Viral chatter

No microchip for HIV / AIDS patients

Do not get me wrong...I not against microchip implants for willing guinea pigs. Microchips are cool and the more people experiment with them, the better we will understand Human-Machine interaction and Human 2.0 development. New technologies will eventually improve memory and, maybe, let us connect to networks (think internet) without computers. Disabled people will see, think, get more balance etc....I embrace new technologies in and out of the body...after all I am a fan of Kevin Warwick.

Having said that, it seems like this same technology can have a dark side. I actually should say that it's not the technology but rather the use of that technology that has a dark side...it can be used as a tracking device. Humans are NOT cattle and I am very happy that this HIV / AIDS patient-tracking microchip business will not go ahead in Indonesia's Papua.

"Papua's parliament agreed Tuesday to drop a section of the health development bill that supported the tagging of some HIV patients with small computer chips inserted beneath the skin — part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease"

I also wanted to comment on a recent article published in Retrovirology (PDF version HERE). According to an article by Dr. Mark Wainberg, a McGill professor (HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it) people might decide not to get tested because, down the road, they do not want to get charged if they ever transmit HIV. Ignorance would then protect you.

"...the consideration of being potentially charged with wilful HIV transmission may be a significant deterrent for being tested for HIV infection in the first place. After all, an individual who does not know that he is HIV positive cannot logically be accused of its transmission"

I agree BUT I really doubt that decriminalizing HIV transmission will have the opposite effect...In other words, it is quite unlikely that we would see an increase in HIV testing if wilful transmission should be decriminalized. Human behaviour is a strange creature and when it comes to sexual behaviour it becomes unpredictable. It's not as straightforward as people might say it is. I argue that decriminalizing could, in fact, cause a surge in wilful transmissions.....I hope we never have to prove that.

To be fair...

I just wanted to come back on my last posting to be fait to Dr. Robert Gallo, a great scientist nevertheless. I found THIS ARTICLE that makes a good primer to Gallo's career.

"For the record, here is what Gallo did achieve: He first described retroviruses, which is the class of viruses to which HIV belongs, and he linked a retrovirus to a rare leukemia--this alone is deserving of the Nobel. (In an interview that I read, he considers this his most significant scientific achievement). Then, his lab discovered a "T cell growth factor" that turned out to be pivotal in sustaining the growth of T cells in culture, cells that are the target of HIV."

Gallo must be fuming, oh well...too bad!

Viruses are cool. Not because some of them kill people but because they are relatively so simple, yet so efficient! Viruses can make you famous, if you are working hard on the right project, at the right time, in the right place you can score big. The Nobel prize of physiology/medicine was awarded to virus researchers: Harald zur Hausen for his work on the papilloma virus and to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of HIV. The reason why Gallo must be angry is that the science that helped link HIV to AIDS was developped by Gallo's team.

If you followed the story you might be aware that Gallo surrounded himself with a shroud of controversy, he was originally accused of science misconduct regarding samples from which HIV was identified, this was overturned after an appeal....but doubts are very resilient, I guess that's what happened to this scientist.

How old is HIV ?

This is from Nature news. I knew that an AIDS-like disease has been described way before the term AIDS was GRID. For sure the HIV has been around for a while.

Using a database of HIV-1 sequences and an estimate of the rate at which these sequences change over time, the researchers modelled when HIV-1 first surfaced. Their results showed that the most likely date for HIV's emergence was about 1908, when Léopoldville was emerging as a centre for trade.