By Kate Krauss (Executive Director, AIDS Policy Project) and Winstone Zulu
(Health Triangle
and Global Friends in Action Trust,
Zambia)
Winstone Zulu is the first person to publicly come out as HIV-positive in the African country of Zambia. Now in his early 40s, he has been an activist for 20 years. He has been commended by Nelson Mandela for his work. I worked with him in late 2009 when he contacted me to help him advocate for local children who had been cut off a PEPFAR-funded food program.
At that time, I mentioned that we had launched an AIDS cure campaign. He replied immediately:
Yes, yes, yes. We badly need a cure. Why is all the important research on treatments, vaccines and microbicides? What about me who is already infected? Please send us details of how you are pushing this agenda and we can take up here as well. The world will likely to react faster if it hears the same message coming from all corners of the earth. Time for a cure!
Since then, Winstone has written newspaper articles about AIDS cure research, shared information with his colleagues, and delivered speeches in support of cure advocacy. He is slated to fly to New York later this month for a meeting with Stephen Lewis.
I thought I would get to meet him in person at last year's Vienna AIDS conference. Instead, while I was talking to researchers and pushing AIDS cure research, Winstone was battling a gastrointestinal infection and fighting for his life.
From his email: I very nearly died from the damn disease. I couldn't even attend Vienna on account of that, even though I was scheduled to speak at a panel. Three weeks ago AIDS almost orphaned my four children. I want to be assuredly alive when they graduate.
He eventually recovered and he hasn't given up. "Without a cure it is death for many of us," says Winstone. Many people are becoming resistant to first and second line drugs. There is little money to pay for new regimens. Without effective medications, they can't survive, and wealthy countries are cutting back on treatment funding. Only five million of the 33 million people with HIV have access to AIDS medications. No one knows how many are becoming resistant to the drugs.
What it's like to have AIDS in Zambia:
I have been on treatment since 1996 and I am currently on one of the most expensive and inaccessible regimens in Zambia. I receive my drugs from a group of kind people in New York and I believe I am one of the lucky few--if not the only one--whom they are supporting with this regimen in Africa. And yet I am still having problems with AIDS.
We face perennial stock-outs of anti-retroviral drugs in several towns and cities of Zambia, including Lusaka. It is very clear that under this scenario even the argument that treatment is prevention is not possible. If drugs can run out in the capital city of a country, it is not difficult to imagine the horror in the rural and difficult-to-reach parts of the country. To compound the problem of drug stock-out is the issue of the poor nutritional support for many of those taking the medicines. Here many people on treatment are forced to take all their drugs on an empty stomach.
Winstone was ill again last week, and had to cancel a meeting during which he had planned to seek funding for cure advocacy.
He knows we are working to dismantle a myriad of obstacles for AIDS cure researchers--difficulties getting drugs into human trials, and lack of support for new ideas. And funding. He wrote to me a few days ago:
All around me I see all sorts of programs aimed at preventing HIV from entering people's bodies. We have male and female condoms; there is serious research into microbicides; there is a campaign to stop transmission of the virus from mother to unborn child and there is even scientific evidence that if one is on treatment and reaches undetectable viral load that there are fewer chances of infecting another person. The only person left out of the whole equation is me: the one already infected.
In the past 20 years since knowing my HIV status I have always believed that this was because it was extremely difficult to find a cure.
Then late last year I got hold of the AIDS research budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA. It was shocking to find that despite all the talk about striving to create an AIDS-free world, only 3% of the budget goes towards research to find a cure.
Now do not misunderstand me. We need new ARV treatments to keep us alive, and we need vaccines to protect those that are not yet infected. But, in my opinion, we need a cure that will also keep the 33 million people with the virus free from AIDS without any need to take drugs. Donor countries are getting fatigued with making contributions to what seems to be a problem without a permanent solution.
I was sick again from Monday to Thursday this week. As usual I look like a poster boy of the pre-ARV AIDS generation. I am sick and tired of missing important development meetings like the one I skipped on Monday [at a foreign embassy]. I am sick and tired of having to depend on my wife, Vivian to come down and look after me for even the most mundane of needs. I am sick and tired of taking these drugs that do not seem to make a difference. I am sick and tired of hating myself so much when I miss a dose, even for just 20 minutes as I did this morning because I took Vivian back to the bus station.
-------
Kate here: Back in DC, the National Institutes of Health is talking about spending $5 million more for new AIDS cure research. In contrast, California's state stem cell agency routinely hands out $15 million grants for a single AIDS cure project--some of which have made history, as we saw recently at the Boston Retroviruses conference. There is money at the NIH left over from two different institutes, NIDA and the NCRR. Unfortunately, there is not yet the will to spend it on AIDS cure research.
So here we are. Thirty years of AIDS, 25 million deaths. The United States has a million people with AIDS, along with most of the AIDS research money, many of the world's top scientists, drug companies, and media. Outside the US, in subSaharan Africa, 25 million people with AIDS are barely holding on. It's time for us to speak out together about the need for a cure.
Together, can we make this the first generation of people in 30 years to truly survive AIDS?
-------
What can you do to advocate for a cure for AIDS?
1. The most important thing you can do is call up and make an appointment to make an appointment to meet the staffers of your US Senators and Congresspeople (if you are lucky, you will meet with the member of Congress herself). Bring a small group with you of good talkers: people with AIDS and their allies (the head of an AIDS NGO, an activist, a faith leader, a physician, a researcher, etc.) to visit your member of Congress and educate them about this problem--You can read and bring along fact sheets and reports from our web site, at www.AIDSPolicyProject.org.
Have a pre-meeting to plan what you want to say, be sure to ask for more money, and give each person a speaking part. It's easy, fun, and powerful. Activists are calling for an increase in AIDS cure research funding to $240 million, using funding left over from the NIDA and the NCRR. Email us at info@aidspolicyproject.org if you need help with this.
2. Spread the word about this situation to your friends and the leaders at your local AIDS service organization. Bring fact sheets to your support group and your doctor.
3. Read our report, "AIDS Cure Research for Everyone." Write letters to the editor about a cure; blog and tweet about it.
4. Come to our AIDS Cure Activist Conference! The AIDS Policy Project is organizing an AIDS cure activist conference on May 28, 29, and 30 in Philadelphia. Join us, as together we work in solidarity with activists like Winstone. A cure isn't just a research issue or a US issue. It's a global health issue. For more information, contact kate@aidspolicyproject.org.
Winstone Zulu is the first person to publicly come out as HIV-positive in the African country of Zambia. Now in his early 40s, he has been an activist for 20 years. He has been commended by Nelson Mandela for his work. I worked with him in late 2009 when he contacted me to help him advocate for local children who had been cut off a PEPFAR-funded food program.
At that time, I mentioned that we had launched an AIDS cure campaign. He replied immediately:
Yes, yes, yes. We badly need a cure. Why is all the important research on treatments, vaccines and microbicides? What about me who is already infected? Please send us details of how you are pushing this agenda and we can take up here as well. The world will likely to react faster if it hears the same message coming from all corners of the earth. Time for a cure!
Since then, Winstone has written newspaper articles about AIDS cure research, shared information with his colleagues, and delivered speeches in support of cure advocacy. He is slated to fly to New York later this month for a meeting with Stephen Lewis.
I thought I would get to meet him in person at last year's Vienna AIDS conference. Instead, while I was talking to researchers and pushing AIDS cure research, Winstone was battling a gastrointestinal infection and fighting for his life.
From his email: I very nearly died from the damn disease. I couldn't even attend Vienna on account of that, even though I was scheduled to speak at a panel. Three weeks ago AIDS almost orphaned my four children. I want to be assuredly alive when they graduate.
He eventually recovered and he hasn't given up. "Without a cure it is death for many of us," says Winstone. Many people are becoming resistant to first and second line drugs. There is little money to pay for new regimens. Without effective medications, they can't survive, and wealthy countries are cutting back on treatment funding. Only five million of the 33 million people with HIV have access to AIDS medications. No one knows how many are becoming resistant to the drugs.
