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A FRENCH TEENAGER born with HIV has been in remission for 12 years after stopping her medication, a world first that renews hope for the prospect of early treatment, researchers said yesterday.
The young woman, now 18, is not considered cured, but is doing perfectly well off treatment, said the research led by Asier Saez-Cirion of the HIV, Inflammation and Persistence Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
Never before have scientists known of a case in which an HIV-infected child goes into long-term remission, said the study presented at the International AIDS Society meeting in this western Canadian city.
“We can detect HIV in the cells, but what we cannot detect is viral replication in the plasma,” Saez-Cirion said in an interview.
“We don’t know yet why this girl was able to control the infection.”
The girl does not have the genetic factors associated with natural control of infection, which has been seen in a rare group of patients.
“Most likely, she has been in virological remission for so long because she received a combination of antiretrovirals very soon after infection,” said the report.
Remission in children
The young woman, whose identity was not revealed, was infected with HIV either in utero or during childbirth.
When she was five, her family dropped out of the treatment program for unknown reasons. When they returned her to medical care one year later, she “was found to have an undetectable viral load,” said the report.
Doctors decided not to resume antiretroviral treatment for the child, but monitored her.
Researchers said the unconventional case bolsters growing evidence in adults that starting treatment immediately after HIV infection is essential.
Her case “suggests that long-term remission after early treatment is possible in children infected by HIV,” said the report.
Single case
There was a previous case of a baby who was born with HIV in the US state of Mississippi and went into an extended remission, but her case lasted only 27 months after antiretroviral therapy was stopped.
So researchers urged caution in interpreting the results, and said doctors do not recommend anyone stop their antiretroviral treatment.
“This case is going to be inspiring for people living with HIV and working in the field,” said scientist Sharon Lewin, who co-chaired a symposium earlier this week on finding a cure for HIV.
The meeting has drawn more than 6,000 HIV professionals from around the world.
“My reservations are, it’s a single case,” Lewin told AFP.
It’s also uncertain whether the teen would have controlled (her HIV infection) without any treatment. We know one percent of people who become infected naturally control the virus and don’t require treatment.
The reality
The girl’s case may not be unique, but it is the first identified by researchers, said Saez-Cirion.
“I’m sure there will be others in the future,” he said, noting there are still relatively few studies of children infected at birth who are now young adults and have been monitored for their entire lives.
Lewin cautioned that no one should become complacent about finding a cure in the face of growing evidence showing it is possible to treat HIV.
“The reality is there are still two million new infections and 1.5 million deaths a year from HIV and 35 million living with HIV,” said Lewin.
“Whether we can really fund that, sustain and keep people in lifelong care is unclear.”
Saez-Cirion said the findings offer direction for future research.
The case “shows that remission is possible, but rare. We need to understand why it’s not common, and which mechanisms are (involved) so that we can treat a larger population.”
- © AFP 2015.
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To be honest it beats the alternative – having fake brands which really take you out of the film. Nothing worse than a movie character cracking open a can just labelled “beer”
Ya, the movie world is filled with mind reading barmen aswell. I’d love to be able to walk into a bar and order a “Beer” and get what I want every time!
Go to some restaurants in Italy and that’s what happens. A two page list of wine with two beers at the bottom called small and large.
The product placements in Wayne’s World were satirical and totally over the top for the sake of comedy, this example doesn’t really fit in with the rest!
If this article is giving you a headache, Rob Hunt, you should take two Nuprin.
Ah, Nuprin. Little. Yellow. Different.
Or you could try JIMPRIN, a generic version that may be even better!
JIMPRIN! Almost made in Ireland!!
James Bond Skyfall with Heinekin and the Sony laptops.
I think the icing on the skyfall sell out cake was…
M:What was that?
Moneypenny: Volkswagen beetles I believe ma’m
I thought for a second she was going to add ‘what I can’t believe is they start from only €16K’
In fairness Bond has a noble heritage of schlepping. In Goldfinger You could have a drinking game out of the amount of times Sean Connery during his golf march wit Aurich Goldfinger says the word Slazenger.
I Lol’d at that
I hate product placement just about as much as I love a nice ice filled glass of Bulmers on a sunny day…
The movie producers and companies are out to make money, yet I think this speaks more to human beings and their desire to want something that they see in a movie, regardless of how useless that thing may be.
Have you seen the Product Placement in Fair City :) woaaaaa
Too true they’re shameless!
