You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US?

[TheMasterOfOrion]

A lot money money, research and testing has gone into a cure, some say a real cure is just around the corner with cases like the so-called Berlin Patient and Danish researchers finding new powerful scientific inhibitors, do you think it will be cured?? Or is it just one of these cure rumors like cancer?
I read somewhere compared to other first world countries the US is terrible, Sweden, Australia, Canada, France, Spain ....putting all people side by side
A person in the United States is 70% more likely to have AIDS.
I never understood why its so ridiculously high in the US, is it due to drugs in cities like L.A or people have unprotected sex or medicine what is it?

 

[publiusr]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

My only worry is that existing methods may just allow a de facto increase of the incubation period. HIV is hard to transmit--but people develop many attachments over the years. That long incubation period is what makes it deadly.

Politics is the number one hold up.

Rightists hate embryonic stem-cell research. Lefties hate animal testing.
Libertarians will allow both but would federally fund neither.

We need gov't money and researchers with no handcuffs either way.

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

Will there be a cure? No way. Companies make a ton of money selling you pills to keep you barely alive, with a cure that goes away.

I think the problem in the USA is the health care and educational systems are stuck in the 1800s. health care is a joke, and AIDS and HIV is taught in health class in high school SOMETIMES. We can't teach sexual health to teenaged! That will mean they will go out and try it!!! Idiots.

If we got people health care and pills, the amount of HIV in the blood goes down and that means less chance of spreading it. But American health care system is "don't get sick".

Condoms fail, people are stupid because they don't see it as an issue, because of no education on the subject. Plus drugs and booze and everything stops your body from fighting HIV. The numbers vary from person to person, but if you have sex with an HIV positive person there is only a 1 in 500 chance you will get it. If it's anal sex it's higher because the wall of your ass is thinner than a pussy. But if you are sick to begin with, from drugs or other diseases the 1 in 500 number can increase.

I never really thought about it until I had unprotected sex with someone a few times and he texted me saying he was positive, and we had sex when he just got it, before he could even test positive, which is the most contagious period.

And sharing of needles from druggies and sex with each other really doesn't help either, it's why it's so high in some major cities, like D.C. where over 1% of the population is positive.

 

[Avon]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

^thats pretty pessimistic, however the american health system isn't good for people that have to pay lots for continuing conditions.

someone said there won't ever be a cure for cancer too, which might be true, but life expectancy for people with many types is increasing with new treatments, etc.

(sorry americans but you'll just have to keep cooking meth to afford chemotherapy )

will there be a cure? who knows, but just because there isn't one now doesn't mean they can't ever find one.

 

[farmkid]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

Will there be a cure? No way. Companies make a ton of money selling you pills to keep you barely alive, with a cure that goes away.

I've heard that from a number of people, and it really annoys me. It's just wrong and nothing but cynicism taken to the extreme. In order for it to be right, every pharmaceutical company and every researcher has to be working together as part of the same organization, and not in competition with each other. That's absolutely not the case. If you owned a pharmaceutical company and your competitor made a lot of money selling drugs to treat HIV, but you didn't have any such drugs, wouldn't you want to develop a cure for it? Your cure would be worth a lot more than the other guy's treatment and you having a cure to sell could put your competitor out of business while making you rich. You bet your ass you would be working on a cure. Furthermore, most of the research going on is being done by university researchers who aren't affiliated with any pharmaceutical company at all and who get no money at all from sales of HIV treatments. Their funding, for the most part, comes from the NIH. Any of those researchers would gain a lot of prestige, certainly some big prizes, perhaps even a Nobel prize, almost guaranteed funding for the rest of their career, and have a guaranteed job for life if they found a cure. They have nothing to gain from preventing development of a cure and a lot to gain by finding one.

 

[JustAFriend]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

Will there be a cure? No way. Companies make a ton of money selling you pills to keep you barely alive, with a cure that goes away.

If that was true, we'd still have polio, smallpox and thousands of other diseases that have been eradicated.

Curing diseases is either quick and easy through dumb luck of someone stumbling on a cure (often meant for other things) or it's LONG HARD WORK.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

Will there be a cure? No way. Companies make a ton of money selling you pills to keep you barely alive, with a cure that goes away.

Nonsense. If everyone's just selling crappy treatments, the company that develops an actual cure will make a killing. The market works, as far as stuff like that goes. (I would argue that people who need it should be able to get it regardless of ability to pay, though, and if that means subsidies and such, so be it.)

I think the problem in the USA is the health care and educational systems are stuck in the 1800s. health care is a joke, and AIDS and HIV is taught in health class in high school SOMETIMES. We can't teach sexual health to teenaged! That will mean they will go out and try it!!! Idiots.

This much is accurate, at least. There is simply too much unprotected sex in the US, and sex education here is quite poor. We also don't have enough (for instance) needle exchange programs. Some would rather we punish people for their "immoral" behavior than make any effort at mitigating the damage.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

Will there be a cure? No way. Companies make a ton of money selling you pills to keep you barely alive, with a cure that goes away.

If that was true, we'd still have polio, smallpox and thousands of other diseases that have been eradicated.

Curing diseases is either quick and easy through dumb luck of someone stumbling on a cure (often meant for other things) or it's LONG HARD WORK.

Yeah and we all have 1950 appliances too. Back in the day they actually built good things. Trouble was they built them too good and their still around and the companies that made them went away. The real trick is to make a product that lasts just long enough to be paid off. It sick, but welcome to capitalism.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: You think AIDS will be cured and why is HIV/AIDS so high in the US

I doubt there'll be a "cure" at least in any of our lifetimes. Viruses are very, very, very hard to cure. Keep in mind we haven't even found a cure for the common cold. Every virus you've ever had you STILL have, your body has just managed to cope with it.

So I don't see a "cure" for HIV/AIDS coming anytime soon it WILL just be a way for you to "live with it" will just become more and more advanced ensuring longer and longer, even normal, life spans. The "best" we can hope for is a vaccine that'll prevent you from being infected with the virus in the first place. But a vaccine isn't a cure.