For those living with HIV long-term, scientists are seeing a “second wave” of health issues, the paper reports:
“…experts are coming to believe that the immune system and organs of long-term survivors took an irreversible beating before the advent of lifesaving drugs and that those very drugs then produced additional complications because of their toxicity — a one-two punch.”
For people living long-term with HIV, the research into drug combinations' effect on the body can't happen fast enough, but unfortunately, medicine, like so many things, is reactionary: “One theory about why research on AIDS and aging has barely begun is ‘the rapid increase in numbers,' Dr. Emlet said. The federal disease centers' most recent surveillance data, from 33 states that meet certain reporting criteria, showed that the number of people 50 and older with AIDS or H.I.V. infection was 115,871 in 2005, nearly double the 64,445 in 2001.”
The paper adds: “Those explanations do not satisfy Larry Kramer, founder of several AIDS advocacy groups. Mr. Kramer, 73 and a long-term survivor, said he had always suspected ‘it was only a matter of time before stuff like this happened' given the potency of the antiretroviral drugs. ‘How long will the human body be able to tolerate that constant bombardment?' he asked. ‘Well, we are now seeing that many bodies can't. Once again, just as we thought we were out of the woods, sort of, we have good reason again to be really scared.'”
