There are still tests to be done but it seems that at least one man has been cured of AIDS! He was an HIV positive man who was given a stem cell transplant three years ago to treat him for leukemia, and he is now apparently completely healthy.
According to the Huffington Post: Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient,” received the transplant in 2007 as part of a lengthy treatment course for leukaemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming
...and a cure for AIDS, too
that the results of extensive testing “strongly suggest that a cure of HIV infection has been achieved.” While Brown is the first person to ever be declared cured of HIV, his case paves a path for constructing a cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.
Genetically engineered stem cells. I seem to recall that George W. Bush (and Ronald Reagan) were fierce opponents of stem cell research. Bush actually banned it, I’m pretty sure. There are so many other evil things he did, it’s hard to remember all of them, but banning stem cell research was definitely in there somewhere. It pleased the cannon fodder breeder wing of the Republican party (all abortions are bad, all wars are good) and also the fundamentalist we-don’t-need-no-science crowd, who are often the same people and apparently form 28% of the American electorate.
So, while the ignoranti seem to be winning on all the political fronts, science marches on and scores a big victory. A huge, tremendous, joyous victory.
It gives me hope. Of course, an end to AIDS should be cause enough for celebration, but it goes beyond that. It is a reminder that the solutions to many of the problems that plague mankind: hunger, all sorts of diseases, global warming, pollution, the loss of biodiversity and the rainforest, even the screwed up economy, will not come out of Washington but out of some laboratory somewhere. Scientists do not have to stand for election, the stupids do not get a vote on what they are doing. They use scientific method, communicate with each other and keep moving forward.
Screw the politicians. Long live science.
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