Word: viruses
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...bolstered by the growing number of intravenous drug users infected by the disease. Addicts share germs when they share needles. Then came the clincher: cases of AIDS in hemophiliacs and later in recipients of donor blood. The pattern resembled that of hepatitis B, a blood-borne and sexually transmissible virus that is common among drug addicts, blood recipients and gay men. AIDS cases among Haitian men and women remained a puzzle until it was discovered that many of the men, though not homosexually inclined, had warded off destitution by serving as prostitutes to gay men. Earlier this year, Haitians were...
...discovery of the AIDS virus came much sooner than anyone could have expected. "We have never made such rapid progress with any disease in the past," says Margaret Heckler, Secretary of Health and Human Services. It was in May 1983 that a French team led by Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris first published evidence of a new virus that appeared to play a role in the disease. The following spring, Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., announced that he had conclusively identified the AIDS virus and produced it in large quantities...
Though AIDS sufferers have yet to benefit from the Franco-American "miracle," research on the virus has shed considerable light on the nature of their disease and why it so devastates the immune system. The virus launches a direct attack on helper T cells (or T lymphocytes, as they are also known), invading them in much the same way that the hepatitis virus homes in on cells in the liver. Once ensconced in the T cell, explains Dr. Clifford Lane of the National Institutes of Health, the AIDS virus prevents this vital cell from doing its job as "the initiator...
...factory is extraordinarily efficient. Research conducted by Harvard's Haseltine and published in the July issue of the journal Cell reveals that the virus has a unique genetic component that allows it to reproduce itself a thousand times as fast as any other kind of virus. The mechanism for this reproduction "is one of the biggest effects I've seen in biology," says Haseltine. "It helps explain why AIDS is such a devastating disease and why it can spread so fast." In the process of rampant replication, the AIDS virus destroys its home, the T cell. Thus...
...everyone infected with the AIDS virus develops the deadly syndrome. Most develop a seemingly peaceful coexistence with the virus, says Dr. James Curran, who heads the CDC task force on AIDS. "They have no symptoms at all or very minimal symptoms, but they have persistent infection and are probably persistently infectious to others." Another group suffers a mild version of immune-system depression, with symptoms and signs that include malaise, weight loss, fevers and swollen lymph nodes. This syndrome, called AIDS-related complex, or ARC, sometimes but not always develops into full-blown AIDS...