Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells which happened to be resistant to HIV infection.
The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection.
[...]
The ‘Berlin patient’ is an HIV-positive man who developed acute myeloid leukaemia, received successful treatment and subsequently experienced a relapse in 2007 that required a transplant of stem cells.
Doctors chose stem cells from an individual who had an unusual genetic profile: a mutation inherited from both parents that resulted in CD4 cells that lacked the CCR5 receptor. This mutation, called CCR5 delta 32 homozygosity, is present in less than 1% of Caucasians in northern and western Europe, and is associated with a reduced risk of becoming infected with HIV.
This is because all new infecting viruses need to use the CCR5 receptor on CD4 cells when infecting an immune system cell of the CD4 type.
It’s not a magic bullet, it seems, and if you read the entire piece, you’ll see that it was a grueling treatment created for a specific set of circumstances, but it could point scientists in the right direction in curing the damn disease once and for all.
Homosexual sex should be just as against the law as injection drug use is. They represent the two leading modes of transmission for HIV/AIDS, and our policy toward one should be the same as our policy toward the other.
The Centers for Disease Control – which, by the way, is not the research arm of the American Family Association – says that in the entire history of the AIDS epidemic, 91% of the males who have been diagnosed with the disease contracted it either through having sex with other males or through intravenous drug abuse. Both are lethal forms of behavior, and neither should be endorsed or normalized by any sane society.
Difference, of course being that unprotected gay sex with a trusted partner who is not infected with anything is anything but harmful, and indeed can be super. It’s not the act — it’s the disease.
Homosexual sex is clearly not a victimless crime; passive recipients of unprotected gay sex can die as result of what another male does to them in the sex act.
But only if the other partner is infected with something. If they’re not [and kids, you should really all be getting tested and when you screw, do it with people whose status you know], then no worries.
So what should the penalty be? That’s easy – whatever gay porn actors say it should be. Let’s let gay porn actors tell society what the penalty for unprotected gay sex ought to be. I’m happy to let them take the lead on this issue, and will be happy to support whatever sanctions they recommend.
See the wingnut switcheroo Fischer pulls for his seven fans? It’s no longer about disease transmission — it’s about having unprotected sex of any kind, because in wingnut world, all gays have AIDS, and straight people don’t, and it’s certainly not a problem in Africa…
Fischer then references the story of Derrick Burts, an adult film star who has worked in both straight and gay porn, who recently contracted HIV, and is now calling for condom use to be mandatory in the gay porn world. [This is a good idea.] But, it’s Bryan Fischer, so you know that he doesn’t actually give a shit about the fag who got HIV, but rather wants to use him to make a bigoted point:
Now Mr. Burts is on a crusade to make condom use mandatory in the filming of all gay sex scenes.
Of adult film work, Mr. Burts says, “It’s very dangerous. It should be required that you wear a condom on the set.”
Now think about this for a moment. If Mr. Burts wants condom use to be mandatory, that means he wants to impose some kind of penalty for unprotected homosexual sex.
Um, no, it doesn’t, you unrepentant imbecile. It means he wants condom use to be mandatory in the adult film business. Indeed, the quotes from Burts are fairly clear.
Here’s my suggestion. Let’s follow Mr. Burts’ lead, and use his suggested penalty as the penalty society imposes on all unprotected homosexual sex.
Because a couple who’s been together 25 years doing it without a condom is just as bad as carelessness on a porn set. Yeah. Again, it’s always useful to remember that wingnuts like Bryan are so scientifically retarded [but with extra helpings of irrational bigotry] that they sort of think that HIV just springs up in gay men’s bodies out of nowhere.
I say we let the victims of gay sex, like Mr. Burts, tell us what kind of penalty should be imposed on their victimizers.
Mr. Burts is not a “victim of gay sex.” He got hurt by the poor standards and practices employed by the film company where he worked.
Homosexual activists will certainly go ballistic over this suggestion…
Nah, just making fun of the dum-dum, as usual.
After all, if unprotected gay sex is the problem, then the problem is gay sex. Ultimately we need to get to appropriate sanctions for the act itself. After all, condoms break or don’t get used at all in the heat of the moment. But beginning with sanctions for unprotected gay sex is a place to start.
Uh, no, the problem is disease. This is why, though, the AFA has been labeled as a hate group. For people like Bryan Fischer, who are so untethered from reality, all gay sex is equivalent to the free-for-all sexual nature of a porn set. I understand why he thinks that way, because for him to think differently would destroy his worldview. Wingnuts are essentially required to sign on to false ideas about any number of things, in order for their ideologies to remain at least tenuously coherent.
So oddly, I will be the one taking the side of the homosexual porn star in this matter, willing to support him in his effort to sanction unprotected gay sex, while irrational and unhinged homosexual activists will try to demonize both him and me. Let’s stand together, Mr. Burts
.Derrick Burts never said anything about sanctioning all unprotected gay sex. But don’t expect the average 70 I.Q. AFA reader to notice that…
Things like this are why Bryan Fischer got the AFA landed on the SPLC hate group list.
Uganda has dramatically reduced its HIV/AIDS infection rate by telling its folks to practice abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterwards. Abstinence and fidelity work every time they are tried, and the beauty is they don’t cost taxpayers a dime.
Lie. Uganda implemented a very comprehensive program that included abstinence education, but also included education on testing, condom use, and a number of other things. Also, regardless of that, abstinence education programs cost money. So, here we have a case where Bryan Fischer’s lying is special for how remarkably stupid it is. Moving on:
Since we know the cause of AIDS and the way to slow down the epidemic, if we spend any taxpayer funds at all it ought to be on education: don’t start engaging in homosexual behavior, and if you have started, stop.
In other words, the same approach we take to kids and smoking.
Actually, AIDS can be transmitted via heterosexual sex as well, but that’s not the point. Rubes like Bryan Fischer cling to their bigoted notion that gay sex causes AIDS, which is a complete lie, as HIV doesn’t just magically manifest when two men come together for sexytime. One has to be infected and then engage in unprotected sex. So “homosexual behavior” doesn’t have jack squat to do with HIV, Bryan. Put it this way:
1. There is almost no incidence of HIV among lesbians. So there’s half your “homosexual behavior.” Indeed, if a woman were to choose which gender to sleep with based simply on the risk of contracting HIV, she’s statistically better off having HOT LESBIAN SEX every single time.
2. Two monogamous gay men, neither of whom are infected, can have HOT GAY SEX with each other every night, unprotected, and will never contract HIV, because they weren’t infected in the first place.
So, if we have compassion and a desire to protect people from the spread of this epidemic, we can either choose the childish fundamentalist strategy of wishin’ and hopin’ that nobody, anywhere, will ever have sex for any reason other than lights-off procreative purposes, or we can be adults and continue to fund AIDS research and treatment in the hopes that one day in the not too distant future, the disease will be relegated to the history books.
Meanwhile, private and mostly Christian charities will continue to provide comfort care to AIDS patients whose lives are being drained away by this deadly disease. And they will do so willingly, motivated by the compassion of Christ.
As exemplified by Bryan Fischer?
Surely we will be accused of lacking compassion.
Can’t imagine why.
You want to know who the true hate groups in America are, the ones who are sending the most hateful message to gays, there they are. Pro-family groups are trying to save the same people that the gay lobby is consigning to an early death.
They are so butthurt about being labeled as hate groups. It’s an absolute, unmitigated joy to watch. “I know you are but what am I, and why is my backwards Christian fundamentalist worldview becoming so difficult to defend with a straight face?”
Welcome to the New Normal, where hicks call for investigations into art exhibitions. Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Savannah, people:
Direct quote: “Yew know what, ah support freedom of expression, ah support art, and if it is prahvately funded, and they wanna show a picture of Jesus bein’ eaten by ants, and they think at Christmas, tahme that that’s the proper thing to do, then they should do it on their own nickel, not on taxpayer nickel. This is in a public buildin’ with public staff, public taxpayers are subsidizin’ this exhibit, so to say that it’s privately funded is a joke.”
