Why aren't there cures for diseases such as cancer, aids, rheumatoid arthritis, etc?

[Cold Steel]

I can't believe there are people who think there's some sort of conspiracy here. Wow. Just wow.

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: MrWizzard
Nope. Aids and Cancer could be eliminated but people are not open enough to do it. It would not be PC that's for sure.

You first.

Originally posted by: darkxshade
I think it's more like they don't spend as much as we'd like on R&D for the cures because curing diseases is not profitable, treating them are.

Utter BS. There are no cures for these diseases because we don't yet know how to cure them. Perhaps some of you might consider at least getting some understanding of medicine because casting conspiratorial judgments against the medical community?

Almost every disease that medicine can "cure" involves having the body cure itself.
RA is an autoimmune disorder. The body attacking itself.
AIDS is caused by a virus. While a vaccine might be possible, as yet there is no known cure for an viral disease, much less one that destroys the body's immune system.
Cancer is an anomaly of cellular reproduction at the DNA level, either genetic or environmentally caused.

:thumbsup:

 

[desy]

Lot of people off their meds on this one.
Cancer has made huge progress, used to be a death sentance.
Arthritis I hope they figure out before I get old enough to have issues and AIDS also has a much longer mortality than it used to when treated, most miss the boat on treatment though.

 

[Chronoshock]

The ignorance is strong in this thread, seriously. As BrownTown said, the diseases do not have cures because they are EXTREMELY HARD to cure. There is no conspiracy, just some very tough problems being tackled by many researchers out there. Eugenics and gene therapy would not solve cancer. It may be possible to reduce the chances, but cancer is not simply genetic, but environmental as well

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: OVERKILL

Originally posted by: GG02
Couldn't find a link to the segment in his stand up, but here is a piece out of Chris Rock's stand up...

That's right, we got AlDS out there. You think they're gonna cure AlDS? No, they can't even cure athlete's foot. They ain't curing AlDS. Shit, they ain't never curing AlDS. Don't even think about that shit. They ain't curing it, cause there ain't no money in the cure. The money's in the medicine. That's how you get paid, on the comeback. That's how a drug dealer makes his money, on the comeback. That's all the government is: a bunch of motherfucking drug dealers, on the comeback. They ain't curing no AlDS. That's all it is. You think they're gonna cure AlDS? They're still mad at all the money they lost on polio! Curing AlDS? Shit, that's like Cadillac making a car that lasts for 40 years.

There's truth to that.

There's no money if everyone is healthy.
There's money/profit involved if people are sick.

Like quoting Chris Rock makes a viewpoint credible. 😀

How about all of the hundreds of bacterial diseases that we can cure? Wouldn't drug companies have an interest in finding cures for things like cancer, afterall it's not like execs at drug companies are immune to such diseases. That pretty much means that they would have an interest in pushing forward for a cure.

 

[NL5]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
The ignorance is strong in this thread, seriously. As BrownTown said, the diseases do not have cures because they are EXTREMELY HARD to cure. There is no conspiracy, just some very tough problems being tackled by many researchers out there. Eugenics and gene therapy would not solve cancer. It may be possible to reduce the chances, but cancer is not simply genetic, but environmental as well

QFT.

Mankind is not nearly as intelligent as most people believe. We still have very little understanding of the human body, viruses, or many diseases. There is no conspiracy to keep cures from being released. Pfffft. People seriously believe that? Sure, drug COMPANIES can be unethical, just as many COMPANIES are, but a cure for cancer or aids would make that companie the biggest pharm company on the planet overnight. What CEO would stop that?

 

[MrWizzard]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
MrWizzard, you are just plain wrong about cancer, there is no way it could be cured even with eugenics, it is a random function and some people are more or less suseptiable. But even a person with the best genetics can be unlucky and get cancer.

Hmm I think I may have discombobulated my point. I am talking about genetic cancer not cancer from pollutants and exposure to harmful things, IE too much sun.

If you have no genetic genes to get cancer and you eliminate all the outside cancer causing stimuli wouldn?t you have a less cancer prone individual.

I guess its not 100% proof but they could just excommunicate the individual that did display the weakness/cancer development to the outside "badlands" were all us mutants would be living.....

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: OVERKILL

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
My father has RA and he is going through excruciating pain right now although he is seeing a doctor and getting it treated.

I was wondering, do any of you ever think that there is a conspiracy to keep the actual cures for diseases away due to the fact that all of these drugs companies would stop making money if everyone was cured?

I'd put money on it, that there's cures for alot of diseases including cancer.

If their were cures for all of the above diseases, then the Drug Companies could kiss all of their billions of profits goodbye.


Now think about this: Who regulates/controls the Drug Companies?

FDA?

Do some research on the FDA and it may open your eyes to the conspiracy, law breaking tactics, etc thats going on.

You're a fool. Yes, do some research. Meet with the scientists that are trying to find a cure.

Gosh, if a company was able to find a cure to cancer it would produce trillions of dollars in revenue, more revenue than all of the current drugs in the world combined.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: destrekor
It's a sin. Blame the Vatican. Or God. Whichever is more convenient.

yea who knows where we'd be with science if they had not spent centuries holding progress back.

and well, stuff like cancer is a buncha types really. its not just one.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: sdifox
Arthritis is not really a decease, it's wear and tear.

Solution to cancer (and all sort of other sutff) is gene therapy, assuming it gets approved when it is developed.

There are different types of arthritis. Rheumatoid Arthritis is a disease. It is an autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks itself which in turn causes inflammation of the joints which then in turn cause damage to the joints.

 

[IGBT]

Originally posted by: darkxshade
I think it's more like they don't spend as much as we'd like on R&D for the cures because curing diseases is not profitable, treating them are.

..could be. Ovarian cancer is a good example. The treatments used 30+ years ago are the same treatments used today. We need something better then the primitive cut/burn/poision going on yesteryear and today. I've lost family and inlaws to this disease decades apart and the treatment was the same.

 

[pnho]

curing a particular disease means being able to interupt the mechanism of the disease and being specific enough to avoid killing healthy cells or reducing the collateral damage. In cases of chemotherapy (cancer treatments), the drug targets the dna replication process of cancer cells, but is also toxic to fast replicating cells too. Hence, hair falling out, etc. On top of that, drugs used in fighting cancer, if exposed to healthy cells can cause cancer......big paradox. Cancer cells are still part the body, but lack the internal controls for growth. So targeting these tiny cells and being specific enough is very difficult to achieve.

As for bacterial diseases, most antibiotics inhibit the growth or interupt the cellular membrane of the bacteria. The drugs do not directly attack the human cells, so it is easier to treat. But, bacteria evolve extremely fast and thus resulting in drug resistant strains of this stuff.

Its true that drug companies need to make money, but they can make money from life style drugs not just from life saving drugs. Example: Drugs for impotency, seasonal allergies, birth control....etc.

Cures for diseases in the topic are not curable because of the difficulty of creating drugs specific enough to find the problem on a nanoscale.

 

[Mo0o]

Because it's incredibly hard to create magic bullet cures that neutralize the disease without compromising one thing or another. Rheumatoid arthritis is autoimmune, the only treatment currently are immunosuppresants and antiinflammatories.

As for AIDS,it's now considered a long term disease if you have the money for HAART.


As for cancer, that term is so general it completely impractical to create a cure for "cancer." But a lot of cancer are now curable like childhood leukemia etc as long as its caught early and you have the resources

 

[Chronoshock]

Another tricky issue is that treatments which work well in vitro or on animals may be completely ineffective with real human subjects. A number of "cancer cures" have been discovered over years only for them to disappear, not because of a conspiracy, but because they were not effective in people.

 

[IGBT]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
Another tricky issue is that treatments which work well in vitro or on animals may be completely ineffective with real human subjects. A number of "cancer cures" have been discovered over years only for them to disappear, not because of a conspiracy, but because they were not effective in people.

..I recall many so called "breakthroughs" that ended in dissapointment. Trial and error becomes the procedure of proof.

 

[Cogman]

AIDS Maybe could be cured, but cancer, No way.

The problem the general public has is that they think of cancer as one disease, but current studies have found that there are quite a few variations even within the same types of cancer. The symptoms are the same, and the possibility of cancer to spread is possible, but one 2 people diagnosed with the same type of cancer might not have the same cancer.

Cancer is just a tough problem, to be 100% effective, it requires specifically designed medication for each individual.

IMO, a pharm company would push out a cancer cure as fast as possible and rake in the billions from it. It would take several years to eradicate cancer (heck, we would actually eradicate it, people will still develop cancer regardless of a cure being available). Even if it did some how eliminate cancer, it would proved tons of money for at least 10 years, making the owners very wealthy. People don't care about the company, they care about getting their money now, and if they can become billionares, they will.

 

[BrownTown]

The thing is concerning cancer is that it is your own dang cells gone mad. Its one thing to kill a bacteria which has completely different enzymes and cell wall and such, but a cancer cell is human tissue that has grown out of control. Alot of the problem with cures is finding something that will kill the cancer without killing YOU, the balancing act is just to try and kill the cancer and only make you really sick buy still alive.

Just another note on this whole drug conspiracy stuff, I am a student at Vanderbilt, we have a hospital of course, but also there are FIVE medical research buildings each between 8 and 13 stories tall which comprise nearly a million square feet of medical research space. These people are not working out ways to scam you out of your money, they are trying to develop new treatments to CURE diseases, belive it or not some people actually consider curing a disease a noble goal. Not to mention curing a serious disease would more or less mean a lifetime appointment to some sweet teaching or research gig making big time money, not to mention make you famous, get you NOBEL consideration etc. Even if you don't make millions from the drug companies I can guarentee you the top people at the medical research institute make $500,000+, and if you cure AIDS or a common cancer you are more or less GUARENTEED that level of appointment (bet you can get some sweet speaking gigs too).

 

[BrownTown]

First time I have ever double posted on ATOT interesting, I blame Opera.

 

[GasX]

The amount of naivity and outright blockheadedness in this thread is astounding.

I am glad I live in a free country with democratic principles, but when people form their public policy opinions from conspiracy theories and chris rock monologues, I start pining for a benevolent dictatorship...

 

[Chiropteran]

Because it's a Sin to cure cancer.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

This is so dumb I'm not even going to post in this thread... no wait..

 

[StinkyPinky]

THere are hundreds of different types of cancers. Some of which I'm sure I've never even heard of. Each one probably requires a different cure, and each human body is different. the variables are massive...I really don't see a cure for all cancers anytime soon. I don't think we will in our lifetime.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
My father has RA and he is going through excruciating pain right now although he is seeing a doctor and getting it treated.

I was wondering, do any of you ever think that there is a conspiracy to keep the actual cures for diseases away due to the fact that all of these drugs companies would stop making money if everyone was cured?

No conspiracies here, socialist countries would have done it long ago if it was so darn easy.

The simple answer is, there are no cures because there is no adequate technology. Once we have the technology of dealing with complex biomolecular problems, solutions to historically insurmountable diseases will come within close proximity to each other. With information technology and bioinformatics, such capabilities will soon be available.

Rheumatoid Arthritis for example is already cured. A cure doesn't necessarily suggest universal availability, or even imply that all doctors will immediately become aware of it. One cure involves chemical depletion of the immune system and hematopoietic stem cells. I also saw mention of a simpler signaling protein solution being used in Asia, which in most cases eliminates the disease after a single therapy. I don't have links for you, I can't keep track of everything, there's too damn much. I suggest you do a bit of research if it matters enough to you. Many of these treatments are only available outside of the US, but they are available and they do work.

If you fail in your quest, do let me know, I can spend some time retrieving the information for you.

A word of advice for everyone, don't presume your doctor knows everything. That's the shortest route to your grave. A single human brain cannot possibly contain even 1% of the medical knowledge available. The intertubes are far more suited to the task.

 

[drinkmorejava]

Yes, nevermind the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars a company would stand to make for curing aids or a major cancer. The largest pharmaceutical company in the world, Pfizer, only had ~$50bn in sales last year with barely $2bn from anti-cancer drugs . If you seriously think they would pass up an opportunity like this...well, I don't even want to know.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I'm running Folding@Home to hopefully discover some of the causes and possible cures for diseases. Fact is, it is NOT easy to cure a lot of these things.