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Science

NASA + NCI = Nano-Explorers For Humans 104

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-explora-bots dept.
SEWilco writes: "NASA and the National Cancer Institute will collaborate in developing microscopic explorers -- devices in a pill-sized capsule to detect, diagnose, and treat disease inside the human body. Following the links you find interesting NASA devices, such as pill-shaped biotelemetry transmitters and a biotelemeter 'Trisponder' to read the data."
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NASA + NCI = Nano-Explorers For Humans More

NASA + NCI = Nano-Explorers For Humans

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  • Sure it's great reading... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...but talk about a waste of my tax dollars. I only skimmed the article, but what good could possibly come of this? I know what everybody's about to say (cure for AIDS! cancer! etc. ad nauseum), but honestly how often do we hear of any practical applied use of nano-technology? I'll tell you: never. It's just space-pills and miniature university logos. Nanotechnology will remain in the realm of sci-fi forever, excepting of course it is used to bring on The Apocalypse. To all you nano-nuts, don't expect to see anything useful come out of this.

    The only thing that will push nanotechnology is the US Department of Defense and I don't think they'll be pushing for any medicinal uses. No, you know exactly where nanotechnology is going, if it goes anywhere at all. It's just like nuclear power - all it's used for is war.

  • But what happens to the info? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think the inportant question is do you have any control over what is done with the information these bots gather about you. Can you prevent it from being given to the government or an insurance company? What prevents a bot from giving you a drug test or some other unauthorized search of your interior?

    - rachel

    rachel's daily diary:
    http://diary.reinyday.com/

  • Ahem Houston we have a problem... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nanonaut: "It appears that we are stuck"

    MissionControl: "Could you repeat that please"

    Nanonaut: "IT APPEARS THAT WE ARE STUCK"

    MissionControl: "Hey no need to be pissy, exectly what is the status now?"

    Nanonaut: "I said we are stuck"

    MissionControl: "Acknowledged, where exectly are you stuck?"

    Nanonaut: "I dont know"

    MissonControl: "Let me look that up"

    Nanonaut: "#!@$!@$?"

    MissonControl: "Please repeat that"

    Nanonaut: "I said I dont know where we are stuck and !@#!@#!@#!@"

    MissonControl: "Got it. What does it look like out of the window?"

    Nanonaut: "Dark"

    MissonControl: "Press the little blue button next to the instant coffee level"

    Nanonaut: "What does that do?"

    MissonControl: "It would turn on the headlights"

    Nanonaut: "I think we are in deep shit"

    MissonControl: "Could you repeat that?"

    Nanonaut: "I said we are in deep shit, did you say 1 millimeter 4,5,11.4 vector to the base?"

    MissonControl: "No! I said 0.25 Inches to to 4,5,11.4"

    Nanonaut: "My god, I see stars......"

    MissonControl: "Hello.. Hello.. anybody there....."

    Nanonaut:

  • Re:Cancer vs. AIDS research (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:09AM (#1136956)
    Yes, but the difference is that until AIDS is cured, people can't have care free rampant sex. Cancer is random mostly, whereas sex can be dangerous. Whoever dishes out the funding is obviously thinking with their libido.

    My father in law died of cancer last year. I've had friends die of cancer. I don't know anyone who has HIV. Yeah, great budgetting. The previous poster in this thread is right. It's disgusting that AIDS gets more funding than cancer. About the only way you can get HIV without having yourself to blame is through a blood transfusion. The rest, well you play the lottery and take your chances. Yet cancer can strike anyone.

    This kinda crap makes me VERY angry.:(

  • I don't know... (Score:3)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:04AM (#1136957)
    I wouldn't want to see this technology in use if someone wrote a "virus"...

    Who owns the NASA technology, anyhow? I know, we always hear about the benefits of "space-age" technology, but... do they license their patents, or does the gov't reap the benefits? And couldn't that money go towards NASA funding? Please?
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Um, actually... (Score:3)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @11:59AM (#1136958)
    Infected blood from an outside source. Same shit different pile.

    Actually, that isn't too likely to be the problem; the mother's and baby's blood only mix as the child is being born, and even then it isn't enough to pose too much of a threat (indeed, many AIDS babies are actually born without the virus and later get it from their mother's breastmilk).

    I don't know if amnion carries the virus or not; not all fluids do. Saliva, for example, doesn't carry the virus, at least not in large enough quantities to pose any risk whatsoever unless you were to drink a gallon of the stuff (I think I'll pass). Last I checked only four bodily fluids actually carried the virus in significant quantities: blood, mucus, semen, and vaginal secretions. Other fluids don't seem to carry the virus, or carry it in such minute amounts that there's little to no real risk.

    There are also reported cases of babies born with HIV whose bodies actually fight and kill the virus, but Doctors aren't quite sure why yet. Read about that years ago.

    There was one case, and that one was later found to be just a mistake; the test was a false-negative.

    Also, you talk about the only way to get AIDS without having yourself to blame being through a blood transfusion. That's not strictly true. Some AIDS-infected people actually use their disease as a weapon, infecting many people without them even knowing it. One famous example was a Florida dentist who secretly infected 25 people. There are also HIV-infected rapists; surely such a case is one where it's not the victim's fault that they were infected. And while I know of no cases of this next one, there's also the possibility of infecting someone unwillingly with a needle (we're not talking needle-sharing here; we're talking forced injection).

    As for blood transfusions, the screening is so good now that it basically takes a freak accident for HIV-infected blood to get into the supply. So under normal circumstances, AIDS is quite preventable. But it isn't always; don't forget that.

    This said, I do think it's a shame that AIDS research gets 20 times the money that cancer research gets. Not so much because of the preventability of AIDS as the fact that cancer still kills many more people every year than AIDS does, and it's been killing for a far longer time There's evidence of known cancer cases in ancient Egypt, whereas the first confirmed AIDS cases were in the late 70's/early 80's, and even the oldest hypothetical case is from the 50's. Don't get me wrong; both diseases are terrible things and need research. But someone in Washington needs to get their priorities straight, or at least recognize that cancer is still a massive threat.

    But I doubt that'll happen anytime soon. One last tidbit to leave you with. For a long time, the CIA had a certain bit of spy technology with an interesting side-effect: it could be used to detect breast cancer far earlier than any technology of the time could. But before they released it to the public (which was only recent; sometime in the last five years), they had to be convinced that women's health was "an issue of national security." Guess it goes to show you where Washington's priorities lie.
  • Well, in general it sounds neat-o, but on second though - how can you take a 'pill' of nanites and, 1st, have them survive the digestive system - it can get really acidic in there, and they'd have to pass thru the stomach or intestinal wall and - geez, I find it a little difficult to beleive that anyhing is able to do both THAT and do anything useful from a micromechanical perspective - like a sensor/transmitter nanite. I question the feasibility of this idea in terms of the bodily particulate-mobility and functionality, ie., a complex monitor/sensor is feasible as an fixed implant, but I find it hard to beleive one could just 'drift around' in the body - I guess there's a fine line between new highly complex molecular 'drugs' and 'micromechanical nanites'.

  • when is the last time either of these two made an impact on anything.

    Umm, have you ever heard of Tang? That came straight out of NASA research. So, see, NASA has an impact on the world.

  • Our ancestors did indeed have problems. In parts of the world today where orange juice and milk are readily available, the expected lifespan of a human is around 70 years. Compare that to the dark ages where the expected lifespan was what? 30 years? The Greeks managed fairly well, but not what we have today. Of course, much of this is due to improvements in medical technology, but I would wager that a person today goes longer without need for medical assistance than a person 2000 years ago because of the changes to our diet.
  • Ok, so it's definitely smaller. Could also be faster with sufficient amounts of dietary fiber.

    Don't know if it's cheaper -- but it better be, considering each mission ends with the probe going down the swirly black hole...

  • I believe that there is genetically based evidence that HIV is not in its first go-round. But that the last time was multi-thousands of years ago (a bit vague here, sorry). The source for this was Science News sometime last year. Can't be more specific as I don't save them.
  • Yes, but would you want to use BlueTooth?
  • This is, of course, horse pucky. The reasons for cancer rates increasing is simple: people don't die of lots of things they used to die of (know anyone in the US to die from cholera recently? How about bubonic plague?). Eventually, something is going to kill you. It's likely to be something that we don't know how to cure yet, like, oh, cancer.

    If the increasing cancer rate was a limiting factor, then human life expectancy in countries with relatively high cancer rates would be DROPPING. Guess what? It isn't.

    A stat class should be a prerequisite before opening your mouth.

    -jon

  • Man, this post is so stupid and SO gets my goat that I have to respond again.

    You keep talking about how "our ancestors" lived. Well, bucky, life expectancy was around 35 (due the huge number of people who died in childbirth) for most of human existance. In just the time since Social Security was enacted in the US, average life expectancy has gone from around 62 to around 80. Maybe, just maybe, some it has to do with better diet, like that milk and OJ that you are holding up as "unnatural?" Given the choice between living when my ancestors lived (pick a time period, any time period) and today, I'd pick today, even with evil vitamin-packed orange juice.

