Science majors why do you think people are so naive when it comes to "the cure"

[alltra]

biology grad here, having taken graduate level courses in immunology and focusing a great deal in AID/HIV im really sick of the flame war being battled here.

while im sure there is legislation and lobbying for big pharmaceuticals to #!+%@ out medication patents to make ridiculous amounts of money. (pfsier for lipitor, etc)(and there is 'semi' good reason to do so, since they have to discover it, refine it, make it safe and run clinical trials, etc) there is more money in 'curing' aids/hiv than only to the elite. I mean think about, 1-10,000 magic johnson in terms of money vs millions of people, you can clearly make more money off of treatments. this completely rebukes your financial standing point. but this is all besides the point.

im going to try and break this down so that even people so set in their ways can understand where i am coming from. from a scientific point of view, everyone is different. even if you mom and dad tried to make another you they would never be able to do it. thus 'curing' aids/hiv is different for everyone. let me repeat myself, treating for aids/hiv would be different for everyone. and just as you are different, the HIV is also different. there are so many strains of it to begin with (i.e. many different races and ethnicity in humans). It is changing and adapting to new treatments. so even as our treatments for it evolve, it is also changing to keep up (and outpaces) with our best efforts. Take for example the common cold. we havent been able to cure it. even with the many of flu shots being given out each year, people that received the shot still get sick. this is because we can never predict how the flu is going to change. this is completely the same with hiv/aids except that hiv/aids changes even faster.

im at work and dont have any more time. but people are going to be set in their ways. spend at least 4 years in college in science, read a book and new articles and then come back and then tell me there is a cure. Being uneducated is the biggest problem out there.

 

[frostythepoptart]

that guy who got cured from a transplant i said straight up utilitarianism... murk that dude and start pumping out some antidotes. may not be that simple but i feel like he should honestly be a guinea pig.

also there is no way in hell there's a cure conspiracy theoirsts are ridiculous. you think not one person would've spilled the beans. not one person can invent the same thing? you know how many "unique" inventions were created in various parts of the world with no interaction with each other. no one is gonna sit and let there parents, children, friends die if they can.

if there was a cure steve jobs would not have died. its not about money. magic johnson is alive because he is a millionaire and he has the best treatment, at s specific time every day for the rest of his life. if he missed a day the whole thing might change.

 

[cj003]

Who said Steve Jobs wasn't being helped? That is your arguement against the theory that a cure exists? Maybe Steve Jobs just died.

The drug company that "invents" the cure doesn't have an exclusive license to distribute it. It's not an iPhone, it's the cure for a disease

  [/quote]

You sir are WRONG. Have you ever heard of a patent? The drug company who finds the cure will patent it and no other company can copy it for a certain amount of years. Meaning EVERY PERSON ON EARTH with Aids/HIV will be using their cure. Ya so I guess they would make a minimal profit, dont you think?


In reality they will be making so much money it'll be absurd. Is there any other reason you believe a COMPANY would be hiding a cure? It seems as if a COMPANY would want to make money.

 

[|A-Man|]

Pig Love is obviously talking about those super confidential top secret you never heard of "they don't technically exist" drug companies that operate outside of the law.

 

[pleasurephd]

Originally Posted by frostythepoptart

that guy who got cured from a transplant i said straight up utilitarianism... murk that dude and start pumping out some antidotes. may not be that simple but i feel like he should honestly be a guinea pig.

also there is no way in hell there's a cure conspiracy theoirsts are ridiculous. you think not one person would've spilled the beans. not one person can invent the same thing? you know how many "unique" inventions were created in various parts of the world with no interaction with each other. no one is gonna sit and let there parents, children, friends die if they can.

if there was a cure steve jobs would not have died. its not about money. magic johnson is alive because he is a millionaire and he has the best treatment, at s specific time every day for the rest of his life. if he missed a day the whole thing might change.

While I agree with everything else you said, the first statement I don't.

The treatment doesn't work that way. It was a bone marrow (hematopoietic stem cell) transplant to reconstitute his bone marrow and immune/blood cells after they killed them all off (radiation treatment I believe) due to him having cancerous cells. It just so happened that the cells he got from the transplant had a genetic mutation for a missing co-receptor that HIV used to infect him. Without this co-receptor on his new immune cells HIV couldn't infect his cells anymore and so he was cured.

His body doesn't contain any antidote or anything like that.

 

[so nyuh shi dae]

Originally Posted by Pig Love

OMG Lance Armstrong had cancer?!! I didn't know that.

His doctor told him it was game over soon and dude came back from
the dead to become a super athlete. My bad, what a dumb analogy he
wasn't "cured" of cancer or anything.

I guess some of you don't realize how much drug companies make off
of the TREATMENTS they provide over and over and over to patients.
If there was a cure that actually "cured" a patient, there is no more money
to be made.

Damn, some of you are just blah blah blah

With the hundreds of thousands of scientists and doctors that exist and the ability to spread knowledge like wild fire, you have to go so far out of your way to to accept this garbage belief of yours. 

 

[utvol23]

Being an MD the foolishness that gets said in threads regarding HIV and cancer just drives me nuts, but I am not going to keep rehashing eveything i have said before over and over so I will let PleasurePhd handle it. Doing a good job so far

 

[cali fresh]

lol at thinking every aids case is the same and so one vaccine could cure it all.

 

[diew its james]

Originally Posted by Pig Love

Cmon, do people still think there is no cure for AIDS? Why the hell do
you think Magic Johnson still looks like a 100 million $? Lance Armstrong?
We have the cure for everything, they just won't let us have it. Rich people
would lose money if we were given this knowledge, oh boo hoo.

Wake up

just wondering, do you know what the difference between HIV and AIDS is? how exactly is a person supposed to look with HIV or AIDS?

 

[pleasurephd]

Originally Posted by UTVOL23

Being an MD the foolishness that gets said in threads regarding HIV and cancer just drives me nuts, but I am not going to keep rehashing eveything i have said before over and over so I will let PleasurePhd handle it. Doing a good job so far

It frustrates me too, but I actually really do hope that when these things do come up I am able to help inform people and change minds for the better.

Feel free to add anything you want. I am heading to the gym lol. I'll check back up on the nonsense later.

 

[jordanxi45]

I can't believe people like 'Pig Love' exist on this planet, dude really is in his own little world.

 

[antonlavey]

The drug companies make a lotion you rub on your head twice a day to raise your IQ. A certain someone in this thread could use it. 

 

[koudie from brooklyn]

Originally Posted by PleasurePhD

Originally Posted by UTVOL23

Being an MD the foolishness that gets said in threads regarding HIV and cancer just drives me nuts, but I am not going to keep rehashing eveything i have said before over and over so I will let PleasurePhd handle it. Doing a good job so far

It frustrates me too, but I actually really do hope that when these things do come up I am able to help inform people and change minds for the better.

Feel free to add anything you want. I am heading to the gym lol. I'll check back up on the nonsense later.

Preachh bro's preachh !!! lol

 

[utvol23]

its not just people with money that can sucessfully live with hiv. In med school I had a patient who had hiv since the late 80s. He was healthy with a viral load that was non detectable and had no opportunistic infections all he had was some lipodystrophy, and he was poor but he stuck too and took his meds as prescribed. If he or magic stop taking meds or start missing doses the virus will run rampant and it wouldn't be long before they would develop AIDS

 

[sheeed]

Cure? if by cure you mean compliance to meds that leads to undetectable amounts of the virus in the blood/semen/fluids then yes they've known about that for quite some time....

By the way retroviruses work, I don't think it will ever be possible to completely remove the viral DNA from the genome....not a researcher but thats beyond looking for a needle in a haystack

 

[undermedicated]

Why is Steve jobs even being mentioned, he didn't even accept treatment for a while.
Dude has a point by saying a cure would mean less money for the companies. 

 

[sheeed]

Originally Posted by UTVOL23

its not just people with money that can sucessfully live with hiv. In med school I had a patient who had hiv since the late 80s. He was healthy with a viral load that was non detectable and had no opportunistic infections all he had was some lipodystrophy, and he was poor but he stuck too and took his meds as prescribed. If he or magic stop taking meds or start missing doses the virus will run rampant and it wouldn't be long before they would develop AIDS

Exactly...with compliance to meds you're viral counts become so low its like you don't even have the disease...couples (where one person had HIV) are able to have unprotected sex without transmitting the virus (there is still a small risk however)

 

[AZwildcats]

I believe there is a gene native to some people in Sweden that makes them genetically immune to HIV-1 infection, the most common form of the virus. If I remember correctly they have a mutation in their immune cells that prevents the CCR5 receptor from forming on their immune cells, getting rid of the major binding domain of the virus.

 

[DCAllAfrican]

How do we even KNOW that Magic had it?

 

[GTA 809]

I already know the cure for AIDS. In fact I've posted it here before. Its called leukemia.

 

[pleasurephd]

Originally Posted by UnderMedicated

Why is Steve jobs even being mentioned, he didn't even accept treatment for a while.
Dude has a point by saying a cure would mean less money for the companies. 

Let me post it for you....

 

[fried pickles]

World is overpopulated as is... Them releasing a cure for 2 of the leading causes of death (cancer, aids) isn't likely

 

[pleasurephd]

Originally Posted by AZwildcats

I believe there is a gene native to some people in Sweden that makes them genetically immune to HIV-1 infection, the most common form of the virus. If I remember correctly they have a mutation in their immune cells that prevents the CCR5 receptor from forming on their immune cells, getting rid of the major binding domain of the virus.

Almost got it there buddy.

It's a MISSING gene that is missing in like 1% of the Caucasian population. Due to the black plague and resistance to that disease because of this mutation, a certain population of white individuals were able to survive and procreate with this mutation. Since the co-receptor is redundant and other genes can act in its place it's a non-lethal mutation.  But, HIV uses this co-receptor to mediate in viral entry into the cell so that it can infect the host and integrate into his/her genome. With the gene missing and there for the co-receptor missing, certain strains of the virus can't infect these individuals.

Modern day evolution/natural selection. 

 

[deleted]

I absolutely loathe the mindset of conspiracy theorists.

 

[dmvbatman]

Originally Posted by PLVN

I absolutely loathe the mindset of conspiracy theorists.

they ducking this thread like a hook from george forman, but any other time they stay saying it's a cure.