Genetics3 essays

Genetics3 essays Why is AIDS so difficult to cure? How does the AIDS virus attack the body? In 1979, the first reported AIDS case occurred in New York, and by mid-June 1981, unusual immune system failure among gay men was surfacing in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) initially name the disease GRID, or gay-related immune deficiency, because it was prominently found among homosexuals. It appeared to be a lifestyle-associated illness, linked to excessive stress to the immune system. Researchers believed that a highly infectious agent, which depleted T cells and could be transmitted through intercourse, blood, or blood products from mother to fetus, caused GRID. In July of 1982, the disease was renamed AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Since then, the diseases origins, the factors affecting it, the causes behind it, the symptoms arising from it, the groups at risk from it, and the practices leading to it have been widely and comprehensively researched. Despite painstaking efforts and billions of dollars spent on research, despite the nume rous drugs created to control and relieve its various symptoms, there is still no cure for it. We ask the question, Why?. AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. HIVs coat of protein fits the receptors in certain types of white blood cells (T cells) in the human immune system. When the virus is taken into these cells, it reproduces and destroys the immune system cell in the process. It attacks the body by attacking the immune system, making the person susceptible to and defenseless against many infections that he or she would normally be able to fight off easily. In many cases, HIV infection leads to AIDS, which ultimately leads to death. HIV is a retrovirus that is transmitted by the exchange of bodily fluids usually through sexual acts and the sharing of drug needles, mother to infant transmission, and sometimes by the con...