5 ms·

We haven't cured a lot of things. Well, we've cured lots of small things, but few of the doozies. A baldness cure has been ten years away for the last thirty y

by elchief 15y ago

We haven't cured a lot of things. Well, we've cured lots of small things, but few of the doozies. A baldness cure has been ten years away for the last thirty years. No cure for blindness, AIDS, lost limbs. Remember the blue denim dye that killed cancer? What happened to it? If something is "ten years away", it means we simply don't know how to do it, we are just hoping for someone else to come up with the tech to solve it for us. Even if it's "five years away", it's suspect. Why not just release it now? Oh, because it doesn't work. I'll believe something if it's being currently tested on monkeys. We simply don't have the technology yet to solve these problems. These problems won't likely be solved in medicine, but in another field that discovers the solution accidentally, likely in nano or AI/statistics. If you want to speed things along, make sure the government is dropping lots of coin in R&D in many NEW or PROMISING fields, not just medicine. Encourage intellectual property rights for innovative firms that do real R&D, and not just relabel their old products. Encourage your smart friend to go into bio-stats and not quantitative finance.

officialchicken 15y ago
I totally agree, but it doesn't explain why there are so many treatments not available in the U.S., but available elsewhere. Islet cell graphs, for example. Personally, I'd encourage EVERYONE with a chronic disease to become a quant, so that they may live long and healthy lives (after leaving finance).
Retric 15y ago
Most of the big things we cured where diseases that no-longer seem to be a big deal because they where cured. Food born illness, measles, and smallpox are all things that have killed more people than AIDS and are no longer a problem in the western world. Measles what's that? If vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm And "Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC... Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox We are talking about something that killed around A BILLION PEOPLE and now it's 'gone'. At it's current rate AIDS might catch up to Smallpox 200-600 years from now. But, that's just deaths the side effects where far more common. She might not be dead but I don't like seeing this picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Child_with_Smallpox_Bangladesh.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Child_with_Smallpox_Bangla... PS: You say there is no cure for blindness, but smallpox was responsible for 1/3 of all blindness cases which just don't happen any more.
- web_chops 15y ago
  Actually creating most of the viral vaccines is more like theming a computer interface, you just need to plugin the new virus into your already well defined research work flow. That's the only reason we even have so many vaccines for so many viruses (even considering mutations and unknown strains). Drop in one virus (AIDS, H1N1) which is out of the well known workflow and every thing goes haywire. I think the main reason for this whole mess is that, out of all the STEM fields, biology is the most trial and error prone. It's the equivalent of trying to prove a mathematical formula every single time you want to use it because there are no axioms. Until some one discovers some standard good for everything axioms in biology, it will continue to be retarded cousin of all STEM fields.
randomdata 15y ago
> If something is "ten years away", it means we simply don't know how to do it In terms of medicine, human trials generally take ten years. If something is ten years away, I would take it to mean there is a promising solution now. It just might not look nearly as promising in ten years, after it has been rigorously tested on people.
nl 15y ago
No cure for blindness, AIDS, lost limbs Well... I think you are unduly pessimistic. Medical progress is slow compared to IT, but 100 years ago we didn't even have antibiotics. Now we have defeated smallpox and polio ("few of the doozies"?!?), and we make progress in other areas. We can cure (some of the most common forms of) blindness[1] We can't cure AIDS, but anti-retroviral drugs can stop HIV infection from becoming AIDS[2]. We can't regrown limbs, but we can regrow ears[3]. Even cancer is slowly being fought back[4]. 20 years ago no one thought the HPV vaccine was possible, and yet now it will protect the ~11,000 US women per year who would previously been diagnosed with cervical cancer. [1] http://www.cureblindness.org/ http://www.cureblindness.org/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS#Antiviral_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS#Antiviral_therapy [3] http://www.army.mil/article/73085/Regenerative_medicine_striving_to_grow_human_organs/ http://www.army.mil/article/73085/Regenerative_medicine_stri..., http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353884,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353884,00.html [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine

by elchief 15y ago

officialchicken 15y ago

I totally agree, but it doesn't explain why there are so many treatments not available in the U.S., but available elsewhere. Islet cell graphs, for example. Personally, I'd encourage EVERYONE with a chronic disease to become a quant, so that they may live long and healthy lives (after leaving finance).

Retric 15y ago

Most of the big things we cured where diseases that no-longer seem to be a big deal because they where cured. Food born illness, measles, and smallpox are all things that have killed more people than AIDS and are no longer a problem in the western world. Measles what's that? If vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm And "Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC... Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox We are talking about something that killed around A BILLION PEOPLE and now it's 'gone'. At it's current rate AIDS might catch up to Smallpox 200-600 years from now. But, that's just deaths the side effects where far more common. She might not be dead but I don't like seeing this picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Child_with_Smallpox_Bangladesh.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Child_with_Smallpox_Bangla... PS: You say there is no cure for blindness, but smallpox was responsible for 1/3 of all blindness cases which just don't happen any more.

web_chops 15y ago
Actually creating most of the viral vaccines is more like theming a computer interface, you just need to plugin the new virus into your already well defined research work flow. That's the only reason we even have so many vaccines for so many viruses (even considering mutations and unknown strains). Drop in one virus (AIDS, H1N1) which is out of the well known workflow and every thing goes haywire. I think the main reason for this whole mess is that, out of all the STEM fields, biology is the most trial and error prone. It's the equivalent of trying to prove a mathematical formula every single time you want to use it because there are no axioms. Until some one discovers some standard good for everything axioms in biology, it will continue to be retarded cousin of all STEM fields.

randomdata 15y ago

> If something is "ten years away", it means we simply don't know how to do it In terms of medicine, human trials generally take ten years. If something is ten years away, I would take it to mean there is a promising solution now. It just might not look nearly as promising in ten years, after it has been rigorously tested on people.

nl 15y ago

No cure for blindness, AIDS, lost limbs Well... I think you are unduly pessimistic. Medical progress is slow compared to IT, but 100 years ago we didn't even have antibiotics. Now we have defeated smallpox and polio ("few of the doozies"?!?), and we make progress in other areas. We can cure (some of the most common forms of) blindness[1] We can't cure AIDS, but anti-retroviral drugs can stop HIV infection from becoming AIDS[2]. We can't regrown limbs, but we can regrow ears[3]. Even cancer is slowly being fought back[4]. 20 years ago no one thought the HPV vaccine was possible, and yet now it will protect the ~11,000 US women per year who would previously been diagnosed with cervical cancer. [1] http://www.cureblindness.org/ http://www.cureblindness.org/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS#Antiviral_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS#Antiviral_therapy [3] http://www.army.mil/article/73085/Regenerative_medicine_striving_to_grow_human_organs/ http://www.army.mil/article/73085/Regenerative_medicine_stri..., http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353884,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353884,00.html [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine