Talk:Super AIDS

Problems

This is entirely based on one verified case and a brief media scare. The sources do not talk about "wild" clades, do not talk about selection pressure and do not say it was too virulent to survive. One source even says: "Four months after the initial announcement of this "super strain" of HIV, there have been no further cases reported...even in the original patient's known partners. The patient in question is doing well on HIV therapy, prompting some to believe that initial fears may have been premature." As such, I have prodded the article, as the current content is not even fit for merging. Vassyana (talk) 02:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

First, you're flatly wrong - it's not one person, it was 4 people as of 2006. See http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5529a1.htm (identified three other patients with similar risk factors who engaged in high-risk sexual activity at the same time and in the same venues as the index patient and who were infected with a genotypically homologous strain of HIV)

Second, if the guy was infected with a drug-resistant clade and he was not on anti-viral medications (which the CNN article says was the case), then the drug-resistant clade was outcompeting the wild strain. Therefore, everything in this article is true. Raul654 (talk) 02:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

One minor correct - I just noticed the reference articles don't explicitly state that the identified patients had all died (I was under the impression they had) but until I can find a reference to confirm this I've removed the claim. Raul654 (talk) 02:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You can hardly blame me for taking the sources that you provided with the article at face value. Are there more sources? My periodicals access revealed next to nothing beyond the initial scare and similar updates/retractions as I noted above. Since this seems to be a valid, if limited, phenomena (as indicated by your CDC link), could we redirect it to less sensational name? (Such as "Drug resistant HIV".) And, thanks for removing the claim contradicting the sources. Vassyana (talk) 02:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This case was not special because it was drug resistant HIV - that happens all the time in patients taking anti-retrovirals (usually because they aren't good about taking them on the right schedule). What was significant about this strain was that it was drug resistant AND it was more-fit (in the evolutionary sense) than wild HIV.

As for an article title, there isn't any generally accepted name for this, but "Super AIDS" is by far the most common. Raul654 (talk) 02:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Point taken on article title. I'm just a bit uncomfortable with sensationalist topic titles. One of my friends is a researcher at Roswell Park and she agreed check some article databases to see what good sources she might be able to find for us. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 03:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The CDC calls it "Multidrug-Resistant, Dual-Tropic HIV-1 Infection --- New York City, 2005". Not exactly appropriate for one of our article titles. Raul654 (talk) 03:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

terminology

Also a note about terminology - I'm not a virologist, so I'm not sure if "clade" is the correct term. It could be that, or it could be subspecies, quasi-species, strain, or isolate. Raul654 (talk) 02:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I know you're not a virologist. You're not eccentric enough. ;) (I know a couple of virologists in real life actually.) *chuckle* Vassyana (talk) 03:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Last year I took a class "Immunology for engineers", which turn out to be "Computational immunology" (yes, there is such a thing), which itself turned out to be a full semester course on AIDS. Raul654 (talk) 03:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was going to request a deletion, but with you two in support of working on it, I'm scared witless. Not being a virologist, nor playing one on TV (I know, old joke), but I've had to take a lot of virology courses. Probably before either of you were born. Anyways, clade is wrong. A clade is usually a group of organisms with one common ancestor--this is a strain, meaning it's a slight mutation from the parent strain. The title does suck, sorry Raul. It's sensationalist. We could name it "Multidrug-resistant HIV strain." Simple and to the point. Oh, and the references are a bit weak. Nothing like the Advocate to be fair and impartial about AIDS. Still think it's not notable. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 06:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

verifiability

I have to chime in that I too am worried about the verifiability of sources on this one. All news items and nairy a peer-reviewed journal in sight. Unfortunately it ain't in my specialty so I am a bit rusty. Should put out an SOS on the WP:MED noticeboard...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: The sources are all from early 2005, which is soon after the original case in late 2004. It would be nice for there to be a later one to wee where discussion in hte medical community led to WRT diagnosis and classification. Some the medical input this soon after the origin would have been speculative. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Look further up this talk page, namely at http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5529a1.htm Raul654 (talk) 04:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Much better source - though this is itself nearly 2 years old. further developments would be very helpful. Has this strain turned up again since this? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Notability

This article could really be rolled into the main HIV or AIDS articles. The pop culture reference seems to be the most important element of an individual article, everything else is redundant discussion of problems with mutations that cause higher drug resistance and virulence.

A "subtypes of HIV" article would be a great thing to have. HIV group O is a bit of a headache for blood screening/donation. I'll attempt to start one.Somedumbyankee (talk) 00:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(1) I strongly disagree that this article is redundant with the HIV article. This is not your run-of-the-mill drug resistant strain of HIV. It's drug resistant *and* it's better at destroying the immune system than non-drug resistant HIV. That's what makes this particular strain both unique and notable. (2) HIV Group O? Are you confusing HIV with blood types? [NB: Correcting myself here -- apparently group O is a subgrouping of HIV type 1] Raul654 (talk) 03:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

One case, however troubling, pales in comparison to the massive problems of drug resistance, strains that cause false negatives on tests, and the other quirks of hypervariability. This is nearly a worst case scenario (it still responded to one medication) and is worth mentioning as an indication of why hypervariability is a problem, but it's not worth a completely separate article for the South Park reference.Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Title?

With the exception of south park I don't see any other sources for calling this article "Super AIDS". If anything it should be called "Super-strain" or something to that effect. Schnarr 07:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the term was coined during an interview on a local NY news show, but I can't cite a source for that. I remember the clip being YouTube'ed when the episode originally aired, but a DMCA takedown was issued by the news company and the video was removed. - Burningmace 21:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burningmace (talk • contribs)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Pending changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:13, 17 June 2010 (UTC).

There is some early edit history going back to 2005 at Super Aids, a page that is redirected to Super AIDS, which has been protected for over a year. Most edits from IPs and new user accounts have been unconstructive, with only one exception that I could find. I'd be willing to try using pending changes to protect this page rather than semi-protection. --JWSchmidt (talk) 14:39, 18 June 2010 (UTC)