Research in finding a cure for AIDs

Many doctors & scientists have researched a cure for AIDs for many years. There has been medicine created to slow down the effects of AIDs. This medicine is called antiretroviral treatment. This is in a pill and must be taken daily. But antiretroviral treatment is scarce in third world countries where AIDs is running ramped. Even though this drug brings the HIV virus to low levels, it is still hiding in the persons cells. If the medicine is taken away the HIV virus leaks back into the surface. 

Although there isn't a cure for AIDs yet, scientists are working as hard as ever to find one. According to avert.org "Many researchers believe the best hope for eradicating HIV infection lies in combining antiretroviral treatment with drugs that flush HIV from its hiding places. The idea is to force resting CD4 cells to become active, whereupon they will start producing new HIV particles. The activated cells should soon die or be destroyed by the immune system, and the antiretroviral medication should mop up the released HIV." But the virus resurfaced once the patients stopped taking the antiretroviral drugs."  Another hope to cure AIDs is through bone marrow transplants & gene therapy. In 2008 a pair of German doctors announced that they have cured a man of AIDs by using a bone marrow transplant. Patients were tested prior to 1996 who were HIV positive by using bone marrow transplants, but only two came back cured. Although bone marrow transplants are curing some results in curing AIDs, it is to expensive and dangerous to use world wide. Gene therapy is also in the process of being studied as a cure but it will be years before test results are complete. According to Arthur Caplan in his article "Giving up on gene therapy is wrong reaction" he states: "The irony of gene therapy is that despite its name, it has achieved little in the past decade in terms of therapy but has, rather, been associated with serious problems including deaths.  Eight years ago, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died in an early experiment with gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania." Although there has been many issues with gene therapy there is a lot of hope too. New studies are being created every day to end AIDs.

Researchers are more adjacent to finding a cure for AIDs every day. The cure for AIDs is almost tangible. The research is getting stronger through all the time. Those invected with HIV have more hope with every generation of wise scientists & doctors who are determined to beat this disease.

 Sources:

Avert.org. "A Cure for AIDS." AIDS & HIV Information from the AIDS Charity AVERT. 16 Sept. 2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. <http://www.avert.org/cure-for-aids.htm>.

Caplan, Arthur. "Giving up on Gene Therapy Is Wrong Reaction." MSNBC. 17 Sept. 2007. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20820827/>.

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