From: Billi Goldberg <bigoldberg@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re: (6695) The New Activism
Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed.
Archive-Number: 6700
Organization: unspecified
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 22:24:30 PST

In post 9:43 am  Dec 31, 1992 in sci.med.aid by KMILLER%BROWNVM. 
                                                              >   The 
>>Establishment's failure to cure this disease has largely been a
>>by-product of institutional territoriality between virologists,
>>molecular biologists and oncologists.

>  Would it be too bold to suggest that the "establishment's" failure
>to "cure this disease" has instead been a product of BIOLOGY?  There
>are no true "cures" for ANY viral disease, and therefore one might
>suggest that basic science, not political infighting, is needed to
>cure AIDS.

Cure as used by Caulfield does not mean cure as is normally used. I know 
this because we communicate continually. That word is used for the mass 
public in the SF gay/lesbian/transgender communities that thinks in 
terms of a cure. The HIV retrovirus will never be totally removed from 
chronically infected cells where HIV has integrated into the cellular 
genome. Since long living cells such as follicular dendritic, epithelial 
and many of the macrophages get infected, they can never be all replaced 
and more cells get infected continually. Therefore HIV is a viral 
disease such as herpes, chronic hepatitis, etc. that will be there 
forever. Also many chronically HIV infected cells do not show viral 
antigens on their surface so they cannot be attacked by the immune 
system.

You, of course, are not being too bold. But why not start asking why the 
biologists, etc. who obviously have known that there is no "cure" for 
any chronic viral disease, attempted to "cure" such a disease by the use 
of retroviral treatments? Why didn't they just attempt to boost or 
modulate the immune system so as to keep people alive. That is how the 
long-term survivors have survived.

I propose that the scientists, researchers, and doctors know and have 
known enough basic science to keep people alive by using 
immunomodulating drugs. Hey, I may denigrate the scientific community, 
but I know that they are a long way from being dumb about what is 
happening with AIDS. And, they are sure smarter about science that I 
could ever be in a million years. So, know that that has been said, 
let's try another hypothetical scenario.

Let's just pretend that a public policy decision was made by the 
Reagan-Bush Administrations to "cure" all HIV infected people by 
destroying the HIV virus. We all know that the military has tremendous 
power to destroy, but they are controlled by the civilian government. It 
would seem logical that scientific decisions that affect the citizens 
would be made by the civilian government. That is not only logical and 
rational, but expedient. Let's continue along the line and surmise that 
since it was gays, minorities, and IV users that are predominately 
infected, the conservative Republican administrations had no great love 
for these people. Now, wonder if a public policy decision was made that 
the last thing that was desired was to have a bunch of long-term 
survivors that would live a long time with a chronic but manageable 
disease. For, if these infected people stayed alive, they would not only 
continue to have sex and infect others, but it would be tremendous drain 
not only on the medical system but on the financial integrity of the 
nation to treat their opportunistic diseases.

I would never state that our "leaders" would just love to get rid of the 
HIV-infected people, but I definitely will state that I believe a 
rational public policy decision was made to focus on the complete cure 
of infected individuals such as in syphillis and gonorrea  rather than 
keeping them alive forever and forever by using immune modulating 
treatments.

I also believe that, knowing the hubris of scientists, they "guaranteed" 
to the civilian leaders that they could find a real cure for HIV and rid 
the retrovirus from the body. For who would have the audacity to state 
to the president that they weren't smart enough to find the answer. But, 
of course, they said that they must have funding, and they would work 
hand-in-hand with the drug companies. The results of this scenario have 
been 160,000 people dead in this nation; the nucleosides analogues 
killed instead of curing and most of the deaths were iatrogenic. But, 
one must admit, they really tried to the best of their abilities 
considering the focus they were given.

Remember, I said this was just a hypothetical scenario so don't take it 
too seriously and flame me, but..............................!!!!!

Billi Goldberg

Newsgroups: sci.med.aids