|
|
 
|
  
"It's almost if you think about the level of virus in the blood like the level of water of water in a sink. You can keep that level of water in a sink pretty constant with a lot of water coming in and a lot of water going out, or a little bit of water going in and a little bit of water going out. But let's say you're blindfolded and you can't hear anything, you don't really know what's going on. You could understand what's going on if you turn the faucet off and see how fast the water's going out. And that's really what the protease inhibitor did. It turned the faucet off. So we saw a lot of water went out of the sink very fast. " "So, I think to start saying that this, you know, the end of AIDS has arrived is ridiculous. On the other hand, it's always good to promote hope and optimism when there is some hope and optimism. And I think for many there is hope and optimism. But also for many there is desperation, too, because for every new person who's never taken drugs before, who's newly infected that we can put on regimens and make their blood free of virus while they're on drugs -- again emphasizing we have not stopped drugs on anybody -- and until we can stop drugs, and there's no evidence of virus coming back, nobody's been cured of HIV, we're just controlling what we can see." "I still think we have a lot to understand about how the immune system is being affected by the viral activity. I don't think that we have a really good handle for what's going on immunologically. But it does appear to me, as an investigator, and looking at the difference of treating people early as opposed to late, that by starting early, that we're very likely preventing a lot of the immune consequences of ongoing viral replication, day in and day out, and year in and year out." "I would say that most of the patients have certainly have gone back to work, have had minimal disruptions in their daily activities. I mean, they might not be able to go out and stay out all night and do all the things they love to do. But, on the other hand, I would say they're able to work, they're able to relax, they're able to take vacations, they're able to put the drugs into a daily schedule, so that their lives are relatively uninterrupted." |
