Official: Drug Cos. Lack Vaccine Incentive(AIDS....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-AIDS-Vaccine.html

December 25, 2005
Official: Drug Cos. Lack Vaccine Incentive
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:38 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one.

And that means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing new medicines and bringing them to market.

''We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up,'' Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in a recent employment lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

....more at link....

Bush's friends are just waiting until the US Govt or a College developes one and then they want the $$$$$$$$

If people die, if they don't make their god damned profits, fuck people.
What ever happened to social responsibility?
I'll tell you what...GREED, pure and simple...some of these assholes will be sorry, come the revolution.

if they're cured :(

it ain't new.

get rid of gays is alive and well and living in bush**s America.

is not in the interest of drug companies. Treatment, long-term, expensive regimens for chronic conditions is where they make money. Arthritis and heart disease are big cash cows. AIDs could be too if it had only spread more in wealthier countries.

I could imagine a drug company stumbling across and burying a cure for cancer if a viable treatment--that would halt the growth and spread but not eliminate tumors--were also found.

A similar model can be found in the credit card industry. They have an interest in creating 'revenue streams' of permanently indebted (indentured) 'customers' feeding their greed.

its all about the $$, just like religion and politics.

if they could prevent HIV infections there would be fewer income opportunities.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

Dec 26, 2005

WASHINGTON - In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one.

And that means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing
new medicines and bringing them to market.

"We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up," Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in a recent employment lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

<snip>

"If we look at the vaccine, HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a company," Tramont said. "They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We have to do it."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051226/ap_on_he_me/aids_vaccine;_ylt=AiXUU9S58qOz9ScDN3YHacqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-


Another reason why privitization is a bad idea.

is in denial of the reality of the drug industry.

This is one of many reasons that we need to fix the health care system to actually focus on healing rather than profits...

:(

Healing runs a poor second (if that) compared to profits.

........We have to do it."

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2004/11/17/why_they_continue_to_ignore_the_aidshiv_selenium_connection.htm

November 17, 2004
Print this article
Why They Continue To Ignore The AIDS/HIV Selenium Connection
Categories
Control tactics

Health through Nutrition

Practical Health

The Nature of Government

Further to: Further to: Selenium Status Is Associated With Accelerated HIV / AIDS, many thanks to Dr. Landman, for sending me this much needed and succinct note. It is clear, both intuitively and from the literature, that drugs, unless they are combined with nutrients, simply cannot address the casual nutrient deficiencies that create nearly all diseases, Often they exacerbate the original deficiencies! Drug use, only makes sense when limited to emergency use such as catastrophic injury from accidents, environmental impacts etc. even there nutrients such as Oxygen, IV vitamin C and Magnesium should not be overlooked.

Dr. Foster and others also have shown, through demographic studies, over and over the relationship between disease and mineral/nutrient deficient areas of the world. Yet the medical Mafiosi continue to demand, the next to useless, clinical trials before even educating their constituents on the benefits of nutrients. Given that the nutrients are generally less toxic than foods and cost next to nothing this is plane inexcusable and negligent!

The clinical trials, combined with hoopla of tight non scientific nutrient dosage standards are simply used as a filter mechanism to prevent wide spread use of sane and humane, but not profitable, disease control/prevention methods. They are well aware that no funds will ever be forthcoming for low cost and non patentable remedies regardless how effective they might be. With some notable exceptions it's is to the discredit of such low calibre professionals, who in many cases lack both knowledge and ethics, that our sickness management system has turned to snake oil health methods under the pretense of health care.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/AidsandSelenium.php
Selenium Conquers AIDS?
Sam Burcher reports on a nutritional hypothesis with possible implications for prevention and treatment of the global pandemic

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members’ website. Details here.

During the last decade, research has indicated an important geographical link between regions of selenium deficient soils and peak incidences of HIV/AIDS infection. AIDS disease appears to involve a slow and progressive decline in levels of the trace element selenium (Se) in the blood along with CD4 cells, which are both independent predictors of mortality.

AIDS infection in Africa has reached pandemic proportions with over a quarter of the population said to be suffering from the disease in some areas, although there is debate over how the WHO has extrapolated their statistics (see "African Aids epidemic?" SiS 22). Figures from Harvard in the United States put infection rates as follows: Zimbabwe 25.84%, Botswana 25.10%, Zambia 19.07%, South Africa 12.91%, Côte D’Ivoire 10.06%, Tanzania 9.42%, Ethiopia 9.31%, and Congo 4.31%.

But Senegal in West Africa has the lowest numbers of AIDS prevalence at 1.77% in the general population, and 0.5% in antenatal clinic attendees along with the highest levels of selenium-enriched soil. Geologically, Senegal is situated in the desiccated or dried up Cretaceous and early Eocene Sea, and the land is formed from sedimentary rocks from dissolved minerals in the evaporating seawater. Consequently, calcium phosphates are one of the country’s mined mineral products used for fertilizers, and are derived from the selenium rich phosphorite. Senegal can also claim the lowest level of cancers on the African continent.

Geographical disease pattern analogies made by Prof E.W. Taylor, University of Georgia, suggest that AIDS, Karposi Sarcoma and cancers are rife in regions of selenium depleted soils and that this has further implications in the seemingly unstoppable spread of AIDS incidence worldwide.


http://www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsSupplements/Seleniumcs.html
HIV
Selenium plays a key role in the proper functioning of the immune system and studies have shown that levels of this nutrient decline consistently as HIV progresses. Preliminary evidence suggests that selenium supplementation may improve certain symptoms of this condition.

For example, severe weight loss is a serious problem for people with HIV. In a well-designed study of people with HIV, those who took a daily supplement containing selenium, glutamine, beta-carotene, N-acetylcysteine, and vitamins C and E for 12 weeks gained significantly more weight than those who took placebo. Given the number of nutrients included in this supplement, however, it is unclear whether it was the selenium alone or the combination of all nutrients that ultimately prevented the weight loss in the study participants.

http://www.vrp.com/art/661.asp
Selenium & HIV Infection
'
VRP Staff

A recent study published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry has presented provocative evidence that selenium plays a significant role in the life cycle of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the development of AIDS. In this paper the authors present evidence for the existence of several previously unnoticed genes in HIV-1 that potentially encode for selenoproteins. Some of these genes are highly conserved among different varieties of HIV, as well as other viruses, and may play a pivotal role in the replication of HIV within infected cells. Their investigation provided tentative evidence for the existence of up to four selenoproteins in HIV-1, a remarkable finding in light of the fact that only five selenoproteins have been found in humans.

Based on the finding of genes that encode for selenoproteins, the authors expanded the role for selenium in HIV infection by presenting previously published documentation of a characteristic decline in plasma selenium levels in AIDS and AIDS-related complex (ARC), which has been assumed to be due to malabsorption. In light of their results, the authors suggest that although this decline in selenium status may be entirely due to malabsorption, it is possible that the symptoms of progressive selenium depletion in HIV infection are at least partially due to sequestration of selenium in viral selenoproteins. Regardless of the mechanism, however, it seems clear that selenium status is compromised in HIV-infected patients, and this leads to an impairment of many selenium-dependent enzymes. Among these impairments are a decrease in antioxidant defenses (glutathione peroxidase) and thyroid hormone metabolism (type I 5-Deiodinase). Indeed, the researchers present documentation of significant decreases in the function of both these selenium-dependent enzyme systems, with red blood cell glutathione peroxidase levels being reduced almost fifty percent and thyroid hormone abnormalities (low T3 levels) being linked to metabolic depression and weight loss in AIDS patients. In two brief clinical trials, selenium supplementation was reported to lead to symptomatic improvements in AIDS patients, and more extensive clinical trials of selenium are currently underway in Germany. This is not surprising, as selenium status is not only compromised in AIDS patients, but the authors evidence suggests that the selenoproteins produced by HIV directly effect viral expression. In the words of the authors, This suggests the hypothesis that the ultimate depletion of selenium within an infected cell could be a signal for unrestrained expression of viral genes and thus be a trigger for release from latency.

will do everything they can to prevent us from doing things that are good for us?

that challenges these two motivational factors... need to be swept under the carpet. Truth is, our healthcare costs can be cut in half. If you think that is something... google glyconutrients "illness of the day" (fill in the quotes with your particular concern) and read to your heart's content.

These are people who are not only driven by enormous greed, they seem to love death and destruction.

Look at them closely anytime there is a tragedy. They can barely contain their glee. It's like it gets them off. It probably is the only thing that can get them off any more.

in George Castanza.... scary indeed.

Exactly. Like with an AIDS vaccine, it's also why we don't have much production of a flu vaccine & why we have to rely on other countries -- b/c we don't have universal healthcare, we have wealthcare in the U.S. For-profits have no business in healthcare, and the wasteage of our tax dollars on a military-industrial complex -- instead of healthcare -- is simply insane.