Monday, September 16, 2013

The Man who couldn't get AIDS' commits suicide

A New Yorker who fascinated doctors because he was resistant to H.I.V. and AIDS has committed suicide, aged 66.

Stephen Crohn was dubbed 'The Man Who Can't Catch AIDS' by The Independent in 1996 after his boyfriend and scores of his friends passed away from the disease but he remained healthy.

Bravely, he volunteered to have his white blood cells exposed to H.I.V. but doctors were unable to infect him - even at concentrations thousands of times stronger than anything that would occur outside a test tube.

But on August 23, he committed suicide, his sister Amy Crohn Santagata said on Friday.

'My brother saw all his friends around him dying, and he didn't die,' Ms Santagata said, according to The New York Times.

'He went through a tremendous amount of survivor guilt about that and said to himself, "There's got to be a reason."'

No comments: