Who should stop therapy to see if the immune system is strong enough to control the virus?
This should only be done in carefully controlled experiments under the supervision of AIDS specialists. The NOVA program “Surviving AIDS” describes a new kind of experiment in which doctors are trying to determine if the body’s natural defense mechanism, the immune system, can keep the virus under control after drug therapy is stopped. They have found that persons who are treated with potent anti viral drugs (often referred to as HAART for highly active antiretroviral therapy) as soon as they become infected develop strong immune responses to the virus, and now they are trying to see if this is enough to successfully control the virus. These experiments are being performed in a very select group of persons.
