AIDS: The New Age Plague?

by Kris Kingsland

In the fourteenth century, plague swept through the Lands, killing millions. One quarter of the adult population and many children are thought to have died as a result. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome - AIDS - has been likened to a contemporary plague, and has loomed large in the public conscience. Its prevalence, as the celebrity syndrome, has waned in recent years but lest we become too unconcerned, let us remind ourselves that December 1st is AIDS Awareness Day. So...

Wear your condoms with pride!

The first case of AIDS was identified in New York in 1979. In 1990, the World Health Organisation announced that 203,599 cases of AIDS were reported world-wide, and estimated the actual number of cases to be 600,000. A poignant reminder of the scale of the problem comes from India. In Delhi in 1994, the central government bureaux stated that there where 100,000 prostitutes in Bombay alone (population then 12 million) engaging in unprotected sex, on average, five times a night. The implications of another 500,000 possible AIDS cases a day in just one major port is truly staggering.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, principally attacks T- helper cells. They are a type of white blood cell (WBC) that greatly boosts the activity of other WBCs. It is these other WBCs that will attack viruses and tumour cells. If mounting an immune response is like lighting a fire, then HIV takes away the paper and kindling. The initial flame will take much longer to start a blaze and it might die out before it can get that far. As a result, the body's ability to resist opportunistic infections is greatly weakened.

We can not cure 'colds' because they keep mutating - camouflaging themselves from our WBCs and ensuring that we won't easily develop a vaccine for them. Likewise, several strains of the AIDS virus have been isolated in one individual alone. It is a retrovirus and whenever it replicates itself, it changes its genetic makeup and thus its cell envelope. When you get the post you can tell the bills from the birthday cards by the look of the envelope. The immune system is very similar and targets suspicious packages for inspection and destruction. However, the immune system's ability to weed out viruses is hampered if they have to inspect each new strain individually. Think of junk-mail - if you can spot it early on, you can save yourself a lot of fruitless reading and effort. The junk-mailers just want to slow you down long enough to read their message (or viral code) and buy into their deal.

Outside the cell, viruses are vulnerable to the body's defences and easily attacked. However these particular sitting ducks are Trojan in nature! Normally a virus gets its genetic code inside a cell and then gets the cell to cease all actions save that of duplicating the viral code. The cell then neglects itself and works to exhaustion, finally bursting open to release many new viruses. HIV is doubly dangerous because it hides inside the T-helper cells - part of the body's own defence system. So not only is it well hidden but each new spawning also takes another WBC out of the battle!

Worse still is the fact that HIV carries a regulatory gene that could cause body cells to proliferate in an uncontrolled fashion - cancer. AIDS patients can also suffer neurological disorders - memory loss and mental deterioration - as one of the proteins created during viral replication is thought to damage brain cells. Confusion can occur as to the cause of the problems as full-blown symptoms of AIDS may not develop for more than 10 years after the infection. There is even some indication that the virus can take up residence in the bone marrow stem cell which give rise to T-helper cells. Any new cells produced will have the virus from the start. Once the virus gets into the body it may stay forever, possibly eluding detection even by genetic testing and hence being passed on by donors.

Integral to the body's defence is the ability to recognise 'self from 'non-self. When a splinter becomes lodged in your skin - too deep to remove - the wound swells as WBCs race there to attack the foreign substance and break it down. We will do this for almost everything that enters the body. It is only via special mechanisms that humans can take in food (or semen) without virulently attacking it. If it strays from its designated path then it will be destroyed.

If the body reacts badly to noxious chemicals, then taking them internally is not a good move. Sex involves bodies coming together, if you'll pardon the pun! It is extremely intimate, and bodily secretions will be transferred, whether it be saliva, sweat, semen or other secretions. But no matter how close you feel, your body will see much of it as alien.

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Your WBCs will set off like a battalion of blood-crazed Daleks -hot on the trail of stray secretions. If you have bleeding gums and your partner does too (many, many people have this problem), then this will happen regularly. You will soon get used to dealing with a given set of alien invaders (i.e. your partner's), who will all look strikingly similar. Each person will leave their own chemical signature on everything from their body. If you share much of your life with your partner then you may even send fewer WBCs in response to their secretions , as your body becomes more chemically attuned to your partner's.

Alas - share your life with too many partners and you could exhaust your immune system. Each new partner brings a completely new challenge to the body, not to mention any viruses or strange bacteria and other infectious substances. We are marvellously robust - like small oaks, but chip away long enough or poison the roots and the oak will wither. It may not be the initial trauma that kills, but a secondary, less dangerous threat. It may only manifest itself when conditions are just right, and be too much for the body to handle in its weakened state. That's how AIDS kills - indirectly.

The high-risk groups are doubly vulnerable - not only are they exposing themselves to possible sources of HIV but they are also in weakened states of health. Depressed individuals will also have lowered immune responses (see 'Positively Stressful'). People who have many sexual partners and those who indulge in anal sex (which can easily tear the lining of the rectum allowing semen a fast route into the body) along with drug injectors are most at risk. Perhaps people who consciously care enough about themselves and their partners to use a condom have a stronger immune system as well? Let's hope so.

AIDS is a little understood phenomenon. There are a lot of known facts but the process of stringing them together to form a meaningful story is problematic. For instance, Edward Hooper a British journalist (The origin of HIV-1 Group M: The CHAT polio vaccine theory) claims to have proof that the research team led by Dr Hilary Koprowski used kidneys extracted from chimpanzees, in a polio vaccine given to a million plus people during 1957-61, in central Africa where the earliest AIDS patients were found. Polio vaccines are cultured on monkey kidneys which could have been contaminated by SIVs (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus)- they could not be screened for SIV contamination before 1985. Another monkey virus, SV-40, is known to have passed to humans via polio vaccines. A specific pool of Koprowski's vaccine is known to have been contaminated by an unknown virus.

Koprowski's polio vaccine was given to many children less than one month old, before their immune systems were fully developed. In one trial, infants were given 15 times the standard dose in order to ensure effective immunisation. If correct, there are serious ethical, health and policy implications. It points to the danger of interspecies transfer (xenogeneic) of material through vaccinations, organ transplants, etc., which could lead to new diseases.

Whilst Koprowski refutes the theory, there has been no sustained attempt to test it. Whilst stocks of polio vaccine have been tested for the presence of SIV, all the stocks from all trials must be subjected to testing. Offers to undertake tests were made in 1991 yet only in 2000 were samples tested, and then only the US-made vaccine. Better yet would be to test stored blood samples in Africa from before 1950. Hooper has implied that a fear of blame for millions of AIDS-related deaths and lawsuits prevented the scientists from admitting their unwitting mistake.

There are people out there who claim to have had AIDS and not been HIV positive and vice versa. There are others in which the virus has disappeared - vanished from all means of detection. For an alternative view on AIDS, visit the 'Immunosuppression' section of cogreslabs. It offers a profoundly different viewpoint and it is interesting to compare with other theories.

Having looked at the nature of HIV and AIDS one is both alarmed and wary. As we know it, HIV leads to AIDS but this is still a moot point in some scientific circles. Be wary of dogma - there are enough exceptions to the AIDS phenomenon to keep us all on our toes. Being young, fit and healthy also means that any normal person is likely to be highly sexed to boot. Sex is like the weather - it can be calm and quiet or rough and stormy, but if you think you're gonna get wet, you'd better wrap up!