Free Republic

t’s the holy grail of HIV and AIDS research: the search for a cure for the virus that attacks the immune system, allowing life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Significant strides have been made with pharmaceutical drugs – antiretrovirals – that help those diagnosed as HIV positive to manage their condition, and live longer, healthier lives. But so far, a cure has proved elusive. Now French scientists believe they have uncovered the genetic path by which two men were spontaneously cured of the HI virus. They believe it’s an exciting discovery which could offer a new strategy in the...

How does that work? When I think of an epidemic being "fueled," I think of what is causing the epidemic. In the case of AIDS, it is not caused by "stigma," "violence" unless that violence involves something physical that would pass on the HIV virus, or "indifference" unless a person chooses to be indifferent to the danger of the disease.John was speaking at a conference.  Science and money would not be enough to beat the epidemic, he said: "We need love. If that word makes you a bit uneasy – if you associate it with Disney and schmaltz, let's call...

Since the HIV virus was discovered 30 years ago this week, 30 million people have died from the disease, and it continues to spread at the rate of 7,000 people per day globally, the UN says. There's not much good news when it comes to this devastating disease. But that is perhaps why the story of the man scientists call the "Berlin patient" is so remarkable and has generated so much excitement among the HIV advocacy community. Timothy Ray Brown suffered from both leukemia and HIV when he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in Berlin, Germany in 2007....

A Foley physician said what appears to be the first case of HIV/AIDS cure in the world is getting little mention in the media. Dr. Awadhesh K. Gupta, medical director at Foley Walk-In Med Care, said he first heard of the medical breakthrough in April when he attended the Annual Conference of the American College of Physicians in Internal Medicine in Philadelphia. It’s a conference Gupta tries to attend every year. “This is the most prestigious organization of physicians in Internal Medicine and is responsible for certifying post graduate training in Internal Medicine. It is also one of the oldest,”...