AIDS vaccine available all along.

[TalkingDog]

Since the 1700's as a matter of fact.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051805152.html


Laboratory tests suggested that immunity to smallpox triggered by the smallpox vaccine can inhibit the replication of the AIDS virus, the researchers said in the journal BMC Immunology.

Such vaccination could have kept HIV transmission partially under control in the early days of the outbreak, which is thought to have begun in the 1950s, but withdrawal of the smallpox vaccine, called vaccinia, starting at about the same time might have freed HIV to spread unfettered, the researchers said.

[BunkerHill24]

1. I will have to send this off to; "conspiracy thoarists....out in south Africa"

[Deep13]

2. Suppose we find that smallpox vaccine really will stop HIV. ...

The question then would be, "Is it worth the risk of letting smallpox out of the freezer to make the vaccine?" I really don't know the answer. Considering how virulent, contagious and lethal smallpox is, I rather doubt it.

It may be a moot point, however, since testing the vaccine to see if it works against HIV would necessarily involve doing just that.

[Lance_Boyle]

5. The smallpox vaccine is still produced and is readily available.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/facts.asp

No need to bother with any live stuff. But even if it was required to do so, the benefit would FAR outweigh the risk. Labs are equipped to handle these pathogens.

[Deep13]

6. Glad to learn that. nt

[Ian David]

3. The results are preliminary and it is "far too soon to recommend ...

It probably works by giving the AIDS virus Autism. :sarcasm:

The results are preliminary and it is "far too soon to recommend the general use of vaccinia immunization for fighting HIV," said one of the researchers, Raymond S. Weinstein of the biodefense program at George Mason University's Prince William campus in Manassas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051805152.html

Still, it's worth looking into and studying further, of course.

[HuckleB]

12. +1

[HillbillyBob]

4. One problem

I am pos have been since about 81 or 2 and also had small pox shot in late 81. Normal progression etc up to 94 when I had several very serious opportunistic infections that nearly did me in.

[Deep13]

7. Damn!

:-(

[jberryhill]

8. The suggestion is not that smallpox vaccine conferred absolute immunity

I'm utterly unqualified to comment on the science here, but the suggestion is that smallpox vaccination may have inhibited replication to some extent, and not have conferred total immunity.

[TalkingDog]

9. And if I had said small pox vaccines have the potential to inhibit the virus

would more than 2 people have even looked? Headlines: short, snappy and "sexy". I'm not a journalist, hence under no compunction to provide utterly factual lead ins.

[gleaner]

10. Maybe you have no obligation to provide "utterly factual"

lead ins, but if you gain a reputation for providing misleading information then you run the risk of no one looking. I don't know if the smallpox vaccine can lower the rate of viral shedding in HIV, but I am of an age where it was routine to give smallpox vaccines in school and it has some very nasty side effects.

I have MS which I know is unrelated to the vaccine, but bear with me for a minute. People with MS have been told that "causative factors" from measles to epstein barr to pollution to a genetic weakness or perhaps all of those taken together are responsible. The initial studies looked promising, but panned out. Other studies suggested that injecting us with bee venom would be curative. In the people who accepted the bee venom, it wasn't. I may never know what causes my MS, but I have tried enough remedies where I have been told that it "may" work only to have it do more damage that I won't try them anymore. I hope your study is right, but it is just that; a study. It needs follow up and proof before putting people at risk.

HIV may go much further back than the 50s. Read an account of the symptoms of the illness of the Emperor Tiberius when he self exiled himself to Capri. It is eerily like the physical symptoms of full blown AIDS. There was also a boy in New York in either the 40s or early 50s whose symptoms matched full blown AIDS. The doctors were mystified but they took slides and kept blood samples from him taken before he died. Sure enough when they were finally able to test for it, the boy's samples tested positive. The doctors did echo your theory that perhaps there were not enough people who lacked antibodies or resistance to the virus for the disease to have spread rapidly then. That was obviously not the case until the 80s. Something had changed with a vengeance.

[jberryhill]

11. Get Free Beer And Sex By Reading This Subthread

That oughtta work.