Bug Chasers

This video was recently shown to me and I honestly could not write my reaction out because it would not be school appropriate. The idiocy of the people that participate in this sort of subculture is astounding. The film maker in the video claims that the people that are taking part in this activity do so because they are looking for acceptance and because they think its not a very big deal to be HIV positive. The one man the film maker says thought he could just take a pill and be cured. This all amazes me because I know that HIV is a very serious illness that has absolutely no cure. The information has been presented to me time and time again so I do not know how someone could be clueless about that. The other reason mainly presented is that the men that want to be HIV positive want to be so because they're in a relationship with someone who already is and want to be able to continue that relationship. This is a very noble idea but the thought of giving yourself a life ending illness to maintain a relationship seems incredibly naive. Were I infected with a life threatening illness and dating someone, I would not want to inflict them with the same terrible thing that I have, I would want them to have an easier life. I really hope the film that is talked about in the video is enough to educate people and end this ridiculous subculture. It is truly the dumbest thing I have heard in a long time and needs to be ended immediately.

More information on bug chasing can be found here.

The Common Cold Cure

I know this was shared in class but this article is something I've been thinking about quite a lot this past week. In my mind the possibilities from this are seriously endless. Being able to alert a cell that it has a previously undetectable foreign object in it so that it can destroy it is a very exciting advancement. Being able to do this could lead to an eventual cure for AIDS and Cancer. The only hinderance to being able to cure these disease's is finding the anti-body that will attach itself to the AID's virus or the specific Cancer cells. With great leaps forward in medicine like this happening it is a very exciting time for us.

Imagining a future where we do not have to worry about the common cold fills me with a lot of hope. Not having a 'flu season' every year sounds like a truly magical thing. The possibility of a cure for AID's is another very promising thing that could change the lives of literally millions of people. These sort of medical advancements seemed to be the thing of science fiction only years ago but now it seems that a future where we keep a specimen of the common cold in a vial like the small pox virus is a very real thing.

The health benefits to this are enormous. According to the CDC estimates on the number of people that died from 1976 to 2006 ranged from 3,000 to 49,000 a year. That is an enormous number of people that could be saved by this simple drug. There are about 1 million people in the USA living with AIDS and if this vaccine could be adapted to eradicate the AIDS virus then this break through will be much more profound.

Regardless of what happens this is a huge leap forward in the world of medicine that will definitely be beneficial to a lot of people. I know I'm excited to see this drug move through animal trials and then onto first in man trials. The future is an exciting place!