http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/swine.flu/

hope this doesnt spread

Kenny saw it coming

Some very smart and talented people are working on this, I don't see it going far.

Hey!

Hey.

Remember that thing about bird flu?

Yeah.

In Mexico? Surely you jest.

Maybe it pays to be jewish.

It's crossed the border, do you think the CDC is just ignoring this?

Oh, kind of like aids?

Ooooh, CommunicableDiseaseGodwin'd

HIV is controlled pretty damn well, FYI, as far preventing progression to AIDS via proper therapy (Read: HAART). We have come a long way, much father than I think you appreciate.

Also, for all medical intents and purposes, you can cure HIV with a bone marrow transplant, with marrow that has cells lacking the receptors for HIV to actually get in the cell (it has been done before). If it weren't for the fact that bone marrow transplant is not exactly a walk in the park, you could call HIV an imminently curable disease.

So your point is actually completely invalid in implying that the prevalence of AIDS has been unaffected by years of research.

Also, it's nonsensical, as they spread via different routes. That's like comparing TB to gonorrhea. The more I think of your comparison, the more it chafes because it's apples and oranges. And you aren't talking about a pathogen, you're talking about a complication of it. I could go on, but yeah.

I'm with Tony.

Whatever happened to our Avian Flu Pandemic damnit!

Does this disease turn people into zombies?

No?

Not interested.

So you want zombies eh kyle?
C'mere, you and I should have a little talk

A co-worker of mine was recently in Mexico, read this online Friday. I'm keeping my distance

I ate at Taco John's today. I'm like, freakin' out man, freakin' out!

Could stem cells produce bone marrow?

Aids, like cancer is simple.. theres no money in the cure.

i like how some people are saying this could reach pandemic levels, after only killing something like 60 or 70 people so far... and the regular flu still kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Two more cases confirmed in Kansas.

Yes, that's the idea behind HSCTs. You can also harvest cells from umbilical cord blood, which yields slightly different benefits (the matching doesn't have to be as exact), but is relatively newer and has less knowledge/experience behind it.


Kuat: BMTs aren't all THAT uncommon ... they're pretty much the only potential cure for leukemia patients for whom therapy isn't working or who have relapses after remission. They're tough, to be sure, but I think the bigger problem would be finding an A) willing donor who's B) a match AND C) lacks the receptors you're talking about.


Onimusha: There isn't a "cure for cancer" because cancer is not a single disease and the way that various cancers are treated vary greatly -- some treatments for some cancers (e.g. chemo for breast cancer, total body irradiation, etc) can cause other cancers (e.g. leukemia, thymoma, etc) down the line. It's not really as simple as something like an infection where the bad thing is something to get rid of and the cure is a medicine. Cancer is not "incurable" -- it can be cured, but the cure rates for various cancers, again, vary greatly and the primary problem right now isn't that we don't have a way to treat cancer --it's that the side effects of the treatment are both very unpleasant AND may cause MORE cancer.

There has been a tremendous amount of advancement over the past century in cancer research, but face it: cancer is hard to deal with. I can't comment on how profitable cancer research is (by the way, despite 'big pharma,' not ALL medical research is motivated by financial gain ... some people actually do enjoy saving / improving lives and helping people), but even if there was an ample amount of funding, I'd still contend that the primary obstacle is the nature of the various diseases.

Morbidity and mortality are still horrid for transplants, that was my only point.

Also, I'm surprised you responded to Onimusha who's obviously trolling.

And couchman, bone marrow contains stem cells, at least those needed to differentiate into the immune system. Autologous transplant (or generation from your own stored cord blood) wouldn't apply here as it would be yours and thus have the same propensity for infection as before. You'd need somewhere down the line to generate marrow without CCR5, and transplant it anyway, so whether you get marrow directly or one generated later, you'd still have the problem of getting a proper match, as well as the complications of transplant.

The best solution, at least hypothetically, lies in gene therapy, which isn't as much in vouge (and gets inferior funding) to stem cell efforts.

Oh, and I have an issue with this:



in reference to cord blood. As far as I know, the surface antigens present in daughter cells have no reason to be different. Why would matching be less of an issue?

Cord blood is used in allo transplants too -- there's a registry/database/bank and donations and all that (actually, prior to you mentioning it I had always considered allo cord blood transplants to be the norm so thanks for bringing that up). As for why would the matching be less of an issue -- honestly, I don't know. There was a study done at the Hutch center (in Seattle), I think, regarding it -- it has something to do with the level of development of the cells, but again -- I'm not a doctor nor a med school student, so I don't know. I am certain, though, that this is generally considered to be the case as I heard about it from / discussed it with both Hutch and my own doctor (both of these places specialize in BMTs)

Edit: See this page: http://www.marrow.org/PATIENT/Donor_Select_Tx_Process/The_Search_Process/HLA_Matching_Finding_the_Best_/index.html and see the "HLA Matching Requirements". It says



Again, it's pretty vague, but yeah.

Damn you got me before I edited :saddowns:

I forgot that it gets used a lot of between siblings for thallesemia and such.



I'll take your words for it, thanks for the leads. I still can't fathom a mechanism though, unless we're talking about young recipients who don't have a mature immune response. But that's a property of the recipient and not the donor cells.

Edit: I see your edit, and I'll be damned.

Edit 2: On further reading, it's because they are actually suppress the immune response.

Anyway, thanks Pommy, learned something new.

This was the closest thing I could find on google without having to subscribe to scholarly articles

"Since cord blood stem cells are immunologically naïve, these transplants need less strict tissue matching, and importantly cause less severe ..." [graft v host reactions, I'm guessing]

Yes, there is. Not only would the company that did be able to say "We cured AIDS, buy our stuff", but there would be a massive amount of money in a very short time. Thinking that companies, doctors and the entire medical industry is a giant conspiracy to keep cancer patients and AIDS victims down isn't just stupid, it's non-sensical.
This is even stupider then truther bull****.
(Okay im sorry, im sorry, oni was obviously trolling. i just get this **** so goddamn often it pisses me off to no end.)

There is more money in the current status quo.

No, there is not.
If AIDS was cured tommorow then the company that does it is going to get a gigantic amount of money from millions of people in a very short period of time, with the status quo a moderate amount of money goes to many companies over a long period of time.

I expect to cleverly avoid this disease by not being a pig. :downs:

Are you calling the mexicans pigs? You're such a racist pig!

But who am I to judge?

I wasn't focusing on saying there is a cure, more just saying in general if there was, do you think we'd really receive it? Even then I'd be paranoid about some I Am Legend ****.


As for you TE, first off, don't get your painties in a bunch, and secondly, your logic is a bit flawed. Sure, they'll rack alot of money in the first couple of years.. then what? No more drugs to pump into people for years to come. No need = no profit. Pharmesuticals works just like the regular supply and demand market. If they cured AIDS 10 years ago, I promise you they would start seeing losses in 2010, especially with the economy in its current state.

I'm no tin hatter, nor do I swear by this theory, but it wouldn't suprise me at all.

From what I've seen over the last year, companies are **** when it comes to planning for the future.
Again, sorry. I just hear this ALOT at school during bio class, every single time we go into medicine in any way this **** starts up.

That sounds more like a result of the economy and bitterness at "greedy, irresponsible" organizations than anything

It's also not true. EVERY company in the world lacks the ability to have any foresight? How the **** is anything ever developed, tested, produced and sold?

Like maybe they made AIDS and cancer for profit!! :tinfoil::tinfoil:









In before the ****storm - JK.

This is a virus that can be mostly controlled after decades of highly funded research, but it's still a major concern even though you have to have a transfer of bodily fluids to contract it.

A really bad virus that is much more communicable could do a heck of a lot of damage before it's eliminated. Kind of like AIDs, but this time with out an obvious method of avoiding it.

AIDS isn't a virus, stop calling a syndrome a virus. It just makes you look ignorant. And decades of research? I mean, this isn't a completely new bug that we've never seen anything like it. Way to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Look, this seems like Avian Flu: Part 2. It's a virus that can knock off people already in bad shape, but against healthy individuals it gets fought off. As was said in the article linked:



Hell, a new vaccine can be created against it anyway. The old one most likely won't work, but whatever. It's just more hype to another new bug.

AIDS/HIV, no one cares unless you're being petty in order to win an argument that was pointless and unnecessary.



Oh, yes, lets concentrate on more details that were never the real point in order to legitimize your initial over-reaction! Don't stop now, the internets are watching! Never back down for any reason!

I'm cheering for you. Like I am for the Down's Syndrome kid in the Special Olympics.



...


I am such a douche. Must the proximity to rob.

*esplode

Well I knew bacon would kill me one way or another.

fixed

Mmmmm.... Diseased bacon... Delicious.