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They Did What??

Scientists studying the AIDS virus always had trouble with testing vaccines because the human HIV virus won't replicate in monkey cells and treatments that work on the monkey version of HIV (called SIV) doesn't always work on the human version.

So what was their brilliant plan? Tweaking the DNA of the virus so that it can replicate vigorously in both human and simian cells. Excuse me? Is it just me or does that sound like one of the worst things they could possibly do? Was the previous form of HIV not replicating fast enough for them? Now we have a virus that can replicate even faster. Wonderful. Brilliant.

They isolated the proteins in simian cells that normally recognize and mutate HIV and either found a way to trick the proteins or destroy them so they wouldn't interfere with HIV production. If there are proteines that can mutate HIV so that it can't survive, why they hell weren't they working on a way to turn that into a cure instead of finding ways to neutralize it?

So now we have HIV, SIV, and stHIV. Having read the very first pages of Steven King's The Stand, i have to say i'm not exactly feeling any better now that they've made this "breakthrough". Jerks.

By min | October 18, 2006, 8:55 AM | Science


Comments

Oh please. No one's going to remember this HIV thing when the imminent nuclear war with North Korea unleashes the armageddon that all the nut jobs have been talking about since 1999. Good god, I can't believe the lengths people will go to in order to validate their prophecies. They just HAVE to be right, even if it kills everything on the planet.

Oh, I'm sorry, its Nukular, not Nuclear. My bad.

Yay, we're doomed!

lovely..