What it's like to have AIDS in Zambia:
I have been on treatment since 1996 and I am currently on one of the most expensive and inaccessible regimens in Zambia. I receive my drugs from a group of kind people in New York and I believe I am one of the lucky few--if not the only one--whom they are supporting with this regimen in Africa. And yet I am still having problems with AIDS.
We face perennial stock-outs of anti-retroviral drugs in several towns and cities of Zambia, including Lusaka. It is very clear that under this scenario even the argument that treatment is prevention is not possible. If drugs can run out in the capital city of a country, it is not difficult to imagine the horror in the rural and difficult-to-reach parts of the country. To compound the problem of drug stock-out is the issue of the poor nutritional support for many of those taking the medicines. Here many people on treatment are forced to take all their drugs on an empty stomach.
Winstone was ill again last week, and had to cancel a meeting during which he had planned to seek funding for cure advocacy.
He knows we are working to dismantle a myriad of obstacles for AIDS cure researchers--difficulties getting drugs into human trials, and lack of support for new ideas. And funding. He wrote to me a few days ago:
All around me I see all sorts of programs aimed at preventing HIV from entering people's bodies. We have male and female condoms; there is serious research into microbicides; there is a campaign to stop transmission of the virus from mother to unborn child and there is even scientific evidence that if one is on treatment and reaches undetectable viral load that there are fewer chances of infecting another person. The only person left out of the whole equation is me: the one already infected.
In the past 20 years since knowing my HIV status I have always believed that this was because it was extremely difficult to find a cure.
Then late last year I got hold of the AIDS research budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA. It was shocking to find that despite all the talk about striving to create an AIDS-free world, only 3% of the budget goes towards research to find a cure.
Now do not misunderstand me. We need new ARV treatments to keep us alive, and we need vaccines to protect those that are not yet infected. But, in my opinion, we need a cure that will also keep the 33 million people with the virus free from AIDS without any need to take drugs. Donor countries are getting fatigued with making contributions to what seems to be a problem without a permanent solution.
I was sick again from Monday to Thursday this week. As usual I look like a poster boy of the pre-ARV AIDS generation. I am sick and tired of missing important development meetings like the one I skipped on Monday [at a foreign embassy]. I am sick and tired of having to depend on my wife, Vivian to come down and look after me for even the most mundane of needs. I am sick and tired of taking these drugs that do not seem to make a difference. I am sick and tired of hating myself so much when I miss a dose, even for just 20 minutes as I did this morning because I took Vivian back to the bus station.
-------
Kate here: Back in DC, the National Institutes of Health is talking about spending $5 million more for new AIDS cure research. In contrast, California's state stem cell agency routinely hands out $15 million grants for a single AIDS cure project--some of which have made history, as we saw recently at the Boston Retroviruses conference. There is money at the NIH left over from two different institutes, NIDA and the NCRR. Unfortunately, there is not yet the will to spend it on AIDS cure research.
So here we are. Thirty years of AIDS, 25 million deaths. The United States has a million people with AIDS, along with most of the AIDS research money, many of the world's top scientists, drug companies, and media. Outside the US, in subSaharan Africa, 25 million people with AIDS are barely holding on. It's time for us to speak out together about the need for a cure.
Together, can we make this the first generation of people in 30 years to truly survive AIDS?
-------
What can you do to advocate for a cure for AIDS?
1. The most important thing you can do is call up and make an appointment to make an appointment to meet the staffers of your US Senators and Congresspeople (if you are lucky, you will meet with the member of Congress herself). Bring a small group with you of good talkers: people with AIDS and their allies (the head of an AIDS NGO, an activist, a faith leader, a physician, a researcher, etc.) to visit your member of Congress and educate them about this problem--You can read and bring along fact sheets and reports from our web site, at www.AIDSPolicyProject.org.
Have a pre-meeting to plan what you want to say, be sure to ask for more money, and give each person a speaking part. It's easy, fun, and powerful. Activists are calling for an increase in AIDS cure research funding to $240 million, using funding left over from the NIDA and the NCRR. Email us at info@aidspolicyproject.org if you need help with this.
2. Spread the word about this situation to your friends and the leaders at your local AIDS service organization. Bring fact sheets to your support group and your doctor.
3. Read our report, "AIDS Cure Research for Everyone." Write letters to the editor about a cure; blog and tweet about it.
4. Come to our AIDS Cure Activist Conference! The AIDS Policy Project is organizing an AIDS cure activist conference on May 28, 29, and 30 in Philadelphia. Join us, as together we work in solidarity with activists like Winstone. A cure isn't just a research issue or a US issue. It's a global health issue. For more information, contact kate@aidspolicyproject.org.
The guy in Germany (who received stem cell therapy) has been cured for over three years now. The cure has been discovered why is it not being used?
Unfortunately this is a cure that, while also very expensive, is much too risky to use on a regular basis. It's hard to say what the potential fatality rate for such a procedure is but I'd rather suffer the blows of HAART therapy than endure a bone marrow transplant.
There is no PROFIT in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS.
Follow the money. The profit comes from treatment of HIV/AIDS. Why would any pharmecuetical company want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg? In the USA alone there have continued to be no less than 50,000 new cases of HIV annually for the past 20 years.
Full retail for the top of the line ARV treatment protocol is about $25,000 annually, plus lab work, and doctor visits. Get them tested and get them into treatment.
When they make enough money of the suffering of others, they will stop it.
If I had a choice, I would undergo the bone marrow transplant. I would endure through the pain, with the knowledge that I no longer have to take the HAART medications (too many side effects) and that one day I will be able to raise a family without worrying if the virus is going to catch up to me.
As a sufferer we must face fact, pharmaceutical companies, polititions, governments and others that call themselves human could not give a hoot about us (or others with other incurable dieseases), they would rather see us all dead. They would rather waste billions on petty politics, making war, investigating blackholes theories, and sending people into space why because it popular and gets media and political exposure. Our planet, our enviroment and us are dying because we have lost touch with the basics of life, respect for others and what is important. I call upon my fellow sufferers whom can afford a little each month to unite in creating our own cure research fund, and leave a portion of your will if need be(should you pass on) to cure research. We will face our God knowing that we made a difference in someones life.
I'm tired to hear they are talking about in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. I was advised that there will be no hiv cure found. When will they to stop talking about this issues to play people's emotion?
I am tired of hearing they are always talking about in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. I don’t think they will ever have a HIV cure found. The mostly honest article is time.com. They don’t believe there will have a HIV cure found. They believe that ART will help keep people alive longer. I wish they just stop playing the game to these HIV survivors. I read poz.com for January, 2001 and the researchers believe that they would have a HIV cure by 2010, but its 2011 already. I also read thebody.com and it said that they believe that AIDS end with in five years or 10 years from now. Do you believe that? Come on, stop listening to them. You all should just let them wasting their time just talking to make money for themself. Focus on your living. There’s nothing that we could do that they make money out of us. That’s how world is doing.
They've also talked about having the ability to close the receptor on the CD4 cell essetially making it a CD8 cell and thereby renering people immune to the HIV virus. I'm sure that any cure that is found will be immediately snuffed out as long as corporate people are allowed to run the world. They will do anything and I mean anything to stop a cure from being used.
Taking appart the exceptional case of the German patient, what are the scientific evidences of an AIDS cure nowadays?. I agree with both previous comments: The German patient example is an evidence of what a bone marrow transplant might result on. Although it is very expensive and actually risky, it is a source of working hyphotheses (clues) to design new researches on less invasive effective real CURE therapies for HIV/AIDS. I can understand Mr. Winstone's opinion: He feels as the only one who is left aside from budget planning. Sites like POZ news are in a large extend used to promote HAART therapies access/effectiveness as well as prevention strategies, which I agree ARE extremely important issues. However, the infected one, who is also struggling with HAART side effects, is extremely important as well.
I agree that something must and can be done on this issue. Research fundings (even the federal ones) favours RESEARCH that supports a whole economic market on HAART and prevention products, leaving a short, marginal budget for scientifically (research) based HIV/AIDS cure design strategies. Unfortunately research on cures are left aside in HIV/AIDS research budgets. Reseachers working on the core of the global problem most of the times have necessarilly to literally abandon their research lines on cures (a cornerstone problem) because of resource shortness, and most of them have to re-direct their potential for scientific research from HIV/AIDS Cure research (a core global problem) to Treatment/prevention research.
