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HIV immunity may stem from ancient smallpox
Gannett News Service via The Arizona Republic ^
| Feb. 20, 2004 12:00 AM
| Randy Dotinga
Posted on 02/20/2004 5:25:29 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
Edited on 05/07/2004 5:22:17 PM PDT by Jim Robinson.
[history]
New research provides more evidence that the smallpox pandemics of the Middle Ages - not the plague - left generations of people with a rare genetic defect that protects them against infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The findings don't appear likely to help doctors develop better AIDS treatments. But if the mutations do turn out to provide immunity from smallpox along with AIDS, that knowledge may help bioterrorism prevention efforts, says study co-author Dr. Donald Mosier.
(Excerpt) Read more at azcentral.com ...
TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: bioterrorism; biowarfare; crevolist; evolution; hiv; smallpox; vaccines; wmd
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To: CobaltBlue
HIV virus causing AIDS in Africa is very different from the HIV virus in the US.
Well, there are some subtypes with minor differences.
41
posted on
02/22/2004 2:46:59 PM PST
by
AdmSmith
To: muawiyah
Does this explain how Santa Claus flies? The reindeer eat amanita muscaria?
To: Ichneumon
To: AdmSmith
Different enough that a vaccine for one probably won't work on the others.
To: CobaltBlue
Because dying of diarrhea and emaciation wasn't so remarkable in the past? I'm sure that's true, but "pre-1978" takes in a lot of post-Renaissance medicine. The "recent African origin" hypothesis seems a best fit to me.
For that matter, what happened to SARS? Where did it come from? Where did it go?
It's still in the civet cats and those funny Chinese "exotic" meat markets. They found at least one other case in recent months.
To: Ichneumon
Less diverse than chimps.
I may be extrapolating wildly in claiming we're "one of the least diverse animal species" given that so few have been sequenced. Given the recent bottleneck in our history, however, I'd be surprised if we aren't pretty low on the scale.
To: CobaltBlue
There are two genetically distinct types of HIV, HIV-1 and HIV-2. The two types are about 15-30% different at the DNA level. Both strains cause AIDS, although HIV-1 appears to be more virulent than HIV-2. There is some evidence that infection with HIV-2 may help protect against subsequent infection with the more virulent HIV-1. Epidemiologically, HIV-1 has spread around the world, while HIV-2 is mostly restricted to western Africa.
http://www.bioquest.org:16080/bedrock/problem_spaces/hiv/background.php I am not updated on recent progress on vaccines, but some years ago the problem was to find a vaccine that would produce significant numbers of memory T lymphocytes, which are important in killing an infection. I do not think that the efficacy of a future vaccine would be different for the subtypes of HIV-1.
47
posted on
02/22/2004 3:16:08 PM PST
by
AdmSmith
To: AdmSmith
I would add that since HIV-2 may help protect against subsequent infection with the more virulent HIV-1, then ther is a hope for a vaccine.
48
posted on
02/22/2004 3:23:28 PM PST
by
AdmSmith
To: CobaltBlue
Actually, the reindeer are thought to fly by the USERS.
No one knows if reindeer really fly and the reindeer aren't talking, but all these folks, and their cirtters, are portrayed with red noses!
"Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell Rock, dancing and prancing......" was written by Bobby Helms. He wrote a special arrangement for Johnny Cash. Bobby lived very near Mooresville, Indiana, the veritable "buckle" on the Church of the First Born "belt". These folks carry on the practices and traditions of their primitive Norwegian ancestors, right down to rejecting doctors!
Many conclusions may be drawn.
49
posted on
02/22/2004 4:03:51 PM PST
by
muawiyah
To: AdmSmith
HIV-2 has a very different progression than HIV-1 - a prolonged asymptomatic period, and it appears to different receptors. It's widely reported to be "less virulent" - which may indicate that Africans have been exposed to it in the past and "developed immunity" - that is, the non-immune ones died out already. I don't think it conveys immunity to HIV-1.
To: muawiyah
Many conclusions may be drawn. I like that way of putting it. ;^)
To: Chris Talk
IIRC, it also has some ties to the Rh negative blood characteristic. It's a mutated CD4 receptor - on the T-cells
52
posted on
02/22/2004 4:30:31 PM PST
by
realpatriot71
("But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise . . ." (I Cor. 1:27))
To: CobaltBlue
BTW, you want to "draw" some strange conclusions, take a good look at Walt Disney's characters, most particularly the ones in "Fantasia".
He had a Great Grandpa Keppel Disney. Without knowing more than two things, that "Keppel" is a name that does, in fact, appear among the Saami dwarves, and "Keppel" is the name of a mountain in Norway that carries a heavy burden of the Little Red Man (Amanita Muscaria) in season, you could be forgiven if you came up with the thought that Uncle Walt knew some stuff, eh?! (Then, there's amanita muscaria - is this Mini Mouse in a cute red dress filled with white dots just like that mushroom ?
53
posted on
02/22/2004 4:43:57 PM PST
by
muawiyah
To: muawiyah; jennyp; AdmSmith; VadeRetro
Speaking of drawing strange conclusions, try this on for size:
HIV-1 is thought to be a zoonosis man got from the chimpanzee(actually chimpanzees get an SIV which is closely related to HIV-1, but not actually HIV-1 while HIV-2 is thought to be a zoonosis man got from the sooty mangabey (again, an SIV which isn't exactly the same as HIV-2). Chimpanzees don't get the SIV which is closely related to HIV-2, while sooty mangabeys don't get the SIV which is closely related to HIV-1.
HIV-2 probably appeared in man circa 1940, HIV-1 probably appeared in man circa 1950-1960.
Why would two such different diseases appear in the same host at about the same time and place?
One hypothesis: dirty needles. But that begs the question of origin. This article hypothesizes that viruses humans infected with SIV recombined into HIV - which would probably mean that the SIV precursors of HIV-1 recombined into HIV-1, while the SIV precursors of HIV-2 recombined into HIV-2 but that still leaves the very strange coincidence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11405938&dopt=Abstract And what about the Norwegian sailor infected with HIV-1 prior to 1971?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9468138&dopt=Abstract
To: CobaltBlue
Whalers?
55
posted on
02/22/2004 5:27:26 PM PST
by
muawiyah
To: Paleo Conservative
HIV, mushrooms, plague, dwarfism, hallucinogenics, vaccination, etc.
I nominate this thread as the most Biomedically Diverse Thread (within 50 posts) in all Freeperdom.
To: CobaltBlue
Multiple phylogenetic analyses not only authenticate this case as the oldest known HIV-1 infection, but also place its viral sequence near the ancestral node of subtypes B and D in the major group, indicating that these HIV-1 subtypes, and perhaps all major-group viruses, may have evolved from a single introduction into the African population not long before 1959.
If this stuff had been in the human population for as long as you've been saying, we'd have strains out the wazoo and phylogentic analyses wouldn't point to a recent introduction to humans.
To: VadeRetro
My theory - which is only a WAG - is that some strain of SIV or HIV was pandemic among the ancestors of European humans a very, very long time ago, which explains the 15% heterozygous prevalence of the CCR-5 Delta 32 deletion in Europeans better than smallpox or plague.
To: muawiyah
Vikings - so far the highest prevalence of CCR-5 Delta 32 deletion is among Scandinavians - although it would seem that Saami haven't been studied.
To: CobaltBlue
The Swedes in recent years have been into ignorning the Saami differences ~ that's probably so they can steal their land easier.
60
posted on
02/22/2004 5:54:16 PM PST
by
muawiyah
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