[net.motss] AIDS Breakthrough

jgpo@iwu1c.UUCP (John, KA9MNK) (04/24/84)

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute announced today that they have
identified what they believe to be the virus that causes AIDS.  A spokesman
for the Institute said their results parallel those of a laboratory in France,
and the two labs may get together to see if they have identified the same
virus.

Given this discovery, it is anticipated that there will be a blood test for
AIDS available within six months (to be given initially to blood donors) and
possibly an AIDS vaccine within two years.

Good work, folks!



	John Opalko
	AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, IL


P.S.

I may have the details wrong, because I just pulled the story off the 10:00
news, but the one important fact is correct: AIDS may just have been conquered.

dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (04/24/84)

The discovery of the HTLV-3 virus (human T-cell leukemia virus, strain 3) 
associated with AIDS patients *IS* a breakthrough, but one which presently
has more promise for public health than for those striken with the disease.

A couple of facts:

1.) It has not yet been shown in vivo that HTLV-3 causes AIDS in experimental
    animals.

2.) It does seem to promise a screening procedure for blood and blood
    products with a year or so.

3.) Once HTLV-3 can be shown to cause AIDS in animals, it should then be
    "easy" to start developing a vaccine (meaning 2-3 years away.)

4.) Nothing mentioned in the reports addresses how to treat patients with
    AIDS.  As always, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
decvax!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca

gary@rochester.UUCP (Gary Cottrell) (04/24/84)

Obviously, AIDS has NOT "just been conquered". It may have been *identified*.
This is not the same thing. Finding a safe vaccine is the next step. A *cure*,
as with most viruses, is not in sight.

gary cottrell