Doctors May Have Found a Way to Destroy HIV

I am a couple days late in writing this post but as I often do, I bookmarked the story when I first saw it so that I could come back an write something about it. Having lived in Houston some years back, I am familiar with the incredible health care facility often simply referred to as "the medical complex". Thus, while surprised at the wonder of this possible discovery, I wasn't too surprised to see that the discovery came out of the Houston medical complex and related University of Texas Medical School at Houston. Despite the state's many faults, Texans think big and routinely set out to do the impossible without thinking twice.

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Like many people, before I came out and got to know members of the LGBT community, I had a very inaccurate understanding of HIV and all the nightmare that goes with it. I now have a number of friends who are positive and always have to live in fear that what has been managed to date might slip out of control and end their lives. I cannot imagine living with that burden and I hope and pray that the new discoveries lead to a cure and ultimately a vaccine. Besides improving and saving countless lives, an added side effect of a cure would be to deprive our enemies of a weapon to use to depict gays as diseased and plague ridden (all too typically they conveniently ignore all the heterosexuals around the world suffering from HIV and AIDS) . Having realized better the common humanity that we all share (coming out has exposed me to much that I'd never have seen in my safe artificial former neighborhood), I am increasing working to help HIV and AIDS related charities - in, fact, I am going to a fund raiser shortly. In any event, here are some story highlights from KVUE-TV:

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HOUSTON -- There is real hope that what’s happening in a Houston lab might lead to a cure for HIV. “We have found an innovative way to kill the virus by finding this small region of HIV that is unchangeable,” Dr. Sudhir Paul of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston said. Dr. Paul and Dr. Miguel Escobar aren’t talking about just suppressing HIV – they’re talking about destroying it permanently by arming the immune system with a new weapon lab tests have shown to be effective.

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That Achilles heel is the doctors’ way in. They take advantage of it with something called an abzyme. It’s naturally produced by people, like lupus patients. When they applied that abzyme to the HIV virus, it permanently disarmed it. “What we already have in our hand are the abzymes that we could be infusing into the human subjects with HIV infection, essentially to move the virus,” Paul said.

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Basically, their idea could be used to control the disease for people who already have it and prevent infection for those at risk. The theory has held up in lab and animal testing. The next step is human trials.

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“This is the holy grail of HIV research, to develop a preventative vaccine,” Paul said. “If we can get the viral loads down to a manageable level, that will preclude the need for these conventional drugs,” Escobar said. Still, even if everything goes well, it’s at least five years before the research could help people with HIV.