John Cherwonogrodzky (jcherwon at dres.dnd.ca) wrote:
: Dear Colleagues:
: I just read Duesberg's lengthy document on separating HIV from AIDS.
: He briefly mentions autoimmune disease and HIV(+)AIDS(-) hemophiliacs where
: HIV(positivity) seems related to the number of blood transfusions. I was
: wondering, could one have HIV(+) without the HIV virus? By this, I mean that
a
: hemophiliac receives blood from an HIV(+) patient, receives the antibodies but
: not the disease, produces the mirror-image anti-antibody which acts like
: a vaccine to in turn stimulate antibodies to HIV even in the absence of virus?
John,
Remember that antibodies against HIV antibodies are not specific to HIV. The
response is to the antibody itself. The body doesn't know or care about
the specificity of the incoming antibody. All the body sees is a foreign
protein. It maybe true that the infection in the haemophiliac is dependant on
the number of transfusions. Infection depends on the strength of the virus,
the dose and status of the immune system among other things. So in a
haemophiliac (theoretically, I have not seen any evidence) it is possible for
the body to recognize the Virus( present in the incoming blood) and prime its
B-cells to produce ab's against it but not be infected by it.I think that
the half life for antibodies is short so if there are no further exposures
you'll not see the antibodies for too long in the transfusion patient.
Cheers,
--
Shahram Mori _/\_
Program in Molecular Biology _\ /_ Saskatoon/SK/CANADA
Dept. of chemistry and Biochemistry Box 3C \_ _/
NMSU Las Cruces NM ||
88003
