17 replies to this topic

[aim1]

I was wondering if there has been any recent "cures" of ailments and diseases.
Polio was a big one when I was growing up and we all had to be vaccinated.
Every so often I hear of a breakthrough in the fight against cancer, but they never seem to pan out.
There seems to be medicine to control things such as diabetes and other ailments (thank goodness), but never a cure.

[frederickson]

I was wondering if there has been any recent "cures" of ailments and diseases.
Polio was a big one when I was growing up and we all had to be vaccinated.
Every so often I hear of a breakthrough in the fight against cancer, but they never seem to pan out.
There seems to be medicine to control things such as diabetes and other ailments (thank goodness), but never a cure.

behold the philosophy of mainstream medicine, do not cure, but treat indefinitely with drugs.

ironically, chris rock said it best. we don't cure shit! it's just not as profitable as indefinite treatment.

[aim1]

I was wondering if there has been any recent "cures" of ailments and diseases.
Polio was a big one when I was growing up and we all had to be vaccinated.
Every so often I hear of a breakthrough in the fight against cancer, but they never seem to pan out.
There seems to be medicine to control things such as diabetes and other ailments (thank goodness), but never a cure.

behold the philosophy of mainstream medicine, do not cure, but treat indefinitely with drugs.

ironically, chris rock said it best. we don't cure shit! it's just not as profitable as indefinite treatment.

I am afraid that may be close to the truth. I was following a company that had a breakthrough drug that was going to knock out Hepatitis C. The medicine was fast tracked by the FDA and the company was hinting of it coming to market late in 2008. They still haven't brought it to market even though I haven't heard of any set backs during the trials.
Now they say late 2010, early 2011. Who knows?
Ercetile Dysfunction comes to mind too. I am sure that is a huge money maker for the companies that manufacture the temporay solutions.
My conspiracy theory meter gets activated.

[Anthony]

There seems to be medicine to control things such as diabetes and other ailments (thank goodness), but never a cure.

IMO, if a company can realize a profit from discovering/manufacturing a cure for a disease, it will market it. With that in mind, if a pharma or device maker found a cure for many forms of cancer, for diabetes, or for a host of other chronic diseases, they wouldn't hesitate to make it available to the public because their profits would be exceptionally large and would offset any lost opportunity costs, including lost revenue from any other drugs they manufactured to simply control the disease. This is especially true given that most drug companies/device makers do not have a monopoly on treatments for any one type of chronic condition.

Anthony

Edited by Anthony, 21 February 2010 - 05:54 PM.

[kismet]

behold the philosophy of mainstream medicine, do not cure, but treat indefinitely with drugs.

ironically, chris rock said it best. we don't cure shit! it's just not as profitable as indefinite treatment.

Can you provide evidence for once, other than the oft-refuted logic and rhetoric? Sure 'big pharma' tries to maximise profits -- but only within reasonable bounds. Curing diseases is damn profitable, both for pharma and even more so for big government, the other large player on the field.

http://www.imminst.o...mp;#entry372625
http://www.spacedail...on_Dollars.html

[frederickson]

behold the philosophy of mainstream medicine, do not cure, but treat indefinitely with drugs.

ironically, chris rock said it best. we don't cure shit! it's just not as profitable as indefinite treatment.

Can you provide evidence for once, other than the oft-refuted logic and rhetoric? Sure 'big pharma' tries to maximise profits -- but only within reasonable bounds. Curing diseases is damn profitable, both for pharma and even more so for big government, the other large player on the field.

http://www.imminst.o...mp;#entry372625
http://www.spacedail...on_Dollars.html

i'll tell you what, instead of impugning my rationale, why don't you answer the original poster's question? what exactly have we cured in recent times?

since you solely cling to published evidence and are clearly incapable of big picture thinking, let me reverse your line of inquiry. why don't you produce EVIDENCE of disease cures in the last decade. or even twenty years. a hypothetical study holds far less weight than the FACT that we have not produced cures for any meaningful diseases recently. are our scientists really that incapable? the advances in computers, communication technology, etc. are suggestive that we are indeed capable of brilliant innovation. and i think you fully realize this.

a few meaningless studies may appease someone blinded by the literature like you, but when you consider the fact that it is far more cost-effective to develop another sure-thing "me too" drug for lowering cholesterol, treating the symptoms of diabetes, why risk the resources on finding a cure when the return is not guaranteed?

this is not very complicated, and does not need a published study, it is simple economics. and these truths are manifested in the fact that r&d expenditures, nda's, etc. are not geared towards cures, but rather a long line of "me too" treatments. until there is a major paradigm shift within big pharma, we will continue to see a long line of expensive treatments, and few (if any) cures.

Edited by frederickson, 21 February 2010 - 07:03 PM.

[tunt01]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

Edited by prophets, 21 February 2010 - 07:08 PM.

[niner]

What prophets said. I can't believe you conspiracy theorists. You guys obviously don't understand the difficulties involved in "curing" complex multifactorial diseases. We already have a "cure" for most diabetes: Don't eat sugary crap and don't get T2DM in the first place.

[Anthony]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

I would also add that science has made great inroads in efforts to cure testicular cancer. The five year remission rate for this type of cancer has increased dramatically in just the last twenty years. I think that the people who have been disease free for five years or longer would definitely say they have been cured; they would almost certainly have died a couple of decades ago.