    Cancer, by the way, does not come from accumulating "impurities" in your body. That's the bullshit New Age explaination which lets con artists get losers to give them hundreds of dollars for high colonics and homeopathic medicines.

    -jon

  • A disease as hard to catch as AIDS (and yeah, compared to something like the flu or the common cold, catching AIDS is damn hard.) isn't going to wipe out the human race.

    AIDS is spreading rapidly in places where the people (1) do not understand/believe how the disease is spread and (2) have serious problems testing for and treating the disease. Do you know how AIDS is spread? Can you avoid doing things (sharing needles, having sex with people who might have AIDS) which would get you AIDS? Poof! You're virtually AIDS-proof. If you don't get it, then you don't need to be treated for it.

    Being cancer-proof, OTOH, is virtually impossible. Not smoking will prevent one of the most common cancers, as will staying out of the sun. Good diet and exercise will keep your body in shape. But beyond that, there isn't too much that you can do to prevent cancer. It'd be nice if research money went to problems that were hard to prevent in the first place. It's not that I don't have sympathy for HIV-infected people, but cancer is a far worse problem.

    -jon

  • The world we live in today, has lots of good things and lots of bad things. It's much safer world in terms of all the natural dangers that used to kill off all of our ancestors. I will venture to say there lots of new dangers in terms of, say, nuclear radiations from artifical sources, chemical pollution, and new dangers like car accidents. Can we agree on that so far?

    Since people are living longer in first world nations which have things like "artificial" nuclear radiation and cars, it's safe to say that the new dangers are far less dangerous than the old dangers.

    By the way, where and when was life expectancy around 35 for most of human existence? And if huge number of people died in childbirth, wouldn't say that of those who survived, quite a few of them lived well past 35? Statistically speaking, it would make sense in order for things to balance out, no?

    Life expectancy was 35 (the source says 37) around 1800 (Source: http://www.positive.net/perspective/archive/96-08- 04.html).

    My fingers typed "childbirth" when I meant to say "childhood." However, Women frequently died while giving birth. There are two people involved in that birth process, after all.

    -jon

  • You completely missed the point of what I am saying.

    Let me try another take: have you ever taken a chemistry class? Are you familiar with the term "Limiting Reagent?" Cancer is not the limiting reagent in the life expectancy equation for first world nations because even though the amount of cancer has gone up, life expectancy in general has not gone down.

    The cancer rate is not going to be high if you don't live long enough to get cancer. When 2/3 of Europe's population was wiped out from bubonic plague, cancer rates must have been very low. Why? PEOPLE WERE DYING OF PLAGUE! In the 20th century, plague outbreaks are rare. Other things are going to kill people. Cancer is one of the things that we still can't do too much about, so it's a big killer.

    Why do some people get cancer in their 30's and 40's and some people don't? Current medical thinking is that most cancers in younger people are due to genetic defects. Cancer is, more or less, a set of cells that keep on reproducing and consuming food far beyond what they need to do. This happens because the cell has been damaged somehow. It can happen from exposure to certain chemicals or radiation or it can happen just because. Figure out the "just because" part (remarkable amounts of work have actually been done on this) and how to prevent it (this is the much harder bit), and you'll win the Nobel Prize.

    I'm certainly not arguing that we shouldn't waste time curing cancer. It is, after all, the #2 killer of Americans. But understanding WHY cancer rates are increasing is important. You avoid yammerheads who blame power lines, cereal additivies and other pseudoscientific sources and focus on the real sources of the problem.

    Passing stat classes and logic classes should be a requirement for a high school diploma. And maybe for the right to vote. But I digress...

    -jon

  • As long as none of the widespread and numerous strains of AIDS becomes airborn. If you don't believe this is a real possibility, you don't know enough AIDS researchers.

    Cancer strikes smokers, radiation victims, and otherwise randomly. No one with knowledge of the field feels that cancer is likely to become airborn.
  • . when is the last time either of these two made an impact on anything.

    Well most of NASA's spacecraft have made pretty big impacts on Mars lately...

    Rim shot

    Thank you! I'm at the Funny Bone in Cleveland next week... please tip your waitresses and drive safely.
  • THat would be a good idea too. Someone mentioned that in another message. It'd be pretty cool.

