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arcticpenguin · 15th February 2003, 05:40 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor.../aids_virus_dc

GBV-C, a harmless virus, may slow the advance of AIDS.

"We found that men who were persistently positive for GBV-C were 2.5 times more likely to survive," Williams told reporters.

They looked at blood taken from 271 HIV patients when they first visited a doctor. Eleven years later, 75 percent of the men who had persistent GBV-C infections were still alive against 39 percent of those who never were infected with GBV.

The mechanism for this is not clear, and ethical considerations will make it difficult to study. After all, you can't deliberately infect large numbers of people with a virus unless you're really, really sure that it's harmless.

Soapy Sam · 16th February 2003, 03:26 PM

That word, "harmless".....that worries me. Especially in the context of someone with a blown immune system.

15th February 2003, 05:40 PM	#1
arcticpenguin woo ban clan Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 5,717	GBV-C Virus may block HIV http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor.../aids_virus_dc GBV-C, a harmless virus, may slow the advance of AIDS. "We found that men who were persistently positive for GBV-C were 2.5 times more likely to survive," Williams told reporters. They looked at blood taken from 271 HIV patients when they first visited a doctor. Eleven years later, 75 percent of the men who had persistent GBV-C infections were still alive against 39 percent of those who never were infected with GBV. The mechanism for this is not clear, and ethical considerations will make it difficult to study. After all, you can't deliberately infect large numbers of people with a virus unless you're really, really sure that it's harmless.
	__________________ The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it. - George Bernard Shaw

16th February 2003, 03:26 PM	#2
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,929	That word, "harmless".....that worries me. Especially in the context of someone with a blown immune system.
Soapy Sam NLH Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25,929