As for chronic conditions, Prophets is correct in that they are complex diseases with multiple causes and symptoms. It might prove impossible to cure these diseases without a mult-pronged, incremental approach, which is developed and perfected over the course of decades. As an example, researchers have made great strides in combating heart disease over the last 25 years or so. Have they found a cure for the disease? Well, they have developed drugs, such as statins, that will enable some people who are at high risk for contracting CVD from ever getting the disease. I think those individuals would call it a (preventative) cure.

Additionally, governments, big pharma, and others are spending billions of dollars on stem cell research, which at least holds the promise of curing diseases and certainly, at least initially, won't create "me too" drugs (as any stem cell treatments will be novel).

Anthony

Edited by Anthony, 21 February 2010 - 08:22 PM.

[frederickson]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

this is completely inaccurate. hpv has not been cured and no credible medical authority would dispute that fact.

a cure would entail 100% elimination of the virus with no remission. gardasil does not even come close in either regard.

[zorba990]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

Like this?

http://www.naturalne...1_diabetes.html

[frederickson]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

I would also add that science has made great inroads in efforts to cure testicular cancer. The five year remission rate for this type of cancer has increased dramatically in just the last twenty years. I think that the people who have been disease free for five years or longer would definitely say they have been cured; they would almost certainly have died a couple of decades ago.

As for chronic conditions, Prophets is correct in that they are complex diseases with multiple causes and symptoms. It might prove impossible to cure these diseases without a mult-pronged, incremental approach, which is developed and perfected over the course of decades. As an example, researchers have made great strides in combating heart disease over the last 25 years or so. Have they found a cure for the disease? Well, they have developed drugs, such as statins, that will enable some people who are at high risk for contracting CVD from ever getting the disease. I think those individuals would call it a (preventative) cure.

Additionally, governments, big pharma, and others are spending billions of dollars on stem cell research, which at least holds the promise of curing diseases and certainly, at least initially, won't create "me too" drugs (as any stem cell treatments will be novel).

Anthony

this is a well-thought out post, but longer survival when you still die of that disease is not a cure. nor are statins. plenty of people who take statins still die of heart disease. in fact, there is very little evidence that most statins even increase survival.

so both of those examples would fail to qualify as a cure as most define it.

Edited by frederickson, 22 February 2010 - 03:01 AM.

[niner]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

Like this?

http://www.naturalne...1_diabetes.html

Nope, looks like another "failure" by the metric of some here. Requires continuous treatment. And this is in mice, BTW, not humans.

According to Dosch and Salter, some mice have remained "cured" for up to four months with a single injection.

[niner]

but longer survival when you still die of that disease is not a cure. nor are statins. plenty of people who take statins still die of heart disease. in fact, there is very little evidence that most statins even increase survival.

so both of those examples would fail to qualify as a cure as most define it.

AIDS has been transformed from a death sentence to a disease that can be managed over the long term, allowing countless people to go on and have productive lives. But it's not "a cure" by your definition. Do you think this is another conspiracy of Big Pharma and the FDA to milk people for every penny they have? Do you think the "real cure" is just sitting on a shelf somewhere, and the "bad guys" are "hiding it"?

[aim1]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

Like this?

http://www.naturalne...1_diabetes.html

Thanks for that link. I have a friend whose family (except for the parents) have type 1 diabetes. Five of the seven siblings have it. It has been very difficult for them. That is an interesting article. Also, the last paragraph caught my attention:
"It also shows that diabetes can, indeed, be cured, and that's a fact that the conventional medical community simply does not want to acknowledge," Adams said. "Treating diabetes is far too lucrative. Embracing a cure would devastate the drug companies and health care businesses that depend on a diabetes epidemic."

AIDS medicines have advanced greatly. That same company that is working on Hepatitis C has an AIDS drug on the market that I have heard works wonders.

[JLL]

There seems to be medicine to control things such as diabetes and other ailments (thank goodness), but never a cure.

IMO, if a company can realize a profit from discovering/manufacturing a cure for a disease, it will market it. With that in mind, if a pharma or device maker found a cure for many forms of cancer, for diabetes, or for a host of other chronic diseases, they wouldn't hesitate to make it available to the public because their profits would be exceptionally large and would offset any lost opportunity costs, including lost revenue from any other drugs they manufactured to simply control the disease. This is especially true given that most drug companies/device makers do not have a monopoly on treatments for any one type of chronic condition.

This is exactly right. If you have to compete with other drug companies without a monopoly, curing cancer is going to be financially profitable. If you have a monopoly, however, you can make more money by selling a lifelong treatment rather than a quick fix. I'm sure no evidence is needed for this claim, it's basic mathematics.

This is also the reason why intellectual property and drug companies don't go as well together as people would like to think.

[tunt01]

this is completely inaccurate. hpv has not been cured and no credible medical authority would dispute that fact.

a cure would entail 100% elimination of the virus with no remission. gardasil does not even come close in either regard.

you are confusing therapeutic cure w/ prophylactic vaccines. there are therapeutic vaccines/cures in development, they just aren't as far along becuz the target market for the prophylactic is so much more financially attractive.

also the gardasil vaccine is purported to only be effective against 4 strains of HPV (there are many) but it probably works on as many as 20+...

[rapier]

hpv has effectively been cured with vaccines from merck (gardasil). "curing" metabolic problems like diabetes, alzheimer's, is not so simple.

 

Very prophetic of you.

 

The Evidence Gap - Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Rise - NYTimes.com

 

http://healthimpactn...nal-complaints/

 

Your vaccines aren't lab science they're kitchen based pseudoscience.