HIV/AIDS
sa smith | July 3, 2008Lots of people have been emailing me about this article, currently rotating through the usual science news outlets:
Science DailyNew ScientistWIREDSlashdot
*sigh*
Look, guys, I am obnoxiously optimistic about the future of HIV/AIDS. I have no doubts about our ability to one day make HIV/AIDS a distant nightmare, like polio or the plague.
And I also have no qualms with the paper these articles are based on, Establishment of HIV-1 resistance in CD4(+) T cells by genome editing using zinc-finger nucleases. Its neat! Yay!
But let me dump a big bucket of ice cold realism on the press release…
sa smith | June 30, 2008While those of us here in the US can have a grand 'ol time loling over wackaloon HIV-Deniers, not everyone on this planet shares that luxury.
There are places on this planet where woo is in control. The person with the political power to give or withhold life saving anti-retrovirals, doesnt believe they work.
She believes in magic.
The health minister in South Africa, where 1 in 5 adults is infected with HIV-1, believes that garlic, beet root, and glittery pixie dust, will 'cure' HIV-1 infections.
Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been allowing (and potentially having a hand in actively covering…
sa smith | June 8, 2008I dont think science/medicine journalism will ever catch up with 'clergy/ministry/missionary' for the title of 'most useless profession', but man, some days theyre certainly giving the Godbots a run for their money.
I opened up Google News this morning and checked out my 'HIV' category, and found this wonderful, educational article:
Global AIDS epidemic is a myth admit world experts
Starting with the title, there are so many erroneous conclusions in this article, I dont know what to call it. Its not 'news'-- Its like a chimera of 'news', white noise, and a Denyse O'Leary word salad.
... I…
sa smith | May 31, 2008So almost exactly a year ago, Michael 'LiLo' Behe released his prized pig book, 'Edge of Evolution', where he stated, with utmost certainty, that HIV-1 'has not evolved'.
Yeah, that hasnt worked out too well for him.
Anyway, unlike Ivory Handed Creationists who dont lower themselves to doing anything as dirty as 'research', scientists have kept busy seeking out new proteins within our own bodies to explain some weird evolution in the Vpu gene of HIV-1. Turns out there is a component of the innate immune system that we didnt even know existed before we followed the trail of Vpus 'unimpressive…
sa smith | May 29, 2008If youll recall one of my first posts on SciBlogs, I urged everyone not to give up on an HIV-1 vaccine. Ya, we are sucking right now, but if we can get over our 'AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!' response to HIV-1, refocus on the basic virology of HIV-1, we can get this mo-fo.
The first step in the right direction was a paper published a couple days ago in PNAS:
Identification and characterization of transmitted and early founder virus envelopes in primary HIV-1 infection
If youre wondering about who the gawds are in HIV-1 research, just look at the last three names on this paper: Bette Korber,…
sa smith | May 26, 2008Thanks to everyone who sent me links to a new article so neat it got Slashdotted:
Imaging the biogenesis of individual HIV-1 virions in living cells
Researchers tagged a major structural protein of HIV-1 called 'Gag'** with a fluorescent protein. If you only put the instructions for Gag into cells (just the instructions, not any other HIV-1 proteins) lots and lots of Gags will get together to spontaneously form empty (and non-infectious) virions. This doesnt just happen with HIV-1-- lots of retroviruses, you can just give cells instructions for various Gag genes, and dummy 'viruses' will…
sa smith | May 26, 2008This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!
I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as 'directors cut' posts ;)
Poor Behe. Its a hard-knock life, for kooks. Another HIV-1 paper came out today that utilized the evolution of Vpu to make their experiments work better. So I thought Id better move this post over so you all could enjoy it again :)
August 2, 2007, over six months ago, I wrote…
sa smith | May 23, 2008I cant take this, guys. I cant take this anymore. Im physically ill from laughing so hard over the past couple of days, and THEYRE STILL GOING AT IT!
Duesberg was back on that radio show again this morning, fighting by himself.
I have a years worth of blog fodder in the 30 minutes Duesberg gets to talk (host jabbers the first 20-25 minutes, but still funny, LOTS more commercials). If you have time to listen and have specific Qs, leave a comment and Ill get you an answer! But I will be trudging this new river of sludge, panning for educational HIV-1 posts, so THANKS Duesberg! **THUMBS UP…
sa smith | May 22, 2008AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Will update later, just finished listening to the 'debate' between HIV Conspiracy Theorist Lenny Baby, and HIV-doesnt-exist Dramatic Duesberg.
Will add real comments and hopefully an mp3 tonight, but OMFG THIS WAS THE BEST DEBATE EVER!!! OMG!!! OMG!!! AAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE MP3! THE MP3, GUYS! START LISTENING AT THE 6:30 MINUTE MARK AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!Now updated below the fold!
This 'debate' was pretty much exactly what I expected. Having 'debated' Horowitz in the past, I wasnt surprised he…
sa smith | May 21, 2008OMG YOU GUYS.
OMG.
IM SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS!
Sometime, tomorrow, they say at '11' in the morning (Central Time? Mountain Time? Moon Man Time?), there is going to be a Denier fight between my HIV boyfriend Lenny Horowitz, and creepy Uncle Duesburg.
