People claim that there is already an AIDS vaccine....?

...what do you think or know? Magic Johnson and his wife look pretty good for having AIDS for this length of time. What is their secret?

I am unaware of the existence of an AIDS vaccine. I can, however, explain why Magic Johnson is still living a healthy life, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

The primary reason people with HIV and A.I.D.S. are living longer and better lives is due to the advanced understanding we now have of the virus and our advances in genetic reasearch.

Back in the 80's, the first drugs used to fight HIV showed initial efficacy against the disease, only to eventually weaken as the virus mutated. The race to find and make available new drugs couldn't keep pace with the tenacity of this relatively new, and terrible disease.

Fortunately for us, some brilliant scientific minds learned how to break down the viruses "DNA" in a process called genotyping. This new test revealed two important things:

1) that each infected person had their own form of the virus, in varying degrees of mutation, and

2) That when the virus mutated to fight one drug type, it then became suseptible to other drug types. This occurred even with drugs it had previously mutated resistance to.

Thus, the foundation for the modern treatment of HIV was born. It (loosely) is as follows:

1) The infected person is regularly tested for HIV genoyping to track their viruses' changes.

2) Drug cocktail regimes are then ordered based on the viruses suseptibility, revealed in the results. Consequently, the patient is always recieving the most effecive treatment to suppress the virus. This process facilitates the suppression of the virus ensuring the patient never developes a full-blown case of A.I.D.S.

These two steps are usually coupled with a regimented life-style that includes diet, exercise and frequent doctor exams.

Hope this helps.

NO VACCINE. All the trials have been suspended. Seems that the vaccine was actually increasing peoples odds of getting the disease. No magic, no secret. People progress at different rates. And don't forget, they get the best of medical treatments.

There is no AIDS vaccine as of now. The HIV virus infects T-helper cells by binding to a protein (CD-4) that is on their cell surfaces. They believe Magic Johnson has a slightly modified version of CD-4 that the HIV cannot bind to, therefore, although he has HIV in his blood, they cannot infect his cells.

Their secret is that they have money to pay for all kinds of very, very expensive drugs, and most people can't. Also, I don't know if his wife has it or not, I didn't think she did, am I wrong?

There have been some vaccines in trial. One of them though, strangly enough seemed to cause people to get infected even more easily. That was way bad since it was a highly developed vaccine and was thought to be the most promising.

As for Magic Johnson, he has a good immune system and doctors. My understanding is that the viral load is so low in his blood now that they can no longer detect live virus. Some people appear to be quite resistant to the virus.