A Cure for HIV?

I believe in miracles. I believe that miracles come in two forms: those seemingly impossible happenings that can not be explained because the science has yet to be developed to explain them and those truly mysterious events that defy science, logic, rational thought and, sometimes, even hope.

When I first saw the headlines that a man called the Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, had been cured of HIV, I believed the headline. Frankly, any credible news publication that would print that headline would have made sure that there was little to no doubt about the veracity of the claim. So, I believed the headline. What I didn’t know was whether this was miracle type one or miracle type two.

After reading the article, which outlined a bit about Timothy’s story, how he was HIV positive and had developed leukemia, which had been treated with a bone marrow stem cell transplant—with a little twist in that the stem cells were taken from a donor that had a genetic abnormality in which the CD5 receptor cells (the cells that HIV uses to invade white blood cells) were missing—and now he was seemingly cured of HIV. Immediately, I questioned whether or not the doctors had biopsied some of the places that HIV likes to hide out (the brain, lymph areas, etc.) where it is not detectable by regular blood test only to read in a further article that the Berlin patient had developed a neurological condition which required a brain biopsy. The biopsy confirmed that HIV was also absent from his brain and spinal fluids. After reading about the biopsy, I was convinced that I’d lived to see a miracle occur that I hadn’t allowed myself to dream about.

The best part of the miracle is that it is absolutely explainable by science. While I know and have seen the hand of God reach out and touch the world creating tremendous and powerful healings, the Big Guy is hard to reach, quite often booked for years, and sometimes when he returns your call, the news isn’t the news you wanted to hear. So, I offered up a little prayer of thanks—mostly because when a miracle can be explained by science it makes it easier for other folks to become miracle workers.

There are a group of researchers that are now working to try and find out exactly how to repeat this miracle. The fact remains that until this treatment is repeated successfully, it is still firmly in the “mysterious act of God” column on the miracle tracking chart. And even if the procedure is repeated successfully using donor stem cells, the cure will be extremely expensive and will wholly rely on finding other rare donors with the same CD5 genetic mutation that also happen to have a matching bone marrow donor type to the HIV positive person in need (please see the above paragraph about the likelihood of Type One miracles).

Frankly, I watched a family member that I loved dearly, my cousin Jim, go through chemotherapy and an experimental stem cell treatment for a rare type of leukemia. The chemotherapy ate at his body and his spirit, and though he fought and fought hard, he lost his battle. The pain that he had to endure during his fight was heartbreaking. A cure that demands that type of pain as its cost is one that may be more than many people are ready or able to face.

Researchers are also looking at developing gene therapies that would replace the need for donor stem cells. In 2009, a group of doctors were awarded a research grant to look at ways to substitute CD5 deficient stem cells as an alternative to the process that the Berlin patient underwent. It could be years before a successful and cost-effective gene therapy treatment is developed.

In the end, I am so very happy for Timothy Ray Brown. I am excited for what this cure means for the HIV positive community. I sincerely hope that the doctor’s that developed this treatment are on the short list for next year’s Nobel Prize in Physics and Medicine. But, for now, I am keeping this one-time, isolated event in the miracles column. All signs are pointing to a shift of this miracle from the Hand of God type to the scientific discovery type, but there are still too many “what ifs” standing between Timothy Ray Brown and a cheap and effective cure that, for example, will be easily available to people living and dying from AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa for me to recommend that the good people at TheBody.com start looking for new jobs in the post-AIDS era.

But, regardless of the caveats, this is a hell of a great way to ring in 2011. Perhaps by the end of the year, the miracle will become scientific fact, and next year, I will have many good friends at the TheBody.com sending out their resumes and looking for new jobs.

Risk and Death

One year ago today, I lost my cousin to leukemia. In less than three months, my little sister will be shipped back to Iraq for her fourth tour of duty. Last spring, I lost a friend and mentor, Mona Harris, to cancer. My little brother recently returned from Afghanistan, and with that war showing no signs of ending, it is almost a surety that he will also be sent back into harms way.

I am sick and tired of death and the risk of death.

At the age of 32, I should rarely have to think of death. If I do, it should come in the form of elders that have lived long and fulfilled lives, individuals that die surrounded by the people that love them knowing that they are loved.

How fucking naive is that statement.

Unfortunately, I know that because I am not white and most of the people around me are not white, they will die younger than they should. I know because I have had one family member die from cancer that now it is more likely that others will also pass along.

And then there is war.

When a country enters into a war it enters into a compact with death. It promises to the Reaper the certainty of soul collection in order to achieve some goal. Some wars are fought because they must be fought. Though the impetus for the United States to enter the Second World War had little to do with justice and everything to do with empire, entering World War II was just. Hitler was an evil man with evil ambitions that caused great and destructive harm.

No war since then that has been fought by the United States has been right or just, they have simply been the United States trying to protect or enforce a particular corporatized political ideology or protect our own selfish and self-destructive political and economic interests.

The rest of the world and the families that sacrifice their children on the altar of false patriotism be damned.

The death of my cousin and Mrs. Harris and the risk of death of my little brother and sister are connected.

We spend BILLIONS of dollars each month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forget Korea, forget Vietnam, forget the silent invasions of Grenada, Panama, Somalia and the first Gulf War. Just calculate the amount of money that we have spent in the last six years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now imagine if even ten percent of that money had been spent on cancer research and treatment.

My cousin almost survived leukemia.

He had an experimental bone marrow transplant, and for months the doctors at the University of Illinois-Chicago were calling him the miracle guy. Except the cancer came back and took him down quickly.

Afterwards they examined the data and thought perhaps they had done the transplant to soon, too quickly, they hadn't given his own immune system enough time to resist the cancerous blood cells. What if they had been granted a billion dollars to do their research? One billion dollars is LESS than we spend on war in one month. YET imagine what it would mean to research labs across the country. A year ago, perhaps the researchers would have known what they WILL know five years from now. If only they had the staff, equipment, lab space, and materials to move forward. If ONLY Bush hadn't restricted stem cell research during his eight years in office. If only we cared more about preserving life than we did about preserving the bottom line of corporations and shareholder profits.

If only.

But we don't. Instead, I am sitting here nearly a year after my cousin's death. I am remembering that I couldn't afford to fly from California to Minnesota to be with my family. To this day the guilt of that sits in my stomach. I saw my Aunt in June for the first time since my cousins death. All I could think of was that I was my cousin's closest family member outside of his Mom, Dad, and two brothers. I WAS the cousin that made sure to see him when he was in the hospital. I was the cousin that his wife loved. I was the cousin that went to see him when he got back from Korea. I was his friend.

And there is a good chance that if we spent more on life than on death that he would still be alive today, and I would still get to see him at family reunions and on holidays. I would have gotten to be at his wedding, and I would, perhaps, be with him right now.

Instead I am wondering how his nephew, the son of his twin brother, will ever know how amazing his uncle was. Instead, I wonder if my Aunty Susie, a woman that treated me like one of her own children, a woman that I love and look up to, a woman that understood me when I didn't really understand myself...I wonder if she will ever be the same aunty that I have known and loved my entire life.

And all because of a stupid disease that we could cure, except that we are too busy spending our money on war. And I am too busy worrying if I am going to lose my brother and sister too soon as well.