Having survived the hell of AIDS since 1984 before any medications were around to keep me and all the other HIV Positive folk alive longer, I come across a story of someone somewhere being cured of AIDS. If those claims are true, how can that cure be exponentially expanded to all of us infected, which is not an easy task in how the virus mutates and affects each of us differently.
I am reminded of the few men who allegedly, have been exposed to the HIV virus and their bodies have killed off the virus or they simply do not progress on to full blown AIDS that have been reported on over the years.
How do their bodies do that? Do those men's bodies hold the 'magic bullet?
However hopeful I am, I so wish that there was a magic bullet for all of humanity living and dealing with HIV/AIDS.
I read a hypothetical story some years back with this title: "What if The President's Son had AIDS?"
This was during the Ronald Reagan Presidential years.
The HIV virus just needs a human home in which to live, while it slowly kills you and far too soon in most cases.
Greed=Big Money=Slow new drug research=HIV is under control in America=Feelings full of apathy.
How many other HIV/AIDS Drugs are being stalled or simply withheld for the next generation of pharmaceutical profits to be made by those Pharmaceutical Corporations? I'm simply thinking and saying. My 66 year old civil rights survivor mind is generationally suspicious of the 'what not's being done over the what has been done in regards to HIV/AIDS?
20-25 years ago it took a group of men who called themselves "ACT-UP" took to the streets coast to coast fighting to get our government and the pharmaceutical companies to do something, anything about HIV/AIDS.
Those brave men who fought police and caused riots did ACT-UP... Big time and Loudly.
Our world needs a world wide "ACT-UP" Yesterday!
And our black communities here in America in some areas are like being in Sub-Saharan Africa with all of the HIV/AIDS cases. And why is that?
>SIGH<
A friend of mine went through stem cell transplant for cancer (multiple myloma). He was in the hospital for six months and it took over a year for him to recover from the process of killing off his current immune system. This process precedes the stem cell transplant. He was close to death from the "cure" on many occasions. Sadly, it's just too risky and too expensive to be practical.
I'm interested in finding out why they have not done more research on people that have CD8 cells which are immune to the HIV virus. Why isn't research being done to understand what makes these cells immune to the HIV virus, and why isn't there more research into how the CD4 cell can be turned into a CD8 cell? It's time for people to start taking a stand together. We need to stop letting pharmaceutical companies get away with creating drugs that when TAKEN CORRECTLY kill over 500,000 Americans a year, and kill 113,000 Americans a year from accidental posionings. Why are we as people letting the drug companies continuing to be allowed to do their own drug research? When are we going to start standing up and saying doctors and people actually interested in the health and well-being of people NEED to be doing the research? As long as pharmaceutical companies are allowed to do "medical research for cures" there will be no cures for anything, period. Pharmaceutical companies are only interested in treating the smyptom not the cause of the disease. There is no money in curing a disease, only in treating a disease and the symptoms and other side effects that come a long with the disease. We need to stop letting pharmaceutical companies do drug research when they are only searching for a new income source not cures.
Are you in the US Andy? That should explain why..
