Post-Aids Life Longer, Harder

More and more people are living longer and longer post-HIV. Their lives, however, aren’t always easy. Via NY Times:

…Experts are coming to believe that the immune system and organs of long-term survivors took an irreversible beating before the advent of lifesaving drugs and that those very drugs then produced additional complications because of their toxicity — a one-two punch.

“The sum total of illnesses can become overwhelming,” said Charles A. Emlet, an associate professor at the University of Washington at Tacoma and a leading H.I.V. and aging researcher, who sees new collaborations between specialists that will improve care.

The number of people over fifty living with AIDS has skyrocketed in recent years, growing 77 percent between 2001 and 2005.