Baby Cured from HIV

Brooke Kennedy
American History
Carter Glass
8 March 2013

Bibliography:

"Baby With H.I.V. Is Reported Cured - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World   News & Multimedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/health/for-first-time-baby-cured-of-hiv-doctors-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

Summary:

For the first time a baby has been cured from HIV. This could change how many kids live with the disease. The baby was born in Mississippi. After 30 hours the baby was treated with "antiretroviral drugs". If this works on other babies as well this could help to save many lives. This baby could be the "second well-documented case of a cure in the world". This also could spark the research of HIV to get more attention. The first person that was cured was a middle aged man named Timothy Brown. He had leukemia and the person who donated bone-marrow to transplant that person was "genetically resistant to HIV infection". The baby was born prematurely in the fall of 2010. The mother didn't know that she had HIV and hadn't gone to the doctor while she was pregnant. The baby was immediately drugged for the disease and continued to be drugged until the baby was 18 months old. Then the mother stopped bringing the baby to get the drugs. When the mother brought the baby back 5 months later the tests were negative for HIV.

Analysis:

There are many doctors that have been working on curing HIV/AIDS. And after this one report many people think that there is an actual cure for HIV/AIDS. Because they have "cured" one baby, that doesn't mean that this will work  for every baby born with HIV. Also this "cure" does not help adults that have HIV because the "cure" only stopped HIV from turning into AIDS which will cause death. Adults have already gotten to that point of the disease. This cure was important and scientists and doctors should be recognized for it but this is not a cure exactly for HIV/AIDS. 

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