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This is often brought up but having had some experience in the field this does not happen. Not only would you hear a tremendous shout from the researchers thems
by jghn 10y ago
This is often brought up but having had some experience in the field this does not happen. Not only would you hear a tremendous shout from the researchers themselves crying foul but the company that "cures AIDS" is going to make an assload of money and earn tremendous PR.
The real problem is not pharma trying to turn things chronic but rather people who have less common or less prominent diseases.
- Alex3917 10y ago> This is often brought up but having had some experience in the field this does not happen. That's not entirely true. When Hillary Clinton was running health policy in Washington, the white house threatened to impose trade sanctions on India and South Africa if they manufactured generic drugs to treat their citizens with HIV. This was before it had become an epidemic in those areas. And now that it is an epidemic, the pharma companies get tax writeoffs by working with the Clinton Foundation to provide treatment in those areas at 'reduced cost'.
- paublyrne 10y agoWhen was Hillary Clinton ever running health policy? Apart from trying to implement 'Clintoncare' early in the Bill Clinton presidency I can not find any record of this. I agree that insisting that third world countries who are already debtors to first world countries for aid pay huge sums for HIV drugs is problematic at best, but I am not sure why you add Clinton's name into this argument.
- Alex3917 10y agoBill controversially appointed her to be the chairperson for Task Force on National Health Care Reform, which was responsible for creating the healthcare policy for the white house. This task for is what created the Hillarycare bill. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/clinton-hillary/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biograph...
- snowwrestler 10y agoA) That task force did not cover all health care policy, in fact it was insulated from current policymaking in order to give it freer rein to think innovatively about the future. B) The issue you mention does not even fall under health care policy, it falls under IP and trade policy, because the point of objection is when foreign nations nullify or nationalize U.S. pharma patents. That is an ongoing fight to this day, BTW.
- jghn 10y agoThat's not what I was referring to. I was responding to the claim that pharmas are inclined to make treatments instead of cures in order to transform a terminal illness into a chronic one and thus make more money long term.
- Alex3917 10y agoBut with the case of HIV (and other infectious diseases), the treatment and the cure are the same drug. E.g. they could have treated people early to avoid the epidemic before it started. But instead the pharma companies lobbied the government to wait for the epidemic to take hold first, so that they could market the treatment later instead.