Week Eight: Cell Biology: HIV and AIDS

1. How do you feel about western approaches to HIV/AIDS?

I feel like western researchers and doctors are doing the best they can to understand and treat the disease. It's a complicated and cunning deadly virus. Western scientists are investigating the virus's behavior and seem to have a good understanding of how it interacts with the immune system. The immune system is probably the worst system in the body to be under attack -- the very system that should be working to defend the body from malfunction is being corrupted. Even the way I am writing this is very western -- the natural metaphor I use is a mechanical one. I think in the west we think about "killing" and "attacking" the invader. It's a very war-oriented approach to health. And this is what I am wondering--if the whole approach needs to be re-thought and turned upside down. I'm not suggesting that I know how to do this, but sometimes a completely novel way of looking at something can bring solutions to the surface. Some ideas I have:

--concentrate more on strengthening the immune system instead of attacking the virus. The attack mentality doesn't seem to be working very well. Give the body immune strengthening medicines instead of harsh drugs. Research ways to generate a super immune system that can withstand and recognize the virus so that the immune cells are not tricked into being overtaken by the virus. I guess this is the concept of the vaccine. And I understand that a vaccine for AIDS is tricky because there are so many different strains... but maybe there is another way to really bolster the immune system and keep it functioning well?

--try to think like the virus as if the virus had a will and an intent. As if the virus had consciousness. What is its goal? What is its intention? What does it want? Why does it mutate so easily? If the mutations could be controlled perhaps a vaccine would work.

--I'm not advocating for chimp research, but why don't chimps develop symptoms when they have the virus? What is different about how their immune system functions? I don't imagine their immune systems can be all that different.

--we live with a lot of different viruses, like CMV, that don't typically kill us. Is there a way that we could get to a point where the HIV virus is not such a deadly thing to live with?

--is there a way to get HIV to mutate itself into oblivion?

2. Can TCM strengthen our immune systems?

Yes I believe it can. At least all signs point to the fact that TCM does indeed strengthen the immune system. One possible reason for this is that it can lower stress and anxiety; stress and anxiety alone can cripple the immune system because the immune system is connected to the nervous system. Some people believe that the acupuncture needle actually re-activates the immune system by acting as a foreign invader.

3. What do you think of "the deal that saved the whale"?

I think it's complicated. The solution (encouraging ecotourism) is better, I'm almost certain, than outright development. However, I've been working on a project for several years that involves World Heritage sites including the one mentioned in the article (the site is El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve). Several artists were sent on two visits to a natural World Heritage site over the course of a few years. Many of them reported that the act of a place being named a World Heritage site (a designation given to help protect the site) often turns it into a tourist destination. Once that happens -- even if it is ecotourism -- the impact to the site can be significant. This happened at the Galapagos Islands, which just this year went on to the "World Heritage sites in danger" list -- largely from the impact of tourists.

Here is a link, with lots of pretty pictures, to the project I have been working on: www.artistsrespond.org. And a link to the artist's project who worked at the grey whale sanctuary mentioned in the article: http://www.artistsrespond.org/artists/ovalle/

The Mitubishi Saltworks at El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in Mexico: