Monday, November 24, 2008
Micro-chipping HIV+ Patient's Dangerous
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
JESUS CHRIST WANT'S US TO LOVE EACH OTHER NOT KILL EACH OTHER!!!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
just for today clean nway eh!(june 18 2008)
Friday, May 16, 2008
Miss Mom-Gary is Gone to the Dark Side
Sunday, March 16, 2008
NIcest Compliment =Blog Reader is a FAN of MINE?WTF?
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Gene Therapy Offers Hope To Those Infected
Gene therapy offers AIDS hope
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February 09, 2008 01:23pm
SCIENTISTS believe they may have pioneered a way to make the HIV/AIDS virus slow its reproduction, and potentially even self-destruct.
For the first time, researchers have slowed and possibly stopped the AIDS virus from reproducing in patients by using a gene therapy that tricks it into destroying itself, reported wire service MCT.
The results, announced on Wednesday, are heartening not just for people infected with HIV but also for the field of gene therapy, which remains highly experimental more than 20 years after scientists figured out how to use viruses to insert therapeutic genes into a cell's genome.
Mostly, the results are a big step forward for the biotech start-up that is developing the novel therapy and for its collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania.
"The buzzword in the field is viral 'fitness', meaning how well the virus can replicate," said Gary McGarrity, executive vice-president for scientific affairs at Virxsys Corporation, in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
"In eight of the nine patient samples we studied, we see diminished HIV fitness up to two years after treatment."
That raises the hope that even if medical science cannot come up with the holy grail of AIDS research -- a vaccine to prevent HIV infection -- patients may be able to keep HIV under control, perhaps without relying on the toxic drug cocktails that commuted what was once a death sentence.
"I think the Virxsys report is very important," said John Rossi, a molecular biologist at the City of Hope in California, who is also working on a gene therapy treatment for HIV.
"A lot of HIV patients are over 60 now and they're suffering the consequences of these toxic drugs. This shows there are alternatives."
The field of gene therapy has suffered years of missteps and controversy -- notably the 1999 death of Arizona teenager Jesse Gelsinger in an unrelated gene therapy experiment at Penn.
"I think the field is really starting to accelerate," said physician Carl June, who leads the Penn team that is collaborating with Virxsys. "There was so much frustration for years. But now there are new breakthroughs."
The latest gene therapy, called VRX496, is still in early human testing intended to demonstrate safety and determine the best dosages.
Of the 54 patients who have been treated so far in the ongoing clinical trial, none have experienced serious side effects, and many have seen clinical signs of effectiveness -- their HIV viral loads have fallen and their supply of infection fighting T cells has grown.
A Penn patient, one of the first and sickest to be treated, remains well more than four years later - even though conventional cocktails of anti-retroviral drugs had stopped working for him.
Wednesday's report, presented by Virxsys at a conference in Boston, looked deep into the molecular level of blood samples from nine randomly chosen patients to see whether the therapy was hitting its target.
VRX496 capitalises on the fact that viruses are impotent on their own but powerful inside a cell. That is the only place they can replicate, by hijacking the host's molecular machinery. HIV seizes control by splicing its own genes into the DNA of infection-fighting T cells, the backbone of the immune system.
The genetic wizardry involved in outwitting HIV is complex. First, the researchers remove T cells from an HIV patient and insert into those cells a gene that stops the AIDS virus from reproducing. Then, using Penn's patented technology, the T cells are multiplied a hundredfold and put back into the patient.
The vehicle, or "vector", that is used to insert this protective gene into the T cells is novel in itself: a disarmed version of HIV.
The gene carries instructions that eliminate the HIV virus' ability to wrap its DNA in an armoured shell. So when HIV invades the T cell, it steals this new armour-making gene, escapes from the cell - and then finds itself unable to make the shield it needs to break into more cells.
The latest study also found that the inserted gene is a double-whammy for HIV. The virus tries to simply delete the gene -- its favourite mutating tactic for becoming resistant to current drugs -- but that, too, reduces its reproductive "fitness." (It gets "wimpy", to use Dr June's word.)
The researchers found that blood samples from the nine cases presented yesterday were in fact loaded with the virus, most of it having mutated into harmless forms.
"For HIV to mutate around our treatment, it has to commit suicide," said Mr McGarrity, the Virxsys executive.
If this gene therapy becomes an approved treatment, still years away, the estimated cost for the one-time series of infusions would be $US130,000 ($A146,000), said Riku Rautsola, Virxsys' chief executive. While that's a hefty sum, the lifetime cost for conventional HIV-fighting drugs is about $US700,000 ($A785,000).