Uh. People in Georgia elected this man to Do Things. How sad.
Oh lordy, let’s watch a wingnut freak-out over nothing.
Conservatives don’t tend to like art. They feel intimidated by it. They don’t understand it. They get their fee fees hurt when art does what art is supposed to do by provoking thought and feeling, by pushing boundaries in order to provide commentary, etc. Liberals don’t get freaked out in the same way — we understand that, hello, it is art, and if it is Not Your Thing, you are not being forced to look at it or buy it.
So, the freak-out comes to us viaRoy Edroso, who brings it to his readers by undertaking the entertaining, if tedious, task of reading Kathryn Jean Lopez’s words at the National Review. K-Lo is freaked out about this piece from “Penny Starr” [drag name, most likely], a “reporter” for CNS “News.” You see, there is an exhibit that has been running for a while at the Smithsonian, and will be running through the holiday season and after, and you see, it has naughty GAY stuff in it, and all of this is, of course, part of the War on Christmas, and is, of course, Too Soon, never forget, etc.:
The federally funded National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, is currently showing an exhibition that features images of an ant-covered Jesus, male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show’s catalog as “homoerotic.”
The exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” opened on Oct. 30 and will run throughout the Christmas Season, closing on Feb. 13.
Right on through Jesus’ birthday party!
Penny then goes on to detail what has become the exhibit that’s causing the most [stupid] problems [among people who don't understand or respect art]:
“A Fire in My Belly” was created by David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992). The full-length version of this 1987 video, according to the description at the exhibit, is 30 minutes long. The version viewable in the National Portrait Gallery has been edited down to 4 minutes. The description says, “A Fire in My Belly, a compilation of footage largely shot in Mexico, weaves together numerous images of loss, pain, and death into a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic; it concludes in a picture of the world aflame.”
The description speaks of the video artist’s “poetic, yet furious, condemnation of the way greed, religion, and selfishness conspire to label certain people as outside the scope of our caring.” It also quotes Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS, as saying, “When I was told I’d contracted the virus, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d contracted a diseased society as well.”
The four-minute version of the video shown in the exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery shows, among other images, ants crawling over the image of Jesus on a crucifix, two halves of a loaf of bread being sewn together, the bloody mouth of a man being sewn shut, a hand dropping coins, a man undressing, a man’s genitals, a bowl of blood, and mummified humans.
A differently edited four-minute version of Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” video posted on YouTube shows images of ants crawling over the image of Jesus (as does the version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery), but also shows a man masturbating (an image which is not included in the edited version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, which only shows a man’s genitals.). The YouTube version also carries a soundtrack that is different from the version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.
Cue the sanctimonious rubes of the new Republican House majority, because it’s CULTURE WAR OUTRAGE TIME!
The Catholic site CNSNews.com brought the exhibit — called “Hide/Seek,” which “contains video of a Jesus statue with ants crawling on it, as well as works of art with strongly sexual themes” — to Boehner and Cantor’s attention, asking what they thought of it. They could have responded, “We have other shit to do before worrying about the aesthetic merit of some art exhibit in Chinatown,” but that would’ve been too easy. Instead we get:
“American families have a right to expect better from recipients of taxpayer funds in a tough economy,” Boehner’s Spokesman Kevin Smith told CNSNews.com. “While the amount of money involved may be small, it’s symbolic of the arrogance Washington routinely applies to thousands of spending decisions involving Americans’ hard-earned money at a time when one in every 10 Americans is out of work and our children’s future is being threatened by debt.
“Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves to end the job-killing spending spree in Washington,” Smith said.
MURRIKAN FAMILIES SHOULD NEVER BE CONFRONTED WITH ART OR EDUCATION, or moreover, with worldviews that are different from the average heartland teabagger, he is basically saying.
