why is it so difficult to find cure for hiv?

[bartholomew]

how close are we to finding cure for hiv...5 years away?

[micmak]

Why is it so difficult to find a cure for cancer?

[mike11111]

Let's cure cancer first, then we can start on HIV.

[DTCwordfan]

I had found a cure for Alzheimers but I have forgotten it......

[MickyMacgraw]

Some conspiracy theorists believe that the cures already exist but the pharmaceutical companies are keeping it from us in a bid for us to keep buying their highly priced meds.
Read some interesting exchanges here.
http://www.drug3k.com...g-the-cures-83474.htm

[starone]

'They' can't even find a cure for the common cold or 'flu.

[MickyMacgraw]

Starbuckone, which makes billions for companies that make lemsip etc..

[seadogg]

Apparently,a fair number of people in the UK have hiv and don't even know they have it.

[chrissa1]

I wish they would find a cure for the common cold, I'm bunged up to the eyeballs as I Dype!!

[sandyRoe]

About 1000 people have died in the last couple of weeks from cholera in Haiti. There is a cure for that and it's very cheap.
If a cure was found for HIV-AIDS who would pay for it in poorer countries?

[mike11111]

Sandy is right. Cholera is a disease eliminated in this country but alas not in other countries with less developed sanitation.

[naomi24]

As micmak said, why is it so difficult to find a cure for cancer? You could ask the same question for any disease.

DT, that is ignorant and in incredibly poor taste.

[Chappers]

Cures exist but drug companies can't copyright natural remedies, to do that (and thus to make money from it) they have to synthesize the active chemicals which is difficult and sometimes impossible.

Drug companies also spend a mind-bogglingly large amount of money paying off politicians (and other essential figures/companies) to keep the natural cures illegal or unobtainable.

Doctors these days can only prescribe the drugs that they're allowed to prescribe. Many are extremely harmful (chemotherapy kills more people than it saves for example) but the world revolves around money and it's the mega-corporations that have the money and so they have the influence.

Of course you get people that don't believe this, they're also the ones who believe that all police are honest, that work by the book and don't take backhanders.

We call those people, extremely naive.

[Andyvon]

Is not HIV just another step in the natural process of animals being attacked by pathogens? Most of the affected population die but a few naturally develop immunity which is then inherited by most of the population over generations. The same process has occurred ever since higher life evolved on earth and it's also a factor in the evolution of life.

That's the overall picture, but what humans are doing today is looking down the wrong end of the telescope! We just look at ourselves and say "How can we step in and stop this process today?" The answer is that - as with flu, malaria, cancer, the common cold - we mostly can't! Isn't that just as well?! The planet is in terrible trouble as a result of just one factor - the human population explosion. That's the root cause of all the world's problems today. On one hand we have science wringing it's hands and asking how to save miliions of lives a year - then science puts on a different hat and wrings it;s hands about global warming, extinction of species, starvation, over fishing, desertification, loss of forests etc. etc. What's it to be then?!

Nature will take it's course. Humans will develop immunity to HIV over generations. Until then, it's the responsibility of individuals not to expose themselves to undue risk.

[Andyvon]

Just to add.....

at the risk of being labelled 'insensitive' or whatever - the only hope for life on Earth and the human race to survive and stay healthy is if a significant proportion of the population disappeared. If HIV is one vector, then sobeit.

Look how prosperous the population of Europe became in the second half of the 14th century after the Black Death. Those who survived and were immune thrived. Poverty and serfdom were abolished and life was so much better and happier for everyone. Until then everyone was suffering as Europe's population had grown to the point where it had outgrown the available resources. We see the same today. Do you really want to compound that destruction of our world and our species Bartholomew?

[samuelarnold]

But where did our fight for the cure go? I don't know when it happened or where it happened or how it happened.