Why is it that everywhere but on this site all the other sites say that after an AIDS diagnosis is made you have between 2 and 3 years to live! Dosen't that need to be updated? With all the stories of comebacks on this site I would think this would be old news. Any insight?

Thanks for your post.

I think that the statistic about AIDS survival that you quote comes from studies in the pre-HAART era. It would be accurate to say that without treatment that the typical survival of someone diagnosed with AIDS is on the order of 2 or 3 years.

What we (in the CDC HOPS study) first showed in 1998, followed by studies all over the world-- was that if people living with HIV/AIDS have access to care and medications, survival is dramatically increased. In our analysis, among US patients, the death rate plummetted immediately after the advent of triple combination therapies in 1996. It's been barely measurable since.

It's this later situation that is characterized by all of the comeback stories that you read about on our forum and TheBody.com.

As for the other sites, I'm not on their editorial boards-- you should write to them (or just stop using outdated websites).

Happy holidays, Merry Solstice. BY