The National Portrait Gallery has removed a work of art from a GLBT-themed exhibition after it attracted conservative and religious ire for its images of homosexuality and Christianity. Director Martin Sullivan announced the removal of A Fire in My Belly by artist David Wojnarowicz after conservative news service CNS wrote yesterday that the “Christmas-season exhibit,” which opened in October, used taxpayer money to indirectly fund an exhibition that includes imagery of genitalia, homoerotic situations, and Christ covered in ants.
[...]
Publicist Bethany Bentley says that until the article was published, the museum had not heard a single objection to the exhibition. “On Friday we had over 10,000 visitors to the gallery, and we had no complaints,” she says.
Well, of course there were no complaints. Before the manufactured outrage from people whose idea of “appreciating art” is picking up Thomas Kinkade prints on clearance, the people who were aware of the exhibition were People Who Go To Museums. There is very little overlap between the two groups.
Of course, this didn’t stop the wingnutterie from engaging in a little Muslim-bashing, because you see, Christians are an oppressed minority in Murrika, etc.:
If these “artists” really wanted to be daring and controversial, they’d create an ant-covered Quran exhibit. But the cowards take the path of least resistance and then applaud their own courage in the face of minuscule risk.
[...]
AIDS? Please, stop these BS excuses, it was meant to offend.
Yes, moron, it’s a piece about AIDS. And if it offended, if it was shocking, perhaps there is an artistic point being made that can’t be explained in the two verses, chorus, bridge and key change of a Toby Keith song. Perhaps.
So anyway, the Culture Wars are back, I guess. The next two years are going to be such a waste of our time.
For the sake of art, the indeed disturbing Wojnarowicz piece, in its modified YouTube version, is after the jump. No, it is not safe for work, which is why it wasn’t exhibited at Your Work, but rather in a museum of art. You may watch it or not watch it. It’s harrowing, especially with the Diamanda Galas soundtrack added. I will say, though, that the outrage over this piece, the pearl-clutching and whatnot, is simply proof that this piece of art is extremely effective, whether or not you are moved by it.
I try not to get too excited about supposed HIV/AIDS breakthroughs. I first heard about the disease when I was twelve and it is still around ruining lives and affecting millions of people. However, an article in today’s New York Times, “Daily Pill Greatly Lowers AIDS Risk, Study Finds”, looks promising. According to Donald G. McNeil’s article:
In a development that could change the battle against AIDS, researchers have found that taking a daily antiretroviral pill greatly lowers the chances of getting infected with the fatal virus.
In the study, published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that the hundreds of gay men randomly assigned to take the drugs were 44 percent less likely to get infected than the equal number assigned to take a placebo.
But when only the men whose blood tests showed they had taken their pill faithfully every day were considered, the pill was more than 90 percent effective, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, head of the division of the National Institutes of Health, which paid for the study along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“That’s huge,” Dr. Fauci said. “That says it all for me.”
If the results stick, this could be a milestone in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Let us hope this is a genuine advance and not another test tube tease.
On a related note, Sean Strub has written an interesting article on the POZ magazine blog about how some people are taking a dose of HIV meds right after sex if they think they may have been exposed to the virus. Like all of Sean’s work, it is well-researched, thought provoking and well worth the read. Here is a snipet:
I enjoy speaking on college campuses.
No matter the main topic of my talk, I always mention post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), the highly effective strategy for avoiding HIV transmission after one has been potentially exposed to HIV through sexual contact or a shared needle. The topic is invariably new to the students; only rarely are any of them familiar with PEP.
PEP has long been standard practice for healthcare workers after they get accidentally stuck with a needle. If an employee at an AIDS service organization, hospital or clinic gets a needle stick, they are put on a 28 day course of anti-retrovirals within minutes.
A quick response is important; the sooner to the point of exposure PEP is commenced, the more likely it is to prevent infection. After two or three days, it is vastly less effective.
But in a condom breaks or someone does something they quickly regret, it is difficult to access PEP even if one knows about its efficacy. Why are there not PEP hotlines or delivery services to provide information and treatment when it is needed, when it can still prevent an infection?
Could this be part of why the Vatican promotes policies in Africa and around the world that kill people?
The Belgian Primate, André-Joseph Léonard, has again courted controversy. In a new book the Belgian Archbishop says that the disease AIDS is “a form of justice”.
[...]
The Archbishop who is seen as a conservative does not pull his punches. Speaking about AIDS he says that this is a kind “immanent justice”.
He compares AIDS with environmental challenges and points to man’s responsibility for global warming.
I note that the archbishop is probably mortal, and appears to be aging. If he someday suffers miserably from a prostate cancer that is ripping his guts apart, I hope he finds comfort in it as a kind of “immanent justice”. If he should suffer a massive stroke and his brain should bleed and fail, I hope he has a last moment of awareness to appreciate the “immanent justice” of his fate. I hope that if one day he is crossing the street and suddenly finds a bus roaring implacably in his direction, that the destination on the bus’s sign reads “Immanent Justice”.
POZ Magazine has a cover story dealing with how “ex-gay” organizations exploit fears of HIV and AIDS to recruit new members.
Interestingly, in the story, Exodus’ President Alan Chambers says that his group is leaving the culture wars and will remain neutral on political issues. (We’ve heard this line before, even as Exodus took part in mobilizing voters to support Prop 8 in California. Let’s see if Exodus can keep its nose out of such battles and Washington)
Leaders of the ex-gay movement have long used the threat of HIV/AIDS to recruit people struggling with their sexuality. Likewise, parents of children who might be gay have been scared into sending their kids to ex-gay camps or reparative therapy. But the tragic irony is that the pursuit of “better-health-through-nongayness” leads to far more physical and psychological harm—not to mention elevated risks for HIV.
Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government aid and millions more from U.S. evangelical churches, the nation of Uganda is waging direct attack against the human rights of gay and lesbian people elsewhere across Africa.
Uganda’s New Vision reported on July 22 (via allAfrica.com) that “Uganda has opposed the pending recognition of a South African gay rights group, Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), as an official observer at all African Union conferences, and to contribute to the NGO’s forum.”
The article quotes Ugandan ambassador Rosette Nyirinkindi as saying equal application of human rights to all is “alien to our culture and values. We shall continue to resist and fight them because common sense dictates against them. They are outlawed in Uganda and most African countries.”
In 2009, the United States committed nearly $300 million in supposed federal anti-AIDS funding in Uganda. At least $5 million of that was to be dispensed for military ventures through the U.S. Department of Defense; millions more in military aid were budgeted through other channels. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars annually from the federal anti-AIDS budget are being laundered through conservative Catholic and evangelical organizations that promote antigay, abstinence-only education programs which have resulted in a resurgence of HIV/AIDS in Uganda since 2004.
RH Reality Check criticized U.S. funding for anti-scientific, abstinence-only programs in an article today. The article blasts the government’s token efforts at “comprehensive” prevention:
If you give condoms only to groups thought of by society as “promiscuous,” what do you think will happen to a woman who insists on condom use with her husband that she suspects of cheating? If you do not provide information about using female and male condoms to young people, even if they successfully delay sex for years, how do you expect them to know how to use them once they start having sex?
“Comprehensive prevention” is not a country-level concept—it is an individual-level concept. Everyone has the right to, and the need for, full information about how to be healthy. That’s the only way it makes sense.
Each and every person served by PEPFAR prevention programs should receive full information about how to use condoms, and should have access to female and male condoms. Instead of pouring scarce resources in programs we know don’t work, we have got to start only funding true comprehensive prevention.
Millions of dollars that are not being spent on true comprehensive prevention are instead being invested in antigay evangelical campaigns to stigmatize and criminalize same-sex orientation.
Related:
The head of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Eric Goosby, defends the Obama administration’s dismal handling of international HIV/AIDS relief.
Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu asks Obama to reconsider his commitment.
