new strain of HIV/AIDS

Poststructural Pub
1

The New York Times
Saturday, February 12, 2005
By Marc Santora and Lawrence K. Altman


A previously unknown strain of HIV that is highly resistant to virtually all known drugs and appears to lead to the rapid onset of AIDS was detected in a man last week, New York health officials said Friday.

While the extent of the spread of the disease is unknown, officials said the situation was alarming.

“We consider this a major potential problem,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The department issued an alert to all hospitals and doctors in the city to be on the lookout for the new strain.

The virus was found in a New York City man in his mid-40s who engaged in unprotected anal sex with other men on multiple occasions while he was using crystal methamphetamine.

While HIV strains that are resistant to some drug treatments have been on the rise in recent years throughout the United States, city officials said this case was unique and worrisome for several reasons.

First, they said, the strain of the disease was resistant to three of the four classes of drugs used to treat HIV from the moment the patient got sick. Typically, drug resistance comes after a patient is treated with retroviral drugs, often because they go off the prescribed course. And, more often than not, a person is only resistant to one or two classes of drugs.

But the resistance comes in combination with its rapid transformation into AIDS. Each of those things has been seen before, but never together.

In this case, the patient developed AIDS from 2 to 10 months after being infected. Usually, it takes 10 years for the average person infected with HIV to develop AIDS.

At a news conference at New York’s health department, where Frieden was joined by nearly a dozen doctors and community leaders, several people recalled having that same worried feeling they had more than two decades ago, when AIDS first started appearing.

The city has been in close contact with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

More tests need to be completed before it is clear if any combination of drugs can work on this strain of the virus. But given what they know now, Frieden said treatment would be extremely difficult.

From the moment the health department learned about this case a week ago, they have been studying complex laboratory tests to figure out what exactly they had on their hands as well as trying to figure out the man’s sexual history.

Health officials would not go into detail about how many people the man may have had sex with, but they have several investigators trying to track down partners. The man took an HIV test in May 2003 and was negative, health officials said. Investigators believe he contracted HIV in October of 2004, when he engaged in unprotected anal sex with multiple partners while using crystal methamphetamine. The man found some of his partners on the Internet, officials said.

Frieden said that the most likely scenario was that the man had sex with someone who had AIDS and had already developed a resistance to drugs. “Whoever gave it to him most likely did not have sex only with him,” Frieden said.

New York Times

Gay men in the US are, in general (and it’s terribly sad that so a general statement can be made), whores. This story doesn’t surprise me. We shouldn’t be such whores and we wouldn’t get such diseases and newer diseases from them.

2

These new mutations of virus and bacteria are majorly scary.

3

And we probably have our modern medecines to blaim for that. It’s a tough dilemma. We invent new cures all the time for different diseases, and in doing so we also create resitent viruses and bacterias in the long run. We are tampering with the natural orders with our science, making humans less naturally resistant and viruses and bacterias more agressive. Let’s just hope that science can keep up with mother nature, cause otherwise we’ll all be in trouble.

4

We probably have our scientific studies to blame for HIV to begin with. I don’t buy the monkey theory.

Speaking of virus’s (?) Has anyone read The White Plague by Frank Herbert?

5

Yes, many years ago. I recall that it was quite fascinating, but I don’t remember much in the way of details. (Herbert is one of my favorite authors; I have a copy of nearly every book he wrote.)

The evolution of treatment-resistant viruses and bacteria is indeed worrisome. Eventually, medical science won’t be able to keep up, and the world will have a truly severe (or perhaps catastrophic) plague. I hope I’m wrong.

6

There are those who believe that we are the virus, and that mother Nature is the cure. It’s all about balance, and with no natural predators (other than ourselves) to keep our numbers in check, Nature has to do something before we finish turning the world into an uninhabitable toilet.

7

Nature is losing. (And I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad…)

8

That I really don’t think is possible. Nature can’t lose, because nature is the greater power that created us. We don’t have the potential to defeat it, whatever that means. We’re currently killing ourselves, that’s what’s happening. The only way to defeat nature is to be able to survive without needing it, and the way things go (cancer, HIV, overpopulation, depleting natural resources, pollution, etc) we’ll destroy ourselves and nature might even get a good laugh out of it.

9

I have no interest in starting something nasty, but what’s yer data to back this up??

While it’s certainy true that gay men may be promiscuous, a LOT of straight folks (guys and gals) are just as much.

10

Been watching the Matrix a bit too much have you Gary? :stuck_out_tongue:
It’s a valid standpoint however. The way humans develop, spread and consumes agrees with that of a virus and with no other animals currently inhabiting the planet, with the exception of some insects perhaps.

11

So Earth was complaining to mars, “ I have this terrible rash that has spread all over my surface.”
Mars replies “looks like a human infestation, It will clear itself out in a couple thousand years or so.”

12

Main Entry: 1whore
Pronunciation: 'hOr, 'hor, 'hur
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hore, from Old English hOre; akin to Old Norse hOra whore, hOrr adulterer, Latin carus dear
1 : a woman who engages in sexual acts for money : PROSTITUTE; also : a promiscuous or immoral woman
2 : a male who engages in sexual acts for money
3 : a venal or unscrupulous person

So, if most gay men in the US are being paid for gay sex, who is paying them?

13

I know lots of gay men who sleep with anything that breathes and has a penis. In trying to escape their family’s and the world’s rejection, far too many gay men turn to sex and drugs and it becomes a way of life. I know hundreds (literally) of gay men who virtually live in bars, swallow pills like candy, and drink till almost dead and have bathroom sex five times a day or more. Gay kids grow up thinking this is how the normal state of affairs in their lives should be. It’s an epidemic, really.

While it’s certainy true that gay men may be promiscuous, a LOT of straight folks (guys and gals) are just as much.

True to an extent - gay people have more to deal with in terms of their sexuality and that’s why such self-destructive behaviour is more common, percentage-wise (of course you’ll find more of the problems listed in straight people simply because there are more straight people).

14

I think one problem is that a lot of gay men aren’t willing to settle down because, let’s face it, if mom and pop don’t like the fact that you’re gay, you’re not really going to be willing to bring home the love of your life to meet them. It’s a shame really.

15

…and that fact is relevant to this discussion because..? Cran was talking about gay men; what do straight people have to do with that?

But since you bring it up, my unquantified belief is that MEN in general are horn-dogs willing to sleep with any person at any time. Women, the more cautious sex, balance our horn-doggishness out, but when you take women out of the equation, there’s nothing to temper the horn-dog.

16

Very true. I don’t know if it’s just being willing but also able. Meaning, men are also more able to have sex without emotional attachment.

17

I agree - we as a whole society, gay or straight, are entirely too promiscuous. We have yet to figure out that the costs far outweigh the apparent “benefits”. Of course, besides disease, this breeds infidelity and divorce in every strata of the society. Too many people allow themselves to be used for other’s “pleasure”, and we still value “pleasure” more than we value people.

Sad.