earnest_voice
Well-Known Member
EV. Genes are racist. That's all a good progressive needs to remember.
So are we still talking about the OP? (Why so many African Americans have HIV/AIDS?) The case study you cited goes a little ways to explaining your position but also mentions the outcome with this patient was also a result of discontinuing the antiviral treatment and the effect that had on the CXCR4 coreceptor.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0802905#t=article
This observation is remarkable because homozygosity for CCR5 delta32 is associated with high but not complete resistance to HIV-1. This outcome can be explained by the behavior of non-CCR5-tropic variants, such as CXCR4-tropic viruses (X4), which are able to use CXCR4 as a coreceptor. The switch occurs in the natural course of infection, and the proportion of X4 increases with ongoing HAART.
The lack of this genetic mutation in African Americans doesn't explain the prevalence of HIV/AIDS amongst them. I think the factors are too varied to narrow it down to any particular cause. IMO it would be a number of factors compounded by their individual situation.