Cured How the Berlin Patients Defeated HIV

No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in twenty weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. Victims bled from the ears and nose, turned blue from lack of oxygen, suffered aches that felt like bones being broken, and died. In the United States, where bodies were stacked without coffins on trucks, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza as in the First World War.

In his powerful new book, award-winning historian John M. Barry unfolds a tale that is magisterial in its breadth and in the depth of its research, and spellbinding as he weaves multiple narrative strands together. In this first great collision between science and epidemic disease, even as society approached collapse, a handful of heroic researchers stepped forward, risking their lives to confront this strange disease. Titans like William Welch at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Medical School and colleagues at Rockefeller University and others from around the country revolutionized American science and public health, and their work in this crisis led to crucial discoveries that we are still using and learning from today.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley said Barry’s last book can “change the way we think.” The Great Influenza may also change the way we see the world.

—David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate for Medicine, professor of Biology, and former president, California Institute of Technology

and#8212;David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate for Medicine, professor of Biology, and former president, California Institute of Technology

“Its one of the most incredible stories in medical science: a cure for HIV.  Nathalia Holt tells the personal stories of the patients, their families, and their doctors.”—National Geographic

“One learns fascinating details about AIDS and shares Holts hope…She is among those working to make the promise real”—New York Times Book Review

“Nathalia Holt presents a thorough account of the research that provides scientists with hope that a cure will one day be achievable... and her empathy shines through in her prose. This is as important a social history as it is a medical document.”—The Daily Beast

"In this accessible and fascinating account, Holt, a research scientist trained at MIT and Harvard...brings to light the remarkable early breakthroughs in treating a once fatal condition." - Publishers Weekly

"A fascinating discourse on how medical science is zeroing in on an HIV vaccine after several anomalous triumphs...An astute AIDS retrospective blended with contemporary updates on aggressive medical strategies." - Kirkus Reviews

“In this exquisitely detailed telling of medicine's desperate fight to control the HIV epidemic, author Nathalia Holt reminds us that all the best medical stories are foremost stories of people - their determination, their courage, and their ability, in the best of circumstances, to rewrite history in a way that protects us all.”—Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner's Handbook

"Easily our fullest, richest, most panoramic history of the subject."andnbsp;andmdash;The New York Times Book Review

"Hypnotizing, horrifying, energetic, lucid prose..."andnbsp;andmdash;Providence Observer

"A sobering account of the 1918 flu epidemic, compelling and timely. andmdash;The Boston Globe

"History brilliantly written... The Great Influenza is a masterpiece."andnbsp;andmdash;Baton Rouge Advocateandnbsp;

Two men, known in medical journals as the Berlin Patients, revealed answers to a functional cure for HIV. Their cures came twelve years apart, the first in 1996 and the second in 2008. Each received his own very different treatment in Berlin, Germany, and each result spurred a new field of investigation, fueling innovative lines of research and sparking hope for the thirty-four million people currently infected with HIV. For the first time, Nathalia Holt, who has participated in some of the most fruitful research in the field, tells the story of how we came to arrive at this astounding and controversial turning point.

Holt explores the two mens stories on a personal level, looking at how their experiences have influenced HIV researchers worldwide—including one very special young family doctor who took the time to look closely at his patients—and how they responded to their medications.

Based on extensive interviews with the patients and their doctors as well as her own in-depth research, this book is an unprecedented look at how scientists pursue their inquiries, the human impact their research has, and what is and is not working in the relationship between Big Pharma and medical care.

At the height of WWI, historyandrsquo;s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. John M. Barry has written a new afterword for this edition that brings us up to speed on the terrible threat of the avian flu and suggest ways in which we might head off another flu pandemic.

Two patients—each known in medical history as the Berlin Patient—were cured of the HIV virus. The two patients disparate cures came twelve years apart, but Nathalia Holt, an award-winning scientist at the forefront of HIV research, connects the molecular dots of these cases for the first time.

Scientists are known to maintain a professional distance from those they study, but sometimes scientists are not just investigators, they are caregivers, too. Cured illustrates that even in the era of high-tech and big pharma, the way doctors and patients communicate remains a critical ingredient in the advance of this science. Holt offers a kind of hope that the thirty-four million people currently infected with HIV need and a story of ingenuity, dedication, and humanity that will inspire the rest of us.

Prologue

Part I: The Warriors

Part II: The Swarm

Part III: The Tinderbox

Part IV: It Begins

Part V: Explosion

Part VI: The Pestilence

Part VII: The Race

Part VIII: The Tolling Of The Bell

Part IX: Lingerer

Part X: Endgame

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index