Do you think that we might find a cure in the next few years?

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SirConcis

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I suspect vaccine may arrive before a cure. Easier to prevent than to cure.

Look at how long it took for a cervical cancer vaccine to arrive. It deals at te HPV level before HPV causes cancer to develop. Suspect we'll see an HIV vaccine before we see cure for AIDS.

And this will have interesting consequences because will it men everyone will need to get the vaccine ? Will they target only areas with epidemic (africa) ?

In the western world, will there be the stigma of "if gay then get HIV vaccine" ?
 

erratic

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Yeah, if there's a cure for HIV it will come outside of the realm of pharmaceutical research.

Knowing HIV researchers, I'm quite positive that a cure will happen. Big pharmaceutical companies will never fund it (you can never be cynical enough when it comes to corporate greed), but thanks to very vocal shit-disturbing AIDS activists - especially those in years gone by - there's money and talent going in to HIV/AIDS research that's independent of those companies. I dunno if it'll be a cure or a vaccine that comes first, but one or both is definitely coming.

All that said, I don't think for a second that a cure for all STIs is even remotely in sight. There are just too many of them, and new ones pop up every decade or so. Not gonna happen in our lifetimes...unless the singularity hits soon...
 

BigD_2

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A cure for all STD's, no.

For HIV, consider that if diagnosed before the virus has progressed, there are now multiple medications which, when taken rigorously, reduce the viral load via the standard blood test method to undetectable in an infected person, which is what it would be in a non-infected person. So, define what you mean by a "cure" - if you mean some way in which people infected with HIV won't automatically proceed to AIDS and die, a cure is here now and has been for some years.

I am sure I will be attacked for this comment. I'm not meaning to imply HIV is over or is nothing to worry about - it's by no means over and remains something to worry about. People need to be tested and to practice safe sex. Getting an HIV diagnosis can be devastating, the meds are expensive, some have negative side effects, there is amazingly negative stigma in the world about HIV, etc etc etc.

In a way though, doesn't it make more sense to spend more of that drug research money in prevention and testing efforts?
 

Infernal

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Who knows. It's obvious that our medical system is broken and that profit, not cures, drives the business. If you cure someone, then your revenue stream dries up. Instead you can keep people on expensive medications for the rest of their life, and make billions. That said, I still have hope that someday greed with lose out to compassion and someone will find and release a cure because it is the right things to do, not because they can get rich from it.
 
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SirConcis

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A vaccine for HIV would provide drug companies with steady flow of revenues. So they have every incentive.

And once they have a vaccine, there is far less incentive to create a cure for those who already have it.
 

gymfresh

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Who knows. It's obvious that our medical system is broken and that profit, not cures, drives the business. If you cure someone, then your revenue stream dries up.

I still remember science articles from 30 years ago saying that vaccines against tooth and gum decay were just around the corner, and cavities would be a thing of the past within 10 years. I also imagined dentists and oral surgeons across the country wailing, "Nooooooo!!"

The "innovation" hasn't been heard from since.
 

technopeasant

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For babies maybe. For adults forget it. No virus has ever been cured. Some have been prevented. But for now take your HIV cocktail wear a condom and shop carefully. There is one hope, bone marrow transplant. But the medical community thinks that is too risky for HIV so don't bet on it. It works for babies only because of their unique immune system.
 

bobg4400

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There is a cure, transplanting bone marrow stem cells from someone who is naturally HIV immune to someone with HIV will grant them immunity to HIV. It happened back in 2006/2007 but then they decided it was too risky. It's like when they invented the cure for pretty much all bacterial diseases back in the 1930's then in 1990's the FDA decided it was suddenly too dangerous to use on people and needed clinical trials after 60 years of no side effects. :rolleyes:

The problem is that even though something might work perfectly fine you can't roll it out without doing large scale clinical testing unless the pool of patients is too low to make a large scale test. And large scale testing is really expensive so it doesn't happen often.

Sure culturing stem cells is ridiculously expensive at tens of thousands of dollars per litre of the stuff but enough could probably be made that you could cure a significant fraction of HIV sufferers.

EDIT: noticed the HIV bone marrow guy is in OP's post, but my point still stands.
 
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