> HN has become downvoting machine.

You could have mentioned what you just have in your original answer, your original answer would be more suited to facebook, so it's considered low quality, so it's down voted, don't take it personally.

> Was he already on antiviral drugs? I think so.

The article is focusing on the surprise that the cells did NOT contain the CCR5 mutation. When they we confident this was a key factor in curing patients.

> was declared free of the virus for more than two years after receiving stem cells without the CCR5 mutation, suggesting CCR5 isn’t the whole story

> It is an intervention but I am not convinced you need all this pain to cure him from HIV.

Again you're making this broad statement as you have some insight into the matter, I don't know about it, the doctors who do seems to have admited they're still learning things. Thats the nice thing about this article. More places to sudy and research.