, though, at lower concentrations in the body, which means manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline have been able to formulate it as a nanoparticle suspension – tiny ‘packets’ of the drug floating in fluid, which provide a long-lasting supply of the drug when injected…”
read more at AIDSmap
Watch the trailer for this documentary and you’ll know why I am requesting a screening in NYC.
“Many of you have been asking when you can see Blood Brother. We have created a screening request form for individuals as well as organizations to let us know that they want to see the film. The link below allows us to start collecting information so that we can rally to bring Blood Brother to your city/town if enough people sign up (so please share with everyone you know!). By signing up and having friends sign up we will be able to provide a rough idea of the desire to see the film in that area - so please have all of your family and friends sign up as well. The more interest, the more likelihood we’ll be able to screen there!
We will also alert you if/when it comes to your area. But this also allows organizations or groups interested in hosting a screening to tell us more about their idea. Please take a minute to fill out your information. Request form here”
