The Inexplicable Survivors of a Widespread
Epidemic
By Carol Pogash, NY Times Staff Writer
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Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Kai
Brothers, left, who has H.I.V. but no signs of AIDS,
with Dr. Jay Levy in his office. |
SAN FRANCISCO, April 28 - Before powerful antiviral
medicines became available, Kai Brothers lost his partner
and many friends to AIDS. Thinking he was next, he quit his
job, emptied his 401(k) and waited to die.
Nothing
happened.
It has
been 16 years since Mr. Brothers learned he was H.I.V. positive.
Since then, he has never taken AIDS drugs or had any illnesses
associated with the disease. Despite his good fortune, Mr.
Brothers says he feels isolated.
"I don't
identify with people who are H.I.V. negative because I'm not,"
he said. "I could infect someone. I don't identify with the
positive people, because I don't have to deal with my health
and medications and the things they have to worry about."
Once a
month Mr. Brothers visits the laboratory of Dr. Jay Levy,
a professor at the University of California, San Francisco,
who is director of the university's laboratory for tumor and
AIDS virus research. Since the epidemic began in 1981, Dr.
Levy has been trying to understand why Mr. Brothers and others
who are H.I.V. positive can remain medicine-free yet fit for
decades, while the average person with H.I.V. progresses to
AIDS within 10 years, if untreated.
An answer
to that question could help in the development of a vaccine.
As a long-term
survivor, also known as a long-term nonprogressor, Mr. Brothers,
42, is a much sought after anomaly. Dr. Levy believes that
about 5 percent of people with H.I.V. are medicine-free and
still healthy after 10 years.
Dr. Anthony
S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases defines nonprogressors as treatment-free
people with H.I.V. who have so little virus in their blood
that it cannot be routinely detected. He suggests their numbers
are far smaller, more like 0.2 to 0.4 percent.
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