Posted on 02/16/2005 5:19:12 AM PST by Mother Abigail
Super-potent HIV strain identified in San Diego man
By Sun news services
February 16, 2005
An unidentified San Diego resident may be infected with the same rare, aggressive and highly drug-resistant strain of HIV found last week in a New York City man who has rapidly become ill with AIDS, health officials said.
The finding was reported in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
"(The local person's) HIV has a similar molecular makeup as the patient in New York City," said Dr. Nancy Bowen, the San Diego County public health officer who held a press conference about the finding Tuesday afternoon in San Diego.
It's important to notify the public about a new and possibly supervigorous strain of HIV so people can take extra precautions, Bowen said. But "I don't think it will do anybody any good to get panicked about this," she said, emphasizing that many details are still being sorted out.
Several AIDS specialists said it was odd to see public-health officials sound such widespread alarm after only one person became sick. They questioned whether the virus is truly a lethal variety, or whether the New York patient's immune system, extensive use of methamphetamines and genetic makeup might be contributing factors to his rapidly deteriorating condition.
But public health agencies and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the announcement was necessary because they haven't seen an HIV strain that becomes drug-resistant and progresses to AIDS so quickly, as in the case of the New York man.
Bowen urged people who think they might be infected with HIV to get tested. If infection is confirmed, the individuals should visit a doctor and request a second blood test to determine what genetic strain of the virus they might have.
The AIDS virus mutates regularly, changing its molecular structure over time, so blood testing is normally done to make sure each patient's genetic strain is vulnerable to anti-viral drugs being prescribed. If the strain isn't vulnerable, doctors must find other medications.
Bowen said the San Diego resident tested positive for the rare HIV strain last fall -- after the patient's health provider sent a sample of his or her blood to ViroLogic, an HIV typing reference laboratory in Northern California.
There was no alarm until the New York City man recently became ill and was found to have a molecular strain resistant to virtually all anti-viral drugs. His case prompted public health officials nationwide to check with the reference lab for a similar strain among other HIV patients.
The reference lab's database then linked the New York strain to that of the San Diego person and an unidentified New York City resident.
Researchers don't know yet whether the New York and San Diego strains are an exact match, Bowen said. They also haven't determined if the three individuals know one another. It will take at least a week to decide if the HIV strains are identical, said Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan.
Federal and California health officials are trying to locate the San Diego resident through the reference laboratory, find his or her doctor and ultimately get in touch with the infected person. They want to see if this individual is ill, to conduct further testing and to notify sexual partners who may be at risk of contracting HIV.
If the person was tested under anonymous conditions, in which a name is not given, it could be impossible to locate his or her whereabouts. The patient also may have moved away from San Diego or died.
Health officials said the New York patient reportedly had unsafe anal sex with hundreds of partners while taking crystal methamphetamine. The drug's stimulating effect and erasure of inhibitions contribute to sex marathons that have increased the spread of HIV, they explained.
Medical investigators believe that the New York patient found some of his partners on an Internet Web site. They are working with men who used the site to reach as many people as possible who might have been infected or are worried about the risk.
One,
Two,
Three,
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Poor deviant.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, how special. No sympathy here, fellas. You reap what you sow. Buh-bye.
The more of them that croak, the LESS votes for the DIMS, and more natural resources for the rest of us.
A few more details.
New York man stirs up hornets nest and complains of stinging insects.
degenerate prose at its finest
Not good that it's on completely opposite coasts....
Exactly.
Thanks.
No doubt, the Gay Rights morons will still be trying to foist a bunch of bogus lies that gays are okay, it's genetic, etc, on the rest of us.
Nasty.
It's important to notify the public [BUT NOT QUARANTINE THE DISEASE CARRYING PERSON1] about a new and possibly supervigorous strain of HIV so people can take extra precautions, Bowen said. But "I don't think it will do anybody any good to get panicked about this," she said, emphasizing that many details are still being sorted out.
Several AIDS specialists [READ: HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS] said it was odd to see public-health officials sound such widespread alarm after only one person [READ: OBJECT TO TAKING STANDARD PUBLIC HEALTH PRECAUTIONS, I.E., QUARANTINE] became sick. They questioned whether the virus is truly a lethal variety, or whether the New York patient's immune system, extensive use of methamphetamines and genetic makeup might be contributing factors to his rapidly deteriorating condition.
AIDs activists will insure that mothing useful is done to protect the public, and nothing done to control this version of the epidemic. And that will in fact be deadly for homosexuals, as well as disasterous health policy for the US.
Yeah, you don't want to get the SooperAIDS, which will kill ya', unlike regular AIDS, which will kill ya'.
Dr. Gregory Robbins, an infectious-disease expert at Massachusetts General Hospital, said doctors there have treated several HIV patients in recent years with early resistance to two of the four drugs most commonly prescribed to treat infection
"There is global concern that there may be an increasing amount of patients who have a resistant virus," Robbins said.
Sunday night, health authorities in New York said that two more possible cases are being investigated.
Blood samples are being tested and it could be several days before it is determined if the two new cases are linked to the original New York one.
Drug resistance is increasingly common among HIV-positive people, but not with such a fast progression to AIDS, said Ron Valdiserri of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said public health officials have not confirmed any other similar cases.
There goes the neighborhood...
Good luck. They may have exchanged fluids, but never exchanged names.
NOW can we use basic public health measures, after 20 years of refusing to use basic disease prevention science?
Maybe this is finally "it." Maybe this is finally the end of the gays, or at least the endlessly promiscuous ones.
The guy is showing up as positive on the notoriously non-specific serological HIV tests because drug-induced immunosupression produces a false positive on serological tests, especially ELISA or WB.
The guy is ill due to drug-induced immunosupression. If he's doing what I think he's doing, he's on poppers as well for, er, anal facilitation. But anyway, meth is enough to make you "ill". Hell, the *treatment* for HIV will make you ill - it killed 50,000 americans during the AZT era. No virus need apply.
And finally, the new "SuperDuper HIV". Yet more hysterical garbage from the multi-billion dollar AIDs industry, that never managed to isolate HIV in the first place.
It's been twenty years now, and all they have is colour photos of obvious non-isolates with hopefully-labelled arrows pointing to black blobs. No isolation. No replication. No re-isolation from infected tissue. No particles with exogenous character (e.g. GP 120 spikes).
Instead, researchers with a low, low standard of isolation are finding rogue nucleics in mitogenic cultures (which is like finding white stuff in milk) and claiming to have found new, deadly strains of HIV. Sweet Jesus.
I know it's early, but I nominate this statement for "Unintentional Parody of the Day."
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