  • Nanotechnology Networking (Score:3)

    by FozzMan ( 23286 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:13AM (#1136974)
    Imagine if these things were networked. I wonder how much a sysadmin of this kind of network would get paid. Maybe they could even have a connection to the Internet. Your doctor could monitor your vital signs and then send back a message saying release this hormone or send this electrical pulse.
    Problems might arise though. What if some scrpit kiddie pinged you to death. If you think about it these little things would whae to have wireless connections to the net which would be very slow. It'd be interesting to see what kind of attacks would be made on these devices to cause problems. Maybe a DHR(Distributed Hormone Release) that causes you to suddenly start getting really horny. But you could also use a DHR to make someone grow more.
    I'd set up my old 486 as a firewall to prevent "malicious hackers" from breaking into me and causing some kind of meltdown. Maybe have the 486 notify a special Nano device that "pages" my brain with the person's IP and what they are doing.
  • Greg Bear's "slant" is IMHO an excellent Sci-Fi treatment of the problems of medical nano - And of various other forms of nano (eg. Military and Manufacturing). This is only one of the threads of the tale of Intelligent computers, and various levels of social intercourse

    Of course, you have to be able to read Greg Bear - He's an acquired taste.

    Here's a non-associate Amazon.com link [amazon.com]

  • It would be nice if the old NASA COSMIC [uga.edu] software archive were still available...
  • how can you take a 'pill' of nanites and, 1st, have them survive the digestive system - it can get really acidic in there...

    Easy, you wrap the pill in a bunch of starch and instruct the taker not to suck on it. The starch won't get digested by the enzymes in the stomach, but will be by those in the duodenum (intestine nearest the stomach).
  • Just wanted to comment that Greg Bear's Blood Music [barnesandnoble.com] is much closer to happening than we think. While I'm not an alarmist, it would not be difficult to get these types of things progressing to a intelligent level once you make the first steps into tiny machines.

    In the book, (originally a short story) a scientist manages to create an intelligent Lymphocite, which is the white blood cells, the 'Cops' of the Cardiovascular system. They end up in his own blood stream, and convert his body to a super healthy state, including restructuring his bones for more optimal movement and to prevent damage. Anyway, some more stuff happens, I won't ruin it. It's really good.

    I had read the short story years ago, but the book picks up where the short story just got interesting. Highly recommend it.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • First it was people thinking Jesus was talking to them.

    Then along came science fiction, and the same people now were worried about little green men and their ray guns, so they built themselves tinfoil hats [tripod.com] and even tinfoil bodysuits [berk.com].

    Now here comes nanotech. Who knows how much more sophisticated these wackos are going to get? Let's all repeat after me: "Get them away from me!"

  • IIRC, the Commodore 64 version shrieked "Welcome to PLASMAAAANIA!" when you loaded it up.
  • "Are the cows NOT being
    injected with hormones to increase their milk yield? And what effect does the milk that come from
    these cows have on the human body? "

    Ben and Jerry's says that they would like to promise that they don't use milk from cows that have been treated with rBGH. But they can't, because no test can tell the difference in the milk.

    No study has ever shown any harm from rBGH. so I don't see hwat your gripe is.

    "Where did
    people who lived in colder climates get their vitamin C from before the advent of global shipping? "

    I haven't a clue :). I can tell you that OJ is "good for you" in that
    1. You have to get vitamin C somewhere - why not there?
    2. It courrelates with reduced risk of heart disease.
    3. It tastes good.
    4. It isn't carbonated, and so it doesn't leech your calcium.

    Disclaimer: I am not a health food nut. I just listen to my mom, who is :)

  • Hmmm...no study says that the growth hormones are "harmful, so no one knows it is harmful, just like
    no one knows what really causes cancer, right? "

    The deal is that we've done studies. Other than *possibly* causing cancer (not a long enough timeline to tell for certain, but it's pretty clear that it doesn't), rBGH won't hurt you.

    So, unless you want to say "Damn the studies, I'm paranoid," then you're being stupid.

    "I'm not saying it causes cancer. But I certainly think it is a big health risk. I mean, if we were to take it directly, would it be a problem? "

    rBHG does not enter a cows milk. Period. There's no trace of it there, not even a tiny bit. Ben and fucking Jerry's, who are, like, hardcore about this can't detect it... No one can. It's not there!

    "However, I don't think any food should need "fortification" with additional nutrients. That sends an alarm in my mind that says: there's something wrong here! Remember Olestra? The fat substitute that is supposed to pass right through your body instead of being absorbed by the body? They had to fortify it with nutrients because it leached nutrients from the body!"

    OK, so it was Olestra that made you into a paranoid nutjob. I'll remember to avoid it. Adding nutrients isn't going to hurt you (except maybe megadoses of vitamin E). I know that I, for one, don't eat well. I don't eat enough fruit. So if my (say) beef has extra vitamin C, then good! I need it, and it'll pass through your body, harmlessly.

    "I still say, processed foods are bad for you."

    But you provide no evidence for this...
    I have some evidence against, tho.

    When my dad cooks chicken, he cuts off the fat. That's processing. And It's better for me that way. By far.

    "Look, the best and richest