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Is HIV Now Named “Lentivirus Humimdef1”?
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Small matter, perhaps, it is true that the capsids of many viruses are icosahedrons, my favorite being the bacteriophage PRD1 which kills some pathogenic food borne bacteria containing certain plasmids conferring antibiotic resistance which appears distantly related to adenoviruses. However, HIV itself has a capsid that in profile appears coffin-shaped, although its actual three-dimensional shape is technically referred to as a fullerene cone, somewhat rounded at the tip and base.
Really ticks me off. Contaminated blood killed my 5 year old daughter in 1989. Leave the name alone so we all know what the heck is being discussed when it becomes epidemic again.
Timothy Chase
Marian Corbin, a Republican-initiated program to wipe out HIV where medicine was being supplied to poorer countries including in Africa has been suspended by the Trump administration. This may not simply result in the resurgence of HIV but could very well result in new major variants of SARS-CoV-2 as immunodeficiency permits the virus to incubate and rapidly accumulation of mutations. The soft scientific consensus is that this is the source of major SARS-CoV-2 variants.
February 8, 2026 • WA