cryptochrome's Journal: The Seven Deadly Things

In the interest of this series of HIV entries I feel I should point out a few basic facts. There are essentially seven major ways of harm to living things:

1) Injury
2) Poisoning
3) Genetic illness
4) Prion infections
5) Viral infections
6) Bacterial infections
7) Parasitic infections

Within each category there are infinite ways to damage, but there are also common strategies for dealing with each. What I want to highlight here is the importance of basic research. A deep understanding the physical, chemical, and biological circumstances which surround these afflictions has allowed huge advances in the treatment of all of them. More importantly, it has been progressively chipping away at the roster of untreatable diseases for which the general strategies do not work.

HIV/AIDS is one such case. Virtually every other virus we have kept at bay has been dealt with the same way: vaccines. Drugs may alleviate symptoms, but there was no substitute for the immune system's ability to seek and destroy viral infections. All a vaccine does is let our immune system know what sort of threats it should be prepared for, so that when they do arrive it is ready to defeat them. Up until now our chief worry was viruses that spread too rapidly upon initial evolution to develop and distribute the vaccine (like SARS or the various flu variants). Generating those vaccines has long been a straightforward if tedious procedure for decades. But attempts to develop a vaccine for HIV in the usual way have all failed, due to its ability to mutate rapidly and attack the immune system itself. This has forced medicine to study the biology of HIV to an unprecedented depth, that we may combat it as we have no other deadly virus before it. All the propositions I will mention in the coming days have relied on this unique effort.