Quote:

Rob Kamphausen said:
Rutgers researchers optimistic about trio of AIDS drugs
The Associated Press

    Researchers at Rutgers University have developed a trio of drugs they believe can destroy HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to a published report.




Quote:

Pariah said:
Nope. Not gonna happen.



Quote:

the G-man said:
I hope Pariah is wrong. However, from what I have read, the HIV virus is extraordinarily adaptive and fast evolving. As such, there is a strong possibility that no "trio of drugs" will remain effective against the virus for very long. In fact, I seem to recall reading that similar trials met early success only to see the drugs become ineffective as the virus changed.



Case in point, from today's New York Times:

    New York's first diagnosed case of highly drug-resistant HIV in a person never before treated for the virus is ``a wake up call'' to anyone who has unprotected sex, the city's health commissioner said Friday.

    The patient, a man in his mid-40s who had unprotected sex with other men, contracted a strain of HIV that is ``difficult or impossible to treat and which appears to progress rapidly to AIDS,'' said the Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden.

    The commissioner said the city's health authorities are working with the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to find other possible cases of the drug-resistant HIV strain that quickly turns into AIDS.

    The patient's three-class antiretroviral-resistant HIV did not respond to three of four classes of anti-retroviral medication most commonly prescribed. He is now receiving a fourth ``cocktail'' in hopes his rare HIV strain will respond, health officials said.

    Drug resistance is increasingly common among HIV-positive people, including some who had never been treated before -- but not with such a fast progression to AIDS, Valdiserri said.

    What makes this case important to scientists is ``the double whammy of resistance to three classes of drugs, in combination with the rapid clinical course of the HIV to AIDS,'' Valdiserri said. ``The message to the American public is that HIV remains a very formidable adversary. We can't let down our vigilance.''

    Dr. James Braun, president of the Physicians Research Network, a New York-based not-for-profit organization of clinicians serving HIV patients, said the New York case comes as no surprise: ``We believe that the transmission of treatment-resistant HIV was a disaster waiting to happen, particularly in communities where safer sex is not practiced regularly


One of those times where it really, really, sucks to be right.