A never mentioned aspect or rather attitude in all of this, though seldom referred to yet absolutely essential to the -power and motivation- behind its progress and renewed purposefulness; is that in life, when we unwaveringly strive to succeed at "great things", we also give rise to many sprouting starts at other wonderfully useful discoveries along the way which, to our surprise, often were laying dormant in new areas or simply previously not existent nor defined as such. Mankind's greatest technological advances, periods of expansion, growth and transformation as his many feats of greatness of spirit and the healing of many situations often where preceded by necessary impending urgencies, catastrophe or simply by sternly placed goals which must be achieved. Not because as is commonly said when things are tragic is when people seem to care. Bur rather simply because when we focus, things move along. To consistently and tenaciously be intensifying our schedule towards achieving medical cures for infections such as HIV and HERPES, is to automatically know what other doors are asking to be opened and to start making eye opening progress towards accelerating the discovery of other cures in the complete panorama of mankind's health. This is a flow formulating principal applicable to many other ways to plan for a people's or a nation's future. If for example, the flexibility is such in municipal bureaucracy, there's is a universal willingness to accept change, invent the new re-examine land and property administrative laws, the direction or distribution of federal funds amongst institutions and so forth; by fixing and establishing goals such as: -No homelessness- or -No one without free access to the education of their choice-, on a scheduled date and operating with executive power and relentless target aiming in its inventiveness structuring and ordering; civil construction principle is enriching, nut just achieving necessary goals and aligning our political philosophy more towards one of wisdom and self love, but as a result of aiming for life and humanity there is overall improvement of quality, efficiency and new sproutings or spin-offs in fresh simpler and often necessary ways. Exciting new benefits and discoveries in construction and ways of amalgamating real-rehabilitation, moral healing and well-fare with education and the professional field. The medical establishment has the very spiritual fortune of possessing its own motivating and rewarding fundamental principal. To cherish and want to know better the life of your own anatomical being is to love your own body and self beyond its likeness to others. To Advance the biological know-how towards achieving always better health and well being during a human being's existence in this world, and to master those sciences that directly go to our humanity and our bodies predicament in its relationship with the biosphere and all applicable physical forces will always matter more, and matter period, when compared to the stockpiling of bombs and tanks or the keeping of a gun under your mattress or strayed citizen behind bars. In short, to put health, well being and medicine first will always, and should always hierarchically supersede in importance, wisdom and intelligence when it comes to the ordering or creating of any administrative, educational or governmental design for this existential reality and this world we dwell on. Or as kids say sometimes, it's stupid to fight.
Not so long ago, I had a conversation with my friends and my arguments was that "there will be no cure" for HIV. You guys have just confirmed the theory that I was struggling to establish whether I'm right or wrong. It's very true that most of the pharmaceutical companies are continuing to search for alternative treatments but you will rarely hear about "HIV Cure Research" Greedy and profiteering out of people's lives is what fuels most of pharmaceutical to continue in the HIV business.
To stop pharmaceutical companies TO LEAD the research, is very likely a major impediment for developing research on an ACTUAL CURE for many diseases, including HIV/AIDS. As someone said here, "they simply won't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs". Why not to include a law to modify the way they are actually using the finances they get (via survival´s profits and federal grants)to Develop and really follow a significantly greater portion of their budget to develop diseases cures strategies?. HIV virus mutates and its behavior in each persons group or even each individual, might be different. Yes, but yet that IS actually a source for RESEARCH lines designed towards an ACTUAL CURE, while continuing Treatment/preventions to create new selling products for HIV/AIDS.
How does intrinsical genomic/proteomic variability affects the expression and performance of the HIV viruses? Do researchers really count on sufficient resources to finance this sort of 'statistical source' of working hypotheses? If so, have they made any progress on that unvaluable source of information? so that they may further provide solid support for the design of FIRSTLY research on cure strategies (there might be more than one) and secondly new treatments/prevention products? It is a global issue, as many diseases are, so researches on a cure for many of these diseases, including HIV/AIDS, NEEDS TO BE taken out from political-economics field, and be placed into a new workable framework. I am convinced that if, lets say, a round-trip to planet Mars is at least conceivable now due to research, and much people on these generation do not really care about that, many diseases are of a global concern and HAVE also a definite cure (probably yet) to be unravelled/discovered. Human genome project WAS once a dream. Dr. J. Watson and collegues all around the world made its completion a worldwide issue. The large human genome is now known in detail. There are also many examples in Molecular biology for food harvest improval, other diseases like Malaria, mad cow´s disease, etc. HIV/AIDS new ACT UP might join efforts with some other diseases affected people in the globe and ask politician/ budget planners/pharmacies to look the issue from a different perspective...A dream? Maybe, ye... but DOABLE!!
