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C'mon, an HPV vaccine was released just a couple of weeks ago. HPV causes cervical cancer, which kills about 300,000 a year. That's as much a cure as we're going to get. Companies are driven by profit. It's unfortunate because diseases that afflict the poor or small populations, or diseases that appear extraordinarily tough to tackle, don't get much attention. In some ways, this is fair -- a disease with 10 million sufferers should probably be handled before a disease with 100 -- but it's not reasonable that malaria still kills millions. "Fortunately" (really, its unfortunate), Parkinson's is a huge market. There are millions of sufferers, most are older and would pay thousands of dollars for medicine. A lot of companies are working on treatments, some a lot more exotic than the tradtional pill -- remember GDNF? Yes, they'll cost a fortune to begin with, but with competition and patent expiration they'll eventually be sold essentially at cost. I happen to think the oil companies are a little more crass than the pharmaceuticals. We're not going to war to help out pharmas, and, unlike with Halliburton, pharmas aren't known for using slave labor in places like Burma (though there are reports of questionable clinical trials). On 10/28/05, Marco DeMichiel <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > K.F., > > You're absolutely right about the Pharmaceutical Industry. If you look in > the PIENO archive you can read what I've been saying for ages. However, > the key factors are: > > . They are only interested in 'Profitability' > > . They will never produce ' Cures ' only drugs that contain/manage the > symptoms, there's no cash in a cure; no continuous ' cash flow. > > [The only two real cures I can think of in the last 50+ years are > Penicillin and Smallpox vaccine] > > And here's a new thought. I wonder if they are lobbying against Stem cell > research etc. as it's outside their domain, and if implemented would eat > into their profits by possibly removing the need for current drug > therapies, e.g. PD and MS. They are incredibly powerful and, sadly, I > believe will do anything to protect their position. In one case recently a > Doctor acting as Consultant for a number of Pharma co.'s told another > Doctor who had been presenting papers and giving lectures on the dangers > of Prozac, to be careful about what he was saying, and if necessary he > would be silenced. > > I don't wish to be pessimistic but given my beliefs about the > Pharmaceutical Co.'s and the state of SCR/SCT, the long drawn out debate > and the success of a controlled trial, I think our combined resources > would be better utilised in creating the core of the most comprehensive > database ever assembled in order to identify some of the causes and if > realistic shut them down by a more focused awareness campaign. > > regards, > > Marco > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto: > [log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn