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Opinion Deadly quandary Lawrence Journal - World J-W Editorials Sunday, June 10, 2001 Patients suffering any disease — be it AIDS, cancer or some other malady — have every reason to wonder why more is not spent to try to solve their respective illnesses. News stories in recent days have focused on the terrible toll AIDS has taken since the public report of the disease 20 years ago. According to the reports, about 36 million people worldwide are infected with HIV and about 22 million have died from the disease. So far, there is no cure for those infected although vast amounts of money have been spent trying to figure out how to counter the deadly virus. A number of years ago, the late Takeru Higuchi, a KU faculty member and one of the world's foremost pharmaceutical chemists, said he believed the AIDS virus would prove to be extremely difficult to target, to isolate and to find some means of destroying. HIV has been identified but unfortunately, Higuchi's prediction has proven to be true. Now, some doctors and scientists say there is the belief by some in demographic groups where AIDS is more prevalent that new drugs can arrest the spread of AIDS and that it no longer is the deadly disease it long has been. They point out this false sense of security has resulted in carelessness and the assumption new drugs can protect and shield people from the virus. This is not true! What will it take to find a cure? Is it a matter of time or is it a matter of more dollars being spent on research? Some in the United Nations family are highly critical of the United States for not devoting more to fight the AIDS battle. One U.N. official said there has been inadequate response to the AIDS " crisis ravaging Africa." He said, "Of the estimated 36 million infected with the virus, 26 million live in Africa." The U.N. official, Stephen Lewis, who has just been appointed the special U.N. envoy for Africa on HIV and AIDS, said, "It is morally indefensible that the West is prepared to spend upwards of $40 billion to fight war in the Balkans, then to engage in the economic restoration of Kosovo and less than 1 percent of that to save the lives of tens of millions of women, children and men in Africa." This is indeed a tragic situation, but others with other diseases wonder why more is not spent to try to conquer diseases that have ravaged their bodies. For example, Mort Kondracke, the nationally known media personality, has become a highly effective spokesman in the fight to find a cure for Parkinson's disease. His wife has Parkinson's. Kondracke points out that not long ago the National Institutes of Health was spending an average of $1,000 a year on each person with HIV/AIDS, $260 for each cancer patient, $54 for each person with Alzheimer's disease and $26 per person with Parkinson's. Clearly, far more money is being spent in the United States for medical research into HIV/AIDS than for other major diseases. How should the NIH and or other national bodies decide what diseases merit the greatest amount of financial research funding? Patients suffering any disease have every reason to wonder why more is not spent to try to solve their respective illnesses. There's no easy answer. Right now, it appears AIDS/HIV, for one reason or another, is capturing a sizable percentage of the available medical research dollars. It is understandable why those with AIDS/HIV want more, but it also is understandable why those championing research relative to other diseases wonder why they are not receiving equal medical research funds. http://www.ljworld.com/section/opinion/story/55584 ******** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn