[B]y an odd quirk of nature and evolution, about one percent of white Europeans (fewer in other ethnic groups) have a genetic ‘defect’ that makes their white blood cells different. For these people, HIV does enter the blood but then doesn’t get any further. In these people, the virus particle cannot stick onto white blood cells well enough to burrow inside.
Sir Elton John was recently quoted speaking about how HIV/AIDS had impacted his life:
‘By all rights I shouldn’t be here today. I should be dead – six foot under in a wooden box… I should have contracted HIV in the 1980s and died in the 1990s, just like Freddie Mercury, just like Rock Hudson. Every day I wonder, how did I survive?’
