Briton claims to have beaten HIV virus

[kweerwolf]

A British man claimed on Sunday to be the first person to become clear of the HIV virus, which can lead to AIDS, after earlier testing positive for it.

If true, the case of 25-year-old Andrew Stimpson -- reported in two British newspapers -- could reveal more about the virus and possibly even provide a breakthrough in the search for a cure for HIV/AIDS.

A spokeswoman for Chelsea and Westminster Heathcare Trust in London confirmed that one of its patients had tested negative for HIV about 14 months after testing positive in May 2002.

<snip>

Scientists cite anecdotal accounts from Africa of people shaking off HIV but say they have never seen firm evidence.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051113/sc_nm/hiv_dc

[adarling]

1. wow

please lord tell me this is true! I just hope this is because Super Aids is taking over the old viral strain.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. It probably isn't true....

As I stated in the other post, there are only two possibilities:

1) He was never really positive to begin with.

2) This is something that is astronomically rare, given that not a single case of positive to negative seroconversion has been documented in over 20 years and literally millions of HIV cases.


One case doesn't really help either in the hunt for a cure if it is the latter. It's not like they can repeatedly try to infect him with HIV. That would be immoral and criminal, particular if he did get infected.

Without other cases there is no way to compare what this person has in common genetically with other people who are equally able to fight off the virus. That's how they found the CCR5-delta-32 mutation that makes many people of northern European descent resistant to HIV infection. But they had more than one person with the mutation to study to see what they have in common.

At best, we have a very lucky person who is an abberation. At worst, we have a medical mix up.

Without more information, I'm inclined to go with the latter.

[murray hill farm]

4. I wish..so wish..that it was a "cure"

But spontaneous remissions occur in any uncurable disease..even the most devistating of cancers...and this appears to be just that..it is reason to hope though...it appears he has offered himself for research into just what happened in his body that caused the remission or cure.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. Nobody wishes it more than me....I have AIDS.

But the article leaves out some very important details that would convince me of the veracity of his story.

1) There is no mention of a viral load test. It would border on malpractice for a clinician to not immediately request a viral load and t-cell count upon getting a positive Western blot and ELISA.

2) They don't mention how they determined he was "cured". That is the billion dollar question. He had a positive ELISA one year and a negative ELISA the next?

In other words, it will take a lot more information than what this article provided for me to believe it.

No to mention the more sensationalized elements of the stories such as the doctors being "surprised at his good health". Nobody with experience in treating HIV would be surprised by someone recently infected with HIV being very healthy for many, many years following infection. I was healthy for 15 years after infection with HIV.

This story doesn't add up for me and while I am certainly not a doctor or microbiologist, I've made understanding this virus one of my hobbies.

I won't dismiss it out of hand, because just about anything is possible, but this one stretches credulity for me.

[murray hill farm]

8. This stretches credibility for me to..and

even more so after reading your response, but there may be some hope there..if it is legit..even so...it would take much time to get to just what did happen to this guy..in the way of immune response..or whatever did happen...so not much encouragement for those with AIDS now. How are you doing now? OK?

[wiley]

12. Sorry about Mariko and Logan

You hang in there! You're a true gift to the world!

[wiley]

5. With tens of millions of people around the world infected with HIV

and either tuberculosis, malaria or hepatitis co-infection, why is this a GLBT issue? Because people in the US still think that HIV is a gay issue.

In any case, the CCR5 deletion (both genes are needed for resistance to HIV, one deletion slows down the virus, in no case is complete protection assured, however) is rare as well, so let's not think that Eastern Europeans aren't drowning in HIV as well. They are, as if every other country.

"given that not a single case of positive to negative seroconversion has been documented in over 20 years and literally millions of HIV cases."

Sorry, but it has. It's not typically lasting however, since other aspects cloak the HIV infection, especially HCV infection (Hepatitis C). HBV (Hepatitis B) is also a problem in this regard. It may take 6 to nine months for the antibodies to reappear, but they almost always do. A more expensive PCR test will usually find the genetic HIV, however.

But Thanks for speaking up with some balance about this. That super strain thing, BTW, is pure crap.

[Liberal Veteran]

10. You are incorrect on the seroconversion.

While there are illnesses and viruses that can cause a false positive on an ELISA test (and a false negative for that matter), it is standard practice to confirm the results with a Western blot. The chance of a western blot providing a false positive is in the neighborhood of 0.00001 percent. Not impossible, to be sure, but highly unlikely and even more so than those odds because of a number of other factors some of which are listed below.

To take it further, once you test positive, it's not like they run an ELISA and WB on you annually. A positive is a positive and assumed positive from there on out. Once those are done, it would be highly unusual to perform another ELISA and WB. IOW, there is no practice of testing you every year to see if you still have HIV, so there is that problem. If the test is wrong due to another illness, then it isn't a documented case of conversion to negative from positive. It's a matter of the initial test being in error, not of a person seroconverting.

Then there is the problem of the PCR or bDNA depending on what you doctor uses to measure viral load. According to article, this man was under the care of a physician (which raises it's own question when they talk about this man being "so healthy" when he'd only been infected for a relatively short time, which is not at all unusual). When you get a confirmed positive, as this man supposedly did, then it is standard to order a viral load and t-cell count. If the PCR or bDNA came back undetectable, the red flag would have been raised then, not a year or so later and the lab error would have been caught.

Indeed, in this particular case it is the conversion from negative to positive that is the main point of the article. If this was fairly common or observed before, it wouldn't be news.

[xchrom]

6. the people doing the testing don't think they have a mix up.

HOWEVER he also hasn't returned for further testing -- which frankly makes me wish he'd shut-up.

without further testing -- what happened to this guy is unknown.

they do however have his dna -- so a mix up is unlikely.

[brainshrub]

3. This kind of story comes up every few years. (eom)

[pinto]

9. The brief article is a good example of why we shouldn't get medical info

from the press. Seems it's always anecdotal, incomplete and gets an overplayed headline.

I hope the guy is truly uninfected. If so, his first positive test (I'm assuming it was a standard antibody series) was likely a false positive.

As mentioned above a PCR would be more conclusive...

In any event, I thought the mention of Dr. Patrick Dixon was odd.
He hasn't seen a patient for a decade apparently.

He's an MD turned business guru, "futurist", had an early background in Hospice work, wrote a book on AIDS from a Christian perspective as well as one on genetic "experimentation" in the UK, and parlayed the whole mix into a global consulting/speaking gig.

Here's a link to his thoughts on AIDS...

http://www.globalchange.com/ttaa/ttaa%206.htm

[wiley]

11. Good Points!

I hope the MSM doesn't pick this up. You'd think even they were smart enough to avoid this. The good news is that it seems that the virus is becoming attenuated over the years. And Maraviroc and TMC-114 and possibly 125 will add some options.

At least a couple million people die a year from AIDS, thanks to morons like Ronald Reagan, and now they are worrying about bird flu. Put lots more money into AIDS research and hepatitis research and stem cell research and just maybe we'd have a clue.

[kweerwolf]

13. Here's a different, more detailed version of the story

A man who claims to be the first in the world whose immune system has been able to beat the HIV virus was facing mounting pressure yesterday to submit to further vital medical tests. Health experts, Aids campaigners and gay rights activists urged Andrew Stimpson to come forward following claims that he has been able to rid his body of the virus after taking little more than vitamins.

Activists say that if the claims are true, the phenomenon could potentially bring countless benefits to millions of people infected with HIV. There are more than 53,000 in the UK alone.

Mr Stimpson, 25, twice tested positive at the Victoria Clinic for Sexual Health in west London in August 2002. A test 14 months later appeared to be negative. But the heath trust concerned, Chelsea and Westminster, yesterday said Mr Stimpson had so far "declined" to undergo further tests. It is understood that he was first asked to do so immediately after last year's negative test result.
A spokeswoman said: "I can confirm that he has a positive and a negative test. I can't confirm that he's shaken it off, that he's been cured. We urge him, for the sake of himself and the HIV community, to come in and get tested.

<snip>

They also sounded a note of caution, noting that disclosures in his case arose not from medical research or peer review but from legal correspondence relating to an action Mr Stimpson was pursuing against the health trust. He had feared the positive results might have been wrong and had sought compensation. The trust's contention that both sets of blood tests were accurate emerged as it tried to defend itself from litigation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1642035,00.html