Doctors Claim HIV-Positive Man Cured by Stem Cell Transplant

[Drolefille]

It seems that many people are ignoring the fact that this is not just a stem-cell transplant, but a transplant from a matching donor with a rare genetic mutation that is known to increase HIV resistance. Replicating this treatment in a study will be incredibly difficult as well as ethically tricky. It may be something that is replicated on a case-by-case basis with individuals with cancer and HIV who have the money and time to wait for a matching donor with the mutation rather than in an ongoing study due to the risks of the treatment for both donor and recipient.

This is the rest of the article:

“It’s hard enough to get a good compatible match for a transplant like this,” Fauci told FoxNews.com, “But you also have to find compatible donor that has this genetic defect, and this defect is only found in 1 percent of the Caucasian population and zero percent of the black population. This is very rare.”

Fauci said while this patient is “functionally cured” this is not something you can do with every HIV-infected individual.

“This is not prime time to me at all,” he said. “This is a very unusual situation that has little practical application for a simple reason. This donor not only had to be a good compatible match, but the donor had to have a genetic defect of cells that do not express the receptor that the HIV virus needs to enter the cell.”

Fauci also pointed to the fact that this transplant process is not only expensive, it’s incredibly painful and complicated, and requires the patient to start a whole new regimen of drugs.

“This patient is trading one poison for another. He may not have to be on antiretroviral drugs anymore, but he has to take immunosuppressant drugs now to prevent the rejection of his transplant cells. Again, what this is, is an interesting proof of concept, but it’s absolutely impractical.”

All of the doctors in the article are being very specific about the ramifications of this possible cure. I can't even fault article since they've covered all of the downsides as well. I'm not sure what more the people in this thread complaining about publicizing it without further studies want, as the article was first published in 2009 in a medical journal - one can reasonably assume with even more detailed caveats - and no one in that article claims it to be a cure for all with HIV.

The HuffPo article is a blog post and not nearly as well written, but still, original source covers all the important bits.