Raymond, may my partner of 15 years repost this on his Facebook? PLEASE! It brings tears to my eyes and pain in my heart to think we have such heartless people running our country.
juleZ the passionate one
I feel like a guinea-pig or rat @ times with all the meds i have to take and the side-effects are so extreme @ times too but if i wasn't on them, i might not be here. I think one day some-one caring rather than just thinking about the money side will try and find a cure. I think myself lucky as i'm british and in the U.K. whereas a lot of people cannot access the treatment globally. It doesn't matter what race they are, everybody should be able to access the meds no matter what their financial status is.
Yes, we need a Cure for AIDS as "Prevention" isn't working so well.
I encourage everyone to contact lawmakers and ask them to fund "Research for a Cure"
"Why is all the important research on treatments, vaccines and microbicides? What about me who is already infected?"
I think we're afraid of sounding bitter, or of sounding like we want others to get the disease, but this is an important question we need to be asking. Why are we throwing away decades of research and countless billions of dollars on preventative measures which lead nowhere when there are so many promising cure opportunities that will save EVERYONE? I think a lot of us who are poz are so ashamed of our status that we're afraid to stand up and say "I DESERVE a f***ing cure. I didn't do ANYTHING that 99% of humanity hasn't done before, and I don't deserve a life of misery for it!"
Never mind the old adage that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results". Never mind the fact that increasingly, the consensus is a cure is more achievable than a vaccine. Never mind that the ONE cured person puts the precendent for a cure light years ahead of prophylaxis with a fraction of the resources devoted to it. I think we need to take back our dignity, and say we deserve a normal life. We deserve a cure. "Take Ownership" of your means of infection all you want, but at the end of the day, you didn't bring this on yourself any more than anyone else who has ever had sex.
Wow, a lot of exciting fronts in this movment to kick up a Cure in our communities directed at HIV/AIDS and a lot of emotions of excitment, fear and great sadness and yes, anger too. I for one have always hope for a cure for HIV/AIDS and pray for it to be unveil to the masses. I believe the cure is out their in our world and we just have not found it. Could it be the theroy from Dr. Hiedi Clark within her book A Cure for AIDS? Could it be like Lew Sibert with The AIDS Institute stated, do we have a cure now in HIV drugs? May be the cure is in a plant in Africa or in gene science, stem cell science etc? I know if we don't pray, unite, and take action then we may never know. As Katie Karauss would say "I don't think it is Hopless" For the ones that are hopeless, remember, we put a man on the moon and some 2000 years ago, Jesus healed the sick and infirm. Keep HOPE ALIVE for in my faith teachings, hope brings forth faith and action and what a wonderful day it will be when the Cure is unvieled and HIV/AIDS is no more.
The best thing that would happen to a person living with HIV is getting a cure, so guys let us all advocate for a cure once and for all. I look at my kids daily and tend to imagine what they would go through if they get infected (which might happen if no cure if found). I don't know if they will have the willpower to keep on with the pills. I personally enjoy the lifetime pills but as for now it is all i have.
i agree with frederick, what a wonderfull day it will be when a cure is found. may God help us all.
Yes there is money in finding a cure. The cure medicine will cost money, and the people coming down with hiv will be even more since they will know that they can get cured. So think about it: more people getting infected= more people getting cured= more profits for the company that produces the pill or whatever the therapy will be. The fact that there will be a cure doesnt mean that the virus will automatically be disappeared from the face of the earth. It will still be around us infecting people. The only difference is that people will be able to get cured. Nowadays we have the cure for so many illnesses. That doesnt mean that the illness has stopped existing. its still there, only its curable. And the companies that cure it are still selling their products...
Hi,
The AIDS Policy Project just launched our first-ever petition for more NIH funding for a cure. Please join us by signing it and just as importantly SPREADING THE WORD about this petition, which is addressed to President Obama.
You can use message boards, Facebook, Twitter, and email to ask people to join you in signing. We need to work together to make this as big as possible.
The Obama administration should take the lucky opportunity they have--the research is so close to successful--to put resources behind the cure effort and finish the job.
Here is the link to the petition: http://aidspolicyproject.nationbuilder.com/petition_for_the_nih
With love and solidarity,
Katie Krauss
Executive Director
AIDS Policy Project
ps: The Berlin Patient was one of the first 50 people to sign :)