Word: helper
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Citing doctor-patient confidentiality, Mellman will not discuss Johnson's treatment or current condition. But in an interview with TIME last week, Johnson acknowledged that he has in the past taken AZT, the antiviral drug typically administered when a person's helper T-cell count drops to 500. (See following story.) Johnson said that he is no longer taking AZT and that his T-cell count is above 500, "but I don't tell exactly what it is because then I'll have everybody talking about it." His health, he says, "has been wonderful. My doctor told me to watch...
...over so quickly it can easily be missed. Within days after the virus has penetrated the body, many people develop what feels like a miserable case of flu. No wonder. Thousands of HIV particles are reproducing themselves in their favored target: a specialized group of white blood cells called helper T cells. These cells, also known as CD4 cells, are the linchpin of the immune system, and when they are attacked the body marshals all its resources to protect them...
...dozen years or more--or perhaps, in rare cases, indefinitely (see following story). But for the majority, the reprieve lasts only five or 10 years. Each year more HIV escapes from the lymph nodes into their blood. The immune system gets progressively weaker as more and more helper T cells...
...third stage of infection begins when the helper T-cell count drops from an average of 1,000 cells per milliliter of blood to fewer than 500. Doctors tend to treat that number as an imaginary tripwire. When a patient hits it, they issue a prescription for AZT, the original anti-HIV drug and still the most widely prescribed. Unfortunately, AZT by itself is only marginally effective. The virus is notoriously changeable. Within 18 months, it usually manages to mutate into a form that is no longer susceptible to AZT or any of its chemical cousins...
...official diagnosis of AIDS generally is not made until the helper T-cell count falls below 200. That customarily marks the beginning of a patient's final decline. In the past few years, however, doctors have come to realize that the T-cell number doesn't really tell them how sick a person is. Patients with fewer than 200 helper T cells sometimes seem quite healthy, while others with a higher count are already suffering from opportunistic infections, like Kaposi's sarcoma or pneumocystis pneumonia...