Researchers Describe First 'Functional HIV Cure' In an Infant 71
An anonymous reader writes in with news of a breakthrough in the treatment of HIV. "A baby born with the AIDS virus two years ago in Mississippi who was put on antiretroviral therapy within hours of birth appears to have been cured of the infection, researchers said Sunday at a scientific conference in Atlanta. Whether the cure is complete and permanent, or only partial and long-lasting, is not certain. Either way, the highly unusual case raises hope for the more than 300,000 babies born with the infection around the world each year."
Yeah, right (Score:4, Insightful)
raises hope for the more than 300,000 babies born with the infection around the world each year.
Especially when the majority of these infants are born in "third-world" countries, where people can't afford the basic stuff like food and water, they'll be able to cure their infants with this new treatment because the big pharmas will provide it for free. Can't wait for this to happen, along with the sun rising from the west
Re:Yeah, right (Score:4, Insightful)
America's Big Pharma certainly won't routinely provide it for free, but they will happily donate a lot of doses in a tax-deductible act of charity. Through partnerships with other charitable agencies, more doses will be sent abroad. Once the medicine gets to those third-world countries, some of it will even get past the warlords and corrupt leaders to make its way to hospitals, where a few treatments might even make their way to trained doctors.
At least one of those doctors will be paid off by a pharmaceutical company from China, Cuba, or another country that doesn't care much about American intellectual property laws, and soon cheap knock-off treatments (that work almost as well) will be produced. Those knock-off cures will be widely available in any country that isn't under the thumb of American pharmaceutical companies... which is exactly what the Big Pharma companies expect and don't mind, because they're not really pushing marketing to those countries, anyway. Sure, they'd love the extra business, but the lax distribution controls are a PR minefield they don't really care to walk through yet.