African Americans, the CC chekomine receptor 5, and the virus that causes AIDS

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Ethereal

Ethereal

Sicc OG
#1
Mar 18, 2003
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#1
This thread is aimed at opening some eyes and educating African Americans and other minority groups about their at-risk state of aquiring and developing the HIV-1 virus and/or AIDS. Some skeptics have mentioned that the AIDS virus was created as a means to destroy the African America race; while the information I am giving you favors that notion, I advise you not to take this as proof that such statements are true. I hope that you will use this information wisely for your own use and to educate other at-risk youths and adults about this reality.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: I am not a scientist, and I did not discover this. I have read magazines and online articles to gather the information I have. I posted it to the best of my knowledge as I understand it. If you want to know more, I strongly reccomend researching it yourself.

First I would like to explain what the CC chekomine receptor 5 is. The CC chekomine receptor 5 (CCR5) is a group of molecules that is present on the surface of human cells. For one to be infected with HIV, the disease must enter into your cells by way of attacking your cells surface, or binding itself to the CCR5. In other words, the disease latching onto the CCR5 receptor is the first phase of HIV infection before it attacks other parts of the surface (CCR2), and then enters the cell to spread.

There are astonishing facts that you need to know.

1. Some humans have a deletion in both copies of the gene that creates the CCR5 receptor. The CCR5 makes it much easier for HIV-1 to invade your cells, thus those who lack the CCR5 are resistant to HIV. This deletion sequence is found "almost exclusively" in those living in or decending from Europe. Ten percent of humans that are of European decent are resistant to HIV-1 infection. In other words, there genetic sequence will fight against the virus to prevent infection. From what I have read, there is not an African American population with this deletion, rather polymorphisms that accelerate the spread of HIV-1.

2. One percent of those decending from Europe are completely immune to HIV-1. In other words, they can have sex with HIV-1 infected humans and never get the disease.

Some scientists have linked this immunity to European anscestry where humans have survived small pox. It seems as though, those who survived the disease somehow developed an immunity to it. This seems bizare, and I myself have a hard time believing it, but you can read more about it here.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/30/1070127266087.html?from=storyrhs

There is no known (tested) African Americans with this immunity.

3. "Several polymorphisms in CCR5 do not prevent infection but instead influence the rate at which HIV-1 infection leads to AIDS and death. Some of these polymorphisms have similar effects in different populations; others only alter the speed of disease progression in selected groups. One polymorphism, for example, is associated with delayed disease progression in European-Americans but accelerated disease in African-Americans." -Scientific America

I have heard on many occasions different opinions and theory's about HIV and it's effects specifically targeting African Americans. I was encouraged to make this thread when I read an article in one addition of Scientific America. In this edition, on the cover you will find "Does race really exist?" with different colored human faces (I found it online and I have a link). It talks mostly about regions of the world where humans derive from. I reccomend it for reading to everyone. It talks a little bit about the CCR5, and so I decided to find out more. Most of the information I gathered is sketchy but consistant. It is sketchy because they (online and physical sources) seem to make bold statements but lack true detail. For example, they talk a lot about disease acceleration in African Americans, but they do not give any percentages or numbers (I'm thinking they are quite high).

In conclusion, there are genetic sequences that accelerate the spread of HIV-1 in an African American's body, as well as accelerating the spread of HIV-1 to other bodies (due to the CCR5 receptor and how it is built). On the contrary, some caucasian's (white people) tend to resist the disease, and in some cases are completely immune to it.

This is one.. very.. big.. coincidence. Or is it..

Some of you are going to be scratching your heads after reading this post, and to be honest, this is simplified. Most of the sources you will find (not very many good ones) are so complex that you likely won't even want to read it. Start with the Scientific America article located here.

Feel free to post your thoughts, feelings, and your own gathered information.

If you come across other good sources please feel free to post them, because I'm sure there are many people who would like to know more, including myself. With this post I wanted to open a few eyes and just scratch the surface of this issue. Hopefully I have done just that. Here are a few more links that you may want to check out, all of which I used as sources for the information provided.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...eve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8751444&dopt=Abstract

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/30/1070127266087.html?from=storyrhs

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00055DC8-3BAA-1FA8-BBAA83414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1272/n2641_v127/21224062/p1/article.jhtml
 
Ethereal

Ethereal

Sicc OG
#6
Mar 18, 2003
5,362
194
0
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#6
In one of my classes we watched a video about the HIV/AIDS virus and how it develops. You might know this, but here it goes for those that don't. The way it works (in laymens terms) is simple. AIDS is just a progressed state of HIV as it attacks and kills your T-cells. AIDS is basically measured by your T-cell count: Normal (uninfected) humans have a T-cell count of 500-1,000 (per milliliter). The virus attacks your T-cell count destroying your immune system, and once your T-cell count has dropped to 200 you are diagnosed with AIDS. Here is the thing though, there are drugs that will fight against the virus and in some cases begin to win -- a person's T-cell count will start to rise. However, if a person starts out at, let's say, 800 T-cells per milliliter, drops to 175 and officially being diagnosed with AIDS, then takes medication bringing his T-cell count back up to 600 per milliliter, he is still an diagnosed AIDS patent. Once you're diagnosed, you can never rid the vicious title of having this disease. I would like to add two things before I go any further:

1. There are more ways then just your T-cell count dropping below 200 to be infected with AIDS, but this serves as the basis for diagnosis.

2. There are several arguements that HIV does not even cause AIDS, you can find articles all over arguing in support of this theory.

In Magic Johnson's case, and I think DeluzioN hit it on the nail, he is a strong motherfucker. When he was initially diagnosed with HIV he didn't take *ANY* medication, none. Now I don't know for sure his T-cells started dropping (I'm not going to make assumptions about him) but he does take medication now. In fact he is a spokesman for the leading anti-AIDS drug out there. In my own personal opinion, I think that with his strong immune system combined with the medication that he is taking, he is actually beating the HIV virus. According to the video I watched, it was not completely uncommon for a person (with the help of medication) to fight a winning battle against the virus. Although I will mention this population of humans is very small compared to the masses that lose the battle even with drugs.

So one of two things is happening with Magic Johnson. Either he is just a strong person and is able to fight off the disease with the help of medication, or the HIV virus has yet to begin its course of depleting his T-cells. If you read the following article, this man examines the opinions of medical experts, including those that discovered the disease, and tells you a great deal of useful information. Everyone should read this, some of it is amazing. He states in the article that the HIV virus (according to experts) can stay in your system for 20-30 years before killing off your immune system. Here is an excerpt:

"A lot of people with HIV do not have AIDS: About a third of the HIV+ people, over a million Americans, to be precise. And this is a violation of Koch's second postulate. Of course, excuses in the form that Koch's postulates are outdated or too rigourous are abundant; a reason given for this fact is that everyone with HIV will eventually develop AIDS. This "eventually" has changed from 1-2 years (the number initially given) now to 5-10 years (most recently, as of 2000, as much as 20-30 years). Again, this is an example of non-rigourness that is at the heart of this argument. A million Americans alone with HIV with normal T-cell counts. Six million Africans supposedly. One should answer this discrepancy in a robust manner."
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/science/HIV_AIDS.html

Now in this thread my point wasn't to inform about what races HIV is targeting (because it targets the human race in general) but how some of it's targets are able to fight infection without help or acknowledgement that its even happening. Coincidentally this "some" being predominantly made up of Caucasians descending from Europe. Here is a *GREAT* example of what I am talking about and why I singled out African Americans in this thread--coming straight from the Center of Disease Control:

"At least 23 alleles have been described for the coding region of this gene [CCR5], and most of them are very rare. The most common and most studied is the 32 allele, a 32 base pair (bp) deletion that confers almost absolute protection from infection with macrophage tropic (M-tropic) viruses in homozygous individuals and provides an average 2 to 3 year delay in the progression to AIDS in those heterozygous for the deletion. The allele’s prevalence varies by ethnicity, being as high as 10%-15% in Caucasians, ~2% in African Americans, and virtually absent in native Africans and East Asians (3,6)."
http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/hugenet/factsheets/FS_CCR5.htm

Just to remind those reading this thread, the CCR5 is not present only in African Americans, but in every known nationality (at least all of those tested). The significance of this thread and what is contained herein is that, coincidentally one race of humans (Europeans) has a quite large population that are resistant to the HIV virus because of a deletion in the gene that encode the CCR5.

Now, knowing everything that I have just laid out, let's look at the facts, then you can form your own assessment.

According to the Center of Disease Control African Americans make up for 54% of all new HIV infections, yet they account for only 12% of the entire U.S. population.

Caucasians make up for only 26% of all new HIV infections, yet they make up for 72% of the U.S. population.

AIDS is the leading cause of death for African Americans aged 24-44 (basically the prime of a human life).

From 1980 to the year 2000 (20 years), from a percentage comparison, the Asian population has doubled (2% to 4%), the Hispanic population has doubled (6% to 11%), but the African American population has stayed the same (12% to 12%). In another 20 years (2020) the Asian population is expected to jump to 6%, Hispanics to 16% (this is going to be off, more like 20%) and African Americans are going to jump to 13%. Thats 12% to 13% in 40 years. Now technically percentage wise everything should remain the same (math wiz' correct me if I'm wrong), forever, if we are all reproducing at an equal rate, but what is stunning is that, every minority group in the U.S. is growing at a significant rate except for African Americans. (source: U.S. Cencus Bureau)

I'm not at all saying that AIDS alone is to blame for this, but when you have such an obvious disproportioned (percentage) ratio of HIV infection by race, you kind of figure that it is playing a major role in the African American population not keeping up with other minority ethnicities.
 
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