O.M.G.
Im still unclear about all the details that lead up to this epic battle, but heres the deal-- Peter Barry Chowka, investigatory journalist, aka HIV Denier, was all excited over the Rev Wright-Horowitz thing giving HIV Deniers free PR again.
... But he was only half excited. You see, there has always been a schism within the Denier community:…
sa smith | May 14, 2008So Bush is trying to do something good. Kind of. He established a fund in 2003 called 'PEPFAR' to pledge funds to Africa to help fight HIV/AIDS. Of course there are lots of strings attached, like ABSTINENCE ONLY education WHOOOO!!! *rolleyes* But whatever. Hes a Republican theotard-- and I suppose its the best he is capable of.
Well, PEPFAR is set to run out in 2008. Its up for renewal. It has nearly complete bipartisan support because its a 'Duh' issue. Its like putting "Chocolate is yummy" up for debate on the senate floor. Duh chocolate is yummy. Duh we need to help Africa deal…
sa smith | May 8, 2008I was really mad this morning. I glanced at my new issue of Discover, and noticed yet another article glorifying HIV Deniers. Its not online yet, but its a seven page spread on Peter Duesberg.
So I brought it to work with me so everyone had to vomit as much as I did. They changed my perspective a bit.
First, Im still mad, but Im not as mad. I dont think they are glorifying him-- I think theyre playing to the 'fair and balanced all sides' game that 'journalists' think is so clever these days, which is still pathetic.
On the one hand, Jeanne Lenzer plays off of EXPELLEDs theme. You could…
sa smith | May 8, 2008This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!
I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as 'directors cut' posts ;)
I like to make fun of how crappy traditional media has become as much as the next person, but I also hate it when people complain about how bad something is, without offering positive, constructive criticism. Examples of what is right, so the offending parties can improve…
sa smith | May 6, 2008You all need to email bomb CNN.
My HIV Denier boyfriend, Leonard 'CALL ME DOCTOR OR IM HANGING UP' Horowitz was scheduled to be on CNN earlier this week (he got bumped, but still).
How did he receive such an honor with his flat, man-like, boobless chest??
Turns out Obamas choice of crazy sky-god-medium, Rev Wright, is a HUGE fan of Horowitzs, and has had no problem spitting in the face of every HIV researcher on the planet.
MODERATOR: In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe…
sa smith | May 6, 2008This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!
I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as 'directors cut' posts ;)
The beast... he has reemerged...
Heres the link to the debate (Thank you Reggie!!)
Yay! I finally feel better! Turns out I had a freak combination of a cold and allergies. So a few puffs of Flonase and a Claritin perked me right back up! Finally! So heres my pov from the '…
sa smith | May 1, 2008This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!
I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as 'directors cut' posts ;)
Last summer, when Behe released his tome-of-TARD 'Edge of Evolution', I had absolutely no intention of reading it. If Dude had anything to say, he would publish it. But I kept hearing from friends that he was saying some crazy stuff about HIV.
He was.
I corrected him.
There is…
sa smith | April 29, 2008No.
But if you read last weeks article in The Independent on HIV-1 vaccine research, you might think otherwise.
Here are my answers to The Independents questions. I have the luxury of answering these questions with more than a check mark, but be advised that my answers are tainted with the arrogance of youth, the benefit of hindsight, and obnoxiously high levels of optimism :P
1. Are you more or less optimistic about the prospects of an HIV vaccine compared to a year ago?
OMG MOAR! This time last year I was so discouraged. This project Im working on for my PhD-- it might help lead to an…
scientificactivist | February 11, 2008The New York Times reported yesterday that "scientists find new receptor for HIV," referring to a paper published online in Nature Immunology on Sunday by Arthos et al. This is basically correct, although it would be more accurate to call the new receptor a co-receptor, since the infection of a cell with HIV still depends on the primary receptor, CD4, in combination with either CCR5 or CXCR4. The newly-identified co-receptor, just like the other HIV receptors, is a protein located on the surface of white blood cells (T-cells, specifically). HIV, like any other virus, can only replicate…
scientificactivist | February 5, 2008A few interesting items have recently come up in the news and in the scientific literature about various methods for preventing the transmission of HIV.
First up is a study (1) published in PLoS Medicine this week that demonstrated the effectiveness of a combination of antiretroviral drugs in preventing viral transmission in a monkey model of HIV. The researchers demonstrated that taking the antiretroviral drug emtricitabine (FTC) orally could reduce the chance that a macaque would become infected. Adding tenofovir-disoproxil fumarate (TDF) increased protection, and injecting both drugs (…
scientificactivist | September 13, 2007There's been quite a bit of blogging lately about HIV denialism, so I thought I would take this opportunity to write a little bit about HIV denialism in South Africa--a subject that gets mentioned pretty often is rarely discussed in much detail. I spoke about this topic in my talk on Wednesday, though, because it serves as a nice lesson in the importance of not looking at certain problems too simplistically. The following--an excerpt--is a basic introduction to Thabo Mbeki's HIV denialism based on what I've learned traveling in South Africa and talking to a variety of people who study the…