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Bruce, You wrote, " AIDS research is already funded disproportionatrly to other health needs & now we are allocating HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS MORE? " You may well be right - but not on the basis of the arguments you have presented. Which makes it hard not to discuss your views other than piecemeal. >AIDS #'s are down, dramtically down. It is not the killer it used to >be. This is only true in the developed world. In the third world, particularly Africa and SE Asia, AIDS is still on the increase and large percentages of the population are already HIV positive. Drug companies see their marketplace in global terms and I would imagine that the government is happy to invest in research that has potential to generate huge profits for American companies. They would also have no objection to the positive effect on the balance of trade. Of course you may argue that American tax dollars should be spent to benefit American taxpayers. Very true - but I think you'll find that most politicians regard a positive balance of trade, export dollars and a health economy as being very beneficial to the tax payer. > Education of its potential victims must be the reason as medical science >has made little progress in cures & preventions that would account for this >phenomenum. Whilst this may explain the drop in AIDS #'s in the developed world it has no relevance that I can see to the funding issue. > Future AIDS victims, most of them, have no one to blame but themselves >for contacting the disease. Which would put AIDS sufferers in the same boat as stroke victims, people with heart disease, people with lung cancer, people with skin cancer, and people with any one of the myriad of other diseases that some people get because of risky lifestyle choices they made. Perhaps we should be asking for their funding too. Better yet let's not introduce ranking diseases based on subjective opinions - we might just end up at the wrong end of the list. > The UNITED STATES PD commnunity should point this out to its pols & >openly complain about it >with the intent of further increasing the meager $ which comes our way. I totally agree Bruce. If the distortion exists - and can be shown to exist - it should be shouted from the rooftops. But as your only attempt to show that it does exist requires us to take a parochial view of a global issue - and your other relevant argument could result in a ranking system which would leave us at the mercy of everyone else's opinion - I think you are going to have to re-think your case. Dennis. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dennis Greene 48/onset 32 /dx 37 "It is better to be a crystal and be broken, Than to be a perfect tile upon the housetop." [log in to unmask] http://members.networx.net.au/~dennisg/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++