Sexual Russian Roulette or why there won't be a cure for HIV

Hopefully, most literate persons by now understand that HIV and the fatal disease this virus carries are wholly preventable. The only transmission medium for this virus is body fluids, thus no body fluids - no virus!

What I have had difficulty with is why the virus and its accompanying symptoms are so difficult to figure out. Last night, I was given the answer.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV is an incredibly devilish creature. I mean this sincerely - it is my belief that this virus was not created, but engineered by the devil himself.

All living things contain DNA as their basic building block of life. There is a counterfeit if you will to DNA which nature has developed, called RNA.

The HIV-1 virus is a retrovirus. A retrovirus isn't called retro because it like Elvis Presley. A retrovirus uses the counterfeit RNA instead of DNA as its basic genetic material. The HIV virus is one of these viruses. Here's where the devilish part comes in:

The retrovirus (in this case HIV) enters a healthy cell and uses a special enzyme called RT or "Reverse Transcriptase" to switch its RNA into DNA which the healthy cell incorporates into itself. The HIV virus is extremely effective in doing this and may do so very rapidly, multiplying itself by many generations is a very short period of time (perhaps as quickly as 15 minutes). Normally when cells pass on DNA information, the information is read by a "reading frame" and it is passed on in tact or without error. The reading frame catches errors and eliminates them. But a retrovirus such as HIV doesn't have this reading frame and so each time it replicates itself, it may be filled with errors, creating a new mutated offspring.

Here's the plumber's view of what I'm talking about:

Jimmy is single and in college and is fairly attractive and meets Sally at a party. They like each other and after dinner and some drinks a few nights later, they end up in Jimmy's apartment having sex. Jimmy thinks Sally is a pretty nice girl and they agree to date for awhile. What Sally doesn't know is that Jimmy has done this before and 2 times ago, unbeknownst to Jimmy, he became a carrier of the HIV-1 virus. It has not spread throughout Jimmy's body for some reason, but he is still a carrier.

Sally dates Jimmy but she also really likes Mike who plays college volleyball. One night after a tournament she has the "opportunity" to sleep with Mike and she jumps at the chance. Mike has a great car and a terrific apartment. He also has something else which he doesn't know about.

About 2 weeks later, Sally begins to feel lethargic. Her energy is gone and she seems to be losing weight, even though she doesn't do much exercise. She goes to see the doctor who is very busy trying to pump as many patients through his practice as possible and after 1.88 minutes, he tells her that she is probably under alot of stress and prescribes something to help her sleep.
Sally feels much better, after resting and sees Jimmy again. They sleep together.

After another week, Sally feels tired again and this time she thinks she is looking pale. She re-visits her doctor and he suspects anemia so he orders a blood test. Sally is at work when she receives a call from her doctor's receptionist telling her that she must come to the office immediately and he will explain why. Sally is worried and she should be - she is about to learn that because of her behavior, she has just been sentenced to death. So has Jimmy and Mike, although they don't know it yet.

Why doesn't a pharmaceutical company make an inhibitor or an agent which will directly kill the HIV-1 virus which is known?

Because the virus mutates as I described above - sometimes very rapidly and sometimes not for years. Each person's symptoms will be different. And even if a vaccine for the virus itself were given, the offspring's mutations and use of RNA to enter healthy cells means that each succeeding generation could be an entirely different organism. So what entered your body as a single virus may now be millions of unique variations all trying to kill you.

Is sex worth it? If you are single, before you have sex with anyone - marry them. Before you marry them - each of you should get a complete physical including blood screening.

Your life depends upon it.