Some other company were offered the placement in ‘Castaway’, wouldn’t take it because they thought the plane crash would be bad for business.
The guy who filmed castaway was a former marine who served his time in Vietnam with the CEO of FEDEX.
At the time the board did not want the company to go ahead and feature in the movie but the CEO managed to push it through, , From memory it is the only actual airline ever to have a plane crash.
There’s a fascinating development in product placement. A company called Morris’s have developed technology which allows post production placement.
Essentially this means that anything which as ever been filmed wether yesterday or 50 years ago, can have products placed in it.
They have a showreel which includes a Kellogg’s cereal on the breakfast table of a Cosby show episode which predates the product by about five years.
http://www.mirriad.com/tag/digital-product-placement/
This means placement can be sold in different territories for different products.
There was a recent episode of how I met your mother which featured one of the characters carrying a shopping bag. The space on the bag was sold multiple times (down to zip code level) by individual broadcasters & where it wasn’t sold. It was blank with no disruption to the scene.
The Truman show. A very very very large product ad
What a moany article.
Are you seriously suggesting there should be no name brand products in films? Yeah, that’ll make it more natural.
There was nothing unnatural about any of these products. Imagine, a named car in a film about… Cars?!
Sharon’s stones ” Toothless Grin” in basic instinct
Remember a blatant one for Nike, in Heath Ledger’s ‘A Knights Tale’. Crap film anyway but that plug was shameless.
Nike not capitalizing… While they did only release 1500 (not 1000 fact check anyone?) pairs they also sold them in a bidding process for $3,500-10,000 a piece.
That’s a BMW Z8 from The World Is Not Enough pictured, not the Z3 from Goldeneye.
I am sick to death of the Apple’s product placement. iphone & MACs everywhere. And if the ‘baddie’ in the tv seriesbor movie takes out his phone, it looks like a blackberry.
The most blatant were Cheerios back in the late 70s, the cereal boxes were framed and lit better than the actors
I’m surprised the movie jack and jill with Adam Sandler was left out of this list…. Worst product placements I’ve ever seen. The ones above aren’t too bad… The whole movie was based on trying to get a Dunkin Donuts commercial made.
Because the film was so bad that no one saw it and the placements.
I’m glad no one has seen it. Horrible money grabbing piece of crap.
The picture of Bond was in Azerbaijan in The World is not Enough standing next to the BMW z8 the z3 roadster was in Goldeneye :)
Don’t forget Mac & Me, an entire movie made to promote MacDonalds
don’t get this article?? product placement is all the rage these days to even in lot of tv shows as well, and animated programmes like southpark
Mission impossible in Dubai. BMWs new 1 and 3 series and X5 used alot! Also in up in the air, American Airlines an Hilton are heavily used and advertised but I heard this was for the free use of the hotels and planes
Surely men in black for ray ban has to be there.
The movie Mac & Me should definitely be on that list. It’s an ET rip-off where the alien character spends his time consuming MacDonalds, Skittles and Coca Cola. It even has a 5 minute dance scene in MacDonalds in which Ronald MacDonald joins in on the fun.
Don’t. Forget the subtle method of thejournal.ie to include newstories which are actually adverts…. how dare they provide a free service and try to recoup costs through advertising … don’t forget talkshows like opera and the late late show. I’m also lead to believe that the rte news is sponsored by the sitting government. :)
They’ve nothing on Microsoft, I mean Hawaii, Five O though.
The Miller truck I bad boy’s 2 was so bad just a long dramatic sweeping camera shot of the Miller truck pass in slow motion
In the movie Anger Management, a movie set in NYC that was released shortly after 9/11, you can see several ads for U.S army recruitment.
What about Heineken in skyfall?
Product Placement has been around for years and always will be.
Watched ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ last night and Coca Cola featured prominently, didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the film though and the funding helps get the films made.
Smoking though does bother me, shameless placement in scenes you don’t see anymore, such as people smoking in offices and bars etc and really should be stamped out.
It is easy enough to get any product placement for the goodies in white hats…….try getting some for the the guys in the black hats, sadly the baddies are not really what the advertisers seem to want .
Oh dingleberrycity.com would never bother with product placement.
Transformers, General Motors, Xbox, Nokia, EBay, Burger King amongst others, and numerous references to Michael Bays other films….
Burger King in first Iron Man
The BMW z3 wasn’t in Goldeneye, it was in The World is Not Enough :)
What about Paddy Whiskey in On TheWaterfront?
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