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Are Pharmaceutical companies hiding cures for HIV/Cancer

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(QC) Spell Bound:
So, I thought this might be a nice subject of debate.

What do you think?

Ðeath.:
No to HIV; Retroviruses are too imperfect to find a cure for; each time it replicates, the RNA is not spot on. If I remember correctly something along the lines of gene mutation is needed on the host to get rid of the CD4 receptor, I believe. So far, immunity* to HIV is rare and apparently impossible to replicate, seen in some areas of Africa. I've heard of theories to mutate T cells to not have the CD4 receptor and essentially farm them for later injections.

* Immunity doesn't mean you wont carry HIV, though.

krolin:
No they aren't. The usual reasoning behind a conspiracy are two fold
1.) The size of a conspiracy needed to hide a cure of any disease let alone a major disease such as HIV or cancer would require every developed country in the world working together to suppress it. If for example you believe that in America corporations have enough power to silence people working on a cure they could move to another country particularly any that have universal health care where they would patent the drug and then sell it to the government who would then save a massive amount of money.
2.) A monetary incentive on behalf of corporations to only push palliatives that they can sell for a long period of time instead of once. three problems       
A.) any cure for a serious disease would likely be a fairly lengthy process even things like strep throat or pneumonia take a while to cure. HIV and cancer will probably take much more including life long check ups to ensure no more flair ups.
B.) any corporation that doesn't already make drugs for the disease will have issues breaking into the market. Their best chance would be to improve the treatments available or work towards a cure and any government run research would be looking to save money.
C.) you could charge much more for a cure than a palliative and people also like to be remembered curing HIV or cancer would be a very good way to make sure you are remembered.

Aside from that the biggest problem is the idea of a cure for cancer, there will never be a single cure for cancer for example not even chemo therapy is effective against all cancers though it will have some effect. Different cancers have different causes and will need different treatments. The issue with treating cancer is that it is still part of your body, a cell in your body has malfunctioned and is replicating out of control but it is still part of you. How do you treat that? So far we use usually use radiation therapy and chemo therapy that, to my very basic understanding, treat cancer by killing cells. Chemo drugs hit cells that replicate quickly the hardest which is why you usually lose your hair and finger nails. Radiation treatment I know even less about but from what i understand it is very precise blasts of radiation that damage the cells.

As for HIV, it's still a fairly new disease only being recognized in the early 1980's but there are even now promising studies looking into a cure. If there is some huge conspiracy we have made surprising advances towards curing it.

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