The way I look at it, less than 40 years ago, it was a death sentence. Now it's a "you can live damn near a normal life and life expectancy". That is incredible.
Every science article, every single one. They always make things sound like breakthroughs and I have to come in the comments to find out it's bullshit or exaggerations. Why?
It's an issue with media outlets sensationalizing everything. The authors of the study even say that it's premature to call this a cure in humans. It is a nice step forward though.
“While these preliminary findings are very encouraging, it is premature to declare that there is a functional HIV cure on the horizon,” the researchers say.
I get more frustrated with articles like this than true clickbait. Here’s a genuine breakthrough in science, in an important health area: we should be excited, happy, inspired. Instead we’re annoyed by a misleading clickbait headline
Maybe view this stuff as a gradual accumulation not as a world changing event. As others ITT pointed out there was fuck all medical science could do about this disease in the era of Reagan Christians laughing about it. Now you can get it and live almost a normal life, provided you live in a wealthy country. The virus is dying not with a bang but with a whimper.
I think its to emphasize the importance of what seems small and boring out of context. Even though it may border on being misleading, I certainly would rather read extrapolations by informed journalists than be left not knowing which conclusions are important to me after reading a scientific publication.
Here's what's interesting about this: HIV is a retrovirus. That means it integrates itself in your DNA. This approach edits the virus in your DNA. The downside is that, like most recombinant viruses, hiv mutates often. This would have to be tailored.
The other, bigger issue is that this only removes the virus in DNA. The virus RNA and packages to turn it into DNA and reinsert it need to be delt with before it can be cured.
In achieving a true cure, you would have to achieve both steps. Considering our previous success was to off all your bone marrow and replace it, this is a promising approach.
The entire origin of CRISPR is an immune defense mechanism against DNA based bacteriophages(bacteria don't have a nucleus so they can't have a retrovirus). It's just cool that we're able to use bacteria immune strategies in our own cells.
As even the article says, we must be cautious because this is purely in the lab at the moment, but this could be a breakthrough along the lines of antibiotics in terms of doing something about virulent viruses, not just HIV!
HIV played a huge part in making societies generally more conservative in the past 40 years or so. Having a cure might start to turn things in the other direction again.
"The authors emphasise that their work represents proof of concept, and will not become a cure for HIV tomorrow. They say: “Our next steps involve optimising the delivery route to target the majority of the HIV reservoir cells. We will combine the CRISPR therapeutics and receptor-targeting reagents and move to preclinical models to study in detail the efficacy and safety aspects of a combined cure strategy. This will be instrumental to achieve preferential CRISPR-Cas delivery to the reservoir cells and avoiding delivery into non-reservoir cells. This strategy is to make this system as safe as possible for future clinical applications. We hope to achieve the right balance between efficacy and safety of this CURE strategy. Only then can we consider clinical trials of ‘cure’ in humans to disable the HIV reservoir. While these preliminary findings are very encouraging, it is premature to declare that there is a functional HIV cure on the horizon.”"
Other STIs still exist, as does risk of pregnancy for hetero couples. Casual sex is on the table, always has been. Just make sure you’re wrapping the appropriate bits, and keeping on top of your personal health.
The #1 reckless casual sex thing you are referring to in which helps spread it is rape. No It hasn’t gone away or ‘fallen out of style’ sadly. Nor has used needles.