How very ... unexpected.
That tried and true cleansing duo -- soap and water -- kills the AIDS virus, scientific research shows. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco combined the lather of Ivory soap with varying amounts of body fluids containing HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, in a test tube. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. [...] "The soap consistently trumped the virus," HIV researcher Dr. Jay Levy said in the June issue of POZ magazine, a publication for those who are HIV-positive.
Really, is there anything on this planet that Ivory Soap can't do? And, lest you look at the Washingon Times byline and look askance (well, I do, always), Dr. Levy himself is a thoroughly reputable researcher.
But still. Soap and water. What a concept.
Dr. Jonathan Li, a researcher in Dr. Levy's laboratory, and Elizabeth Mack, a lab technician, assisted in the research and confirmed the results. "In the laboratory, HIV can be killed by soap and water. There are yet to be any clinical studies showing it will work in the general population," Dr. Li said.
Said Miss Mack: "We didn't test the soap in sexual situations. But we can say the amount of virus we tested the soap against [in the laboratory] was higher" than the amount transmitted through sexual contact.
Dr. Levy said it is still uncertain how useful soap and water will be against acquiring HIV through sexual intercourse.
Well, no shit, Sherlock. I sure as hell am not sticking Ivory soap up my schnooter (if I even could) or down where the sun don't shine, and I can't imagine that anyone else would, either.
I expect they'll try to narrow it down to find out what the essential ingredient in soap is that fights HIV, to try to narrow it down to something usable. And maybe it actually would work as a spermicide -- although I really don't want to think about what prolonged contact with Ivory would do to a woman's or a man's internal mucous membranes. That would have to smart. Although not as much as AIDS.
But still.
Ivory.
Posted by iain at May 26, 2004 07:15 PM
