Dr. Luc Montagnier

Dr. Luc Montagnier was born on August 18 1932 in Chabris, France he is a French virologist. Was asked for his assistance in discovering the new retrovirus in 1982 by William Rozenbaum. William Rozenbaum is a clinician at the Hospital Bichat in Paris. In 1983 Dr. Luc Montagnier was head of the group and had discovered the causative virus but did not know is this caused AIDS. They called this virus the lymphadenopathy-associated virus or LAV for short. But one year latter Dr. Gallo confirmed the new discovery and said that it did cause AIDS and he renamed it the Human T-lymphotrotic virus type III. Dr. Luc Montagnier was upset because Dr. Gallo had taken all the credit when in reality they both had a role on discovering this new virus. In 2008 Dr. Luc Montagnier was given an award for having discovered the HIV virus. He did not mention Dr. Gallo instead shared it with Francoise Barre-Sinnoussi one of his colleagues. He is the President of the Huston-based World Foundation for Medical Research and Perversion. Dr. Luc Montagnier has received more than 20 awards. He is still solving medical problems today like cancers, AIDS, heart and liver diseases, vaccine safety, and military associated ailments. Dr. Luc Montagnier said, "Once we break and catalog the code of the reshuffled RNA, we may finally have a clear direction in how to treat chronic illnesses. " (http://www.ask.com/)

And the Band Played On

The story began in Africa 1976, when people started to die of an unknown illness. 1981 Dr. Don Francis becomes aware of the number of deaths among gay men in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. 1980 many men came down with a strange illness. 1982 the AIDS virus was discovered to be in the blood supply. October 1982 634 people were reported for having AIDS. 1984 patient zero dies. Dr. Don Francis is an American who worked on the outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s. Dr. Robert Charles Gallo, discovered the first retrovirus. Bill Kraus was an American gay rights and AIDS activist. Gaetan Dugas, French-Canadian, patient zero. Bobbi Cambell was an early United States activist. Became the 16th person to be diagnosed with the virus. Dr. Luc Montagnier, discovered with a group the new virus. Dr. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi a French virologist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. Max Essex, is chair of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative. suspected that HIV/AIDS could be a blood transfusion. One of the quotes that caught my attention from the movie Ans the Band Played On was, " This is not a political issue. This is a health issue. This is not a gay issue. This is a human issue." -Rodger Lyon. This particular quote caught my attention because it is true. Many were focusing on the money and that they did not have the enough resources to research this new virus. I believe that saving lives is more important that the money that you are going to receive. AIDS grew bigger due to the battle between Dr. Gallo and the french because at this point they were not focusing on the virus they were just focusing on who get credit for discovering this new virus. Also the research money, they did not want to put the money that the doctors needed in order to research this new virus more into detail. The things that could heve been done differently are the view of the new virus. they should not have focused on who got it first but to get rid of the virus. Also the arguments of who found the virus first or if they had enogh money to go on with the resaerch. This would of prevented a lot of deaths and the spread of the HIV/ADIS virus.

The Affect of AIDS on Other Bodily Systems

One of the most common opportunistic infections is called Toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis lives inside another living organism and takes away all the nutrients from the living organism. This could get into your body when breathing in dust and affects both man and animals worldwide. 50% of the population has been infected by toxoplasmosis up to this point. the most common illness that toxoplasmosis causes is the infection of the brain and can lead to a coma or even death. The risk of getting Toxoplasmosis is when your CD4 count is below 100. Some common symptoms of toxoplasmosis include fever, headachs, disorientation, personality changes, tremor and seizures. When testing if you have toxoplasmosis if the result shows as possitive it does not neceseraly mean that you have this infection. Brain scaning is also one way to diagnose if you have toxoplasmosis.Toxoplasmosis is a seriour opprtunistic infection and could avoid getting it by not eating undercooked meat or fish. Toxoplasmosis affects the central nervous system in patients that have AIDS.

AIDS

AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Dificiency Syndrome. AIDS is caused by the virus of HIV. This virus is passed from one person to another by blood or sexual contact with an infected person. A pregnant woman can pass this virus to her baby durring pregnancy or when dilivering. They can also give it to their baby by breast feeding them. The most common way to get the AIDS virus is through sexual intercource this virus enters the body either by the vagina, penis, rectum, or through the mouth. Also through the blood that has already been infevted. This happens when one person recieves blood from a doner that has the Virus. Some people with the HIV virus can develope the AIDS virus. Like anyother virus in order to survive in the immune system it has to reproduce. AIDS can be diagnosed by using blood, saliva, or by the cells inside the cheek. AIDS is the advanced stage of the HIV virus. You could also diagnose a person that has AIDS by their CD4 count. If the CD4 count is below 200 cells cubic millimeter of blood, this means that the immune system can no longer protect itself from the AIDS virus. The stages of HIV to AIDS are 1. Primary Infection (Several weeks of the flu). 2. Asymptomatic phase (up to 10 years with no real health problems). 3. Symptomatic phase(opportunistic infections begin to occur). 4. AIDS (T-Cells count is low, severe health problems).

Biology of HIV

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The first discovery of HIV was in the early 1980s. Was first named grid, later in 1984 given the name HIV due to the fact that it was being caused by a human retrovirus. Both Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Institute in Paris and Dr. Gallo from the Institute in Washington were racing to find the disease that was going around. In 1983 Dr. Luc Montagnier found the virus he had called LAV ( Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus) and published it in May 1983 so that other could research it. In December 1983 Dr. Gallo published a paper that established this new virus as HIV-type of retrovirus that caused AIDS. When Dr. Gallo had a press conference at the National Cancer Institute to announce that he a lone had found the virus he did not mention that Dr. Luc Montagnier had found the same virus. Even though they had agreed that they were both going to get credit for the new discovery when the press came along no word of the French was mention. That same day Dr. Gallo said that he had found the cause for the AIDS. On 1985 Dr. Gallo and Dr. Luc Montagnier had agreed to go to court so they could split the credit. but this argument lasted until 1987. HIV is a type of retrovirus this means that it is a single strand of RNA so it goes from RNA to DNA and back to DNA, when usually it goes from DNA to RNA. RNA is ideal for storage but once the immune system has learned to recognize a virus the body know how to fight it and this causes the making of antibodies. Since RNA can change the virus so that the body could not recognize it then it must mutate. this is called the mutagenic factor which allows RNA viruses to mutate rapidly and they frequently change their structure of the virus. These kind of mutation make it impossible for the immune system to fight the virus. HIV seems to target CD4 cells or helper T-Cells. This cell is used to activate and function of B-Cells. It targets cells in the immune system that have the protein called CD4 on their surface. These cells are called CD4-positive cells.

The Immune System

The first line of defense in the organ system is called the integumentary system. It is the most important and largest of all the body system. B-Cells is a type of white blood cells called b-lymphocyte. They are developed by stem cells in the bone marrow. (a flexible tissue found in the inside of the bone.) B-Cells create antibodies to mark the bacteria or viruses. The antibodies are y-shaped proteins and they attach to antigens so the body could identify the bacteria or virus and destroy them. The helper T-Cells is a type of white blood cell witch is also called CD4-positive T lymphocyte. They are very active and they circulate around the body to check for any signs or bacteria or viruses. The helper T-Cells carries CD4 and makes it the first cell to be targeted by HIV. The killer T-Cell is also a type of white blood cell but are capable of provoking death to infected or tumered cells. The killer T-Cell attack cells that have specific surface antigens and cells that are damaged. Even though they are both a type of white blood cell the B-Cells are used to produce antibodies while T-Cells are used to identify antigens and to release a chemical that attracts the macrophages to destroy the antigen. Pathogens is a type of bacteria that causes a disease in humans. This causes sickness. Some examples of pathogens are hostile bacteria and viruses. An antigen trigers the immune system to get a reaction. They are found on the surfface of a bacteria or a virus. One major difference between a virus and becteria is that bacteria is a self reproducibg organism. It knows when to split its DNA and RNA into two. As for a virus, it can not reproduce without a living host.

Intoduction

HIV/AIDS was first discovered in west-central Africa in the early 1980s. Some of the first cases occurred in San Francisco and New York City. AIDS is caused by human immunodeficiency virus. this happens because HIV destroys the helper T-Cells or CD4. Since the CD4 is used to help the body fight viruses if it is gone then the body thinks that everything is okay because nothing is fighting this new virus that has entered the body system. HIV/AIDS is a virus that has no cure, even though there is treatment it is not proven to be a cure. HIV/AIDS is not only a sexually transmitted virus, you could also get HIV/AIDS through the bloodstream, or direct contact with an open wound. Babies get this virus if the mother is infected by this virus. The baby gets this virus when she gets pregnant or through breast milk. AIDS has no age of affecting people, anyone could have this virus. Families of victims of this virus suffer because they do not like seeing there family members suffer this way. No one should have to suffer from this virus because it is a scary thought of not having enough time to do the things that you wanted to achieve. This blog is dedicated to everyoune that suffers or has suffered from AIDS. Always have hope and faith this is something that no one can take away from you. =}