Mutant HIV Wave Threatens Decades of Drug Progress, Study Finds

[swag]

Source: Bloomberg

By Simeon Bennett

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- A wave of drug-resistant HIV emerging in the U.S. threatens to undermine progress made in treating patients in poor countries, a study published online by the journal Science found.

About 60 percent of drug-resistant HIV strains circulating in San Francisco can spur self-sustaining epidemics as patients who haven’t been treated spread them, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles said in the study. About 75 percent of those strains are impervious to a class of drugs that includes those made by Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., they said.

The mutant strains may reverse progress made in expanding treatment programs in poorer nations such as South Africa, where there is little access to back-up medicines when resistance occurs, researchers led by Sally Blower at the university’s Center for Biomedical Modeling said. Patients in developed countries are less likely to suffer because they have better access to alternative treatments, they said.

“If the resistant strains we have identified in our analyses evolve in these countries, they could significantly compromise HIV treatment programs,” Blower and colleagues wrote. Mutant forms circulating in San Francisco and other rich cities “pose a great and immediate threat to global public health,” they said.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a0qEfj4bRpYc

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[SoapBox]

2. Uh oh...not good news.

[shadowknows69]

3. I wish I wasn't so cynical that when I read things like this.

My big pharma tin-foil hat goes off. It's always more profitable to treat a disease than to cure it.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Viruses evolve, and that means drug-resistant strains evolve

There's no reason to assume deliberate human manipulation.

[shadowknows69]

5. That's why its a tin-foil theory.But I still do automatically.

[TZ]

8. I'm tired of this bullshit myth

My Big Pharma company is working on cancer tumor destroying antibodies. Sure sounds like a cure to me.
Also working on new treatments so people with chronic conditions like Lupus or Asthma can go from daily or monthly treatments to once every 3-6 months. Hmmm. Decreasing the amount of treatment needed. Where's the profit in that...:sarcasm:

[Hugabear]

6. It's not just HIV - other viruses are mutating as well

Malaria, tuberculosis, and others are mutating into drug-resistant varieties

[mike_c]

7. with all due respect....

Malaria is a plasmodium, TB is bacterial. Neither is viral.

[Hugabear]

9. Point taken, but both diseases are mutating into drug-resistant forms

n/t