"We hope (VRX496) will become a frontline therapy once we have proven the impact is durable," Rautsola said. "This would clearly be better in terms of quality of life for the patients."Thursday, January 24, 2008
HIV & Me,My Attemp At Poetry!!!by james jc gough
HIV & Me attempt at poetry by James jc gough
Nov 8, 2007
So here i am with HIV,& its cool that it happened to me,Bets thats surprising to everyone but thee,Its opened many doors that wouldnt be open to me if a was HIV-.i have gone toconferences & meetings & a whole lot more,& its all paid for, Hotels ,motels & meals as well,i have gone to many &some were pure hell! Ohyes you learn & learn a whole lot,about your rights & others importent or not.To work on our skills & better our selves,its were the OAN is starting to dwell.This is good or at least i thought,to develope our skills & to speak alot!On HIV-AIDS & finding the cure,we will one day,of that i am sure!So we carry on this Global WAR,TO make HIV-AIDS around NO MORE!!~Yes its true we want to eradicate,this deadly virus that i so hate,& so i create FRONT LINES of ATTACK,To try & hit HIV back!For only by Awareness & Education , We Can BEAT HIV & SURVIVE AS A NATION!!!So Come & join me one & all,Lets make HIV take the BIG FALL!!!WE can win this Global war & make HIV Live NO MORE!!!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
COURT STRIKES DOWN REG ON AMOUNT POT GROWERS CAN GROW!ABOOT TIME EH!!!
WE MUST MAKE THE SWITCH FROM GAS TO HYDROGEN POWERED ENGINES AS FAST AS WE CAN!THE SOONER THE BETTER THE NICER THE WEATHER!!PEACE N LOVE NOT WARS N WALLS EH FOLKS~!!!Edit Delete
COURT STRIKES DOWN REG. ON POT GROWERS=ABOOT TIME EH~~~!!!!VOTE NDP & LETS LEGALIZE WEED!!!
strikes down regulation limiting growers of medical marijuana
Last Updated: Friday, January 11, 2008 | 12:45 AM ET
CBC News
Canadians who are prescribed marijuana to treat their illnesses will no longer be forced to rely on the federal government as a supplier following a Federal Court ruling that struck down a key restriction in Ottawa's controversial medical marijuana program.
The decision by Judge Barry Strayer, released late Thursday, essentially grants medical marijuana users more freedom in picking their own grower and allows growers to supply the drug to more than one patient.
It's also another blow to the federal government, whose attempts to tightly control access to medical marijuana have prompted numerous court challenges.
Currently, medical users can grow their own pot but growers can't supply the drug to more than one user at a time.
Lawyers for medical users argued that restriction effectively established Health Canada as the country's sole legal provider of medical marijuana.
They also said the restriction was unfair, and that it prevented seriously ill Canadians from obtaining the drug they needed to treat their debilitating illnesses.
In his decision, Strayer called the provision unconstitutional and arbitrary, as it "caused individuals a major difficulty with access…"
Ottawa must also reconsider requests made by a group of medical users who brought the matter to court to have a single outside supplier as their designated producer, Strayer said in his 23-page decision.
While the government has argued that medical users who can't grow their own marijuana can obtain it from its contract manufacturer, fewer than 20 per cent of patients actually use the government's supply, Strayer wrote.
"In my view it is not tenable for the government, consistently with the right established in other courts for qualified medical users to have reasonable access to marijuana, to force them either to buy from the government contractor, grow their own or be limited to the unnecessarily restrictive system of designated producers," he wrote.
Ron Marzel, a Toronto lawyer representing the group of medical users who brought the matter before the Federal Court, called the decision a "great remedy" for his clients.
"All this means is that the limit — the one-to-one ratio — it's the last nail in the coffin for that ratio," he said in an interview.
"The court has said, 'Look, unequivocally, this is unconstitutional, it's arbitrary. All the reasons you've provided us with so far for this one-to-one ratio, they don't pass muster. We don't buy it, we don't accept it."'
The provision had been struck down by the courts before, but was reinstated by the government who contracted Prairie Plant Systems Inc. in Flin Flon, Man., to provide the drug to patients./As a PHA that has to use pot in order to eat- i face RED TAPE & beaurocratic BS. by Drs the refuse to help,politicians throw their hands in the air & do nothing!!! i think the CAS should mandate that 1)pot access for patients, & subsidizing $ spent on medical pot-or reimbursing us at tax time~~!!!Housing is another big issue that need attention.PEACE N LOVE NOT WARS N WALLS EH FOLKS!!!!
