4 ms·

Are there any negatives of this mutated CCR5 gene? This article makes it seem like HIV can be cured or at least decimated in 100 days. I’m all for this STD wh

Are there any negatives of this mutated CCR5 gene? This article makes it seem like HIV can be cured or at least decimated in 100 days. I’m all for this STD whack-a-mole, just go down the list and revert to consequence freedom

mmastrac 5y ago
Will we ever get back to consequence freedom? "That" is a particularly successful reproduction strategy for viruses and bacteria to spread around. It feels like we'd just be waiting for the next epidemic.
- vmception 5y ago
  > Will we ever get back to consequence freedom? honestly I should rephrase because I don't think we've ever had it, maybe in some isolated societies pre-colonialism, but now we've never been closer even though sex-education is currently based on so much fear.
  - mmastrac 5y ago
    I'm not sure it's fear, but rather caution and awareness of consequences. Things can spiral out of control fairly quickly if caution falls out of fashion. Two major precautions prevent the vast, vast majority of disease and pregnancy in virtually all situations.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Routine testing fixes most of issues too, many people just have a stigma of testing at all, let alone as often as they should. At this point, some forms of sex workers that have more partners are cleaner than the general population, just because they test often and fix things early. Which is worth saying because it is counterintuitive to what many people think will happen, linking promiscuity to negative health outcome (because they themselves don't test and just accumulate probabilities of infections). the line isn't preventing all exposure to disease, its fixing them when exposure occurs. and yes, combining both strategies of protection alongside testing + early fixing reduces the negative consequence even more even when not preventing absolute exposure to disease.
taran_narat 5y ago
The CCR5 probably codes for a chemokine, these are a group of proteins which help white blood cells home on to specific locations, I would guess you may get some sort of immune deficiency if a chemokine protein was mutated enough
inglor_cz 5y ago
This is what I found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#Potential_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#Potential_costs There may be downsides for carriers of the mutation when fighting infections by other viruses. But nothing completely obvious (unlike, say, in sickle cell anemia).
xiphias2 5y ago
As a person with the polymorphism I'm generally much less careful of protecting myself from other STDs since I know about it, so it increases my chances of aquiring another one.

mmastrac 5y ago

Will we ever get back to consequence freedom? "That" is a particularly successful reproduction strategy for viruses and bacteria to spread around. It feels like we'd just be waiting for the next epidemic.

vmception 5y ago
> Will we ever get back to consequence freedom? honestly I should rephrase because I don't think we've ever had it, maybe in some isolated societies pre-colonialism, but now we've never been closer even though sex-education is currently based on so much fear.
- mmastrac 5y ago
  I'm not sure it's fear, but rather caution and awareness of consequences. Things can spiral out of control fairly quickly if caution falls out of fashion. Two major precautions prevent the vast, vast majority of disease and pregnancy in virtually all situations.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Routine testing fixes most of issues too, many people just have a stigma of testing at all, let alone as often as they should. At this point, some forms of sex workers that have more partners are cleaner than the general population, just because they test often and fix things early. Which is worth saying because it is counterintuitive to what many people think will happen, linking promiscuity to negative health outcome (because they themselves don't test and just accumulate probabilities of infections). the line isn't preventing all exposure to disease, its fixing them when exposure occurs. and yes, combining both strategies of protection alongside testing + early fixing reduces the negative consequence even more even when not preventing absolute exposure to disease.

taran_narat 5y ago

The CCR5 probably codes for a chemokine, these are a group of proteins which help white blood cells home on to specific locations, I would guess you may get some sort of immune deficiency if a chemokine protein was mutated enough

inglor_cz 5y ago

This is what I found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#Potential_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#Potential_costs There may be downsides for carriers of the mutation when fighting infections by other viruses. But nothing completely obvious (unlike, say, in sickle cell anemia).

xiphias2 5y ago

As a person with the polymorphism I'm generally much less careful of protecting myself from other STDs since I know about it, so it increases my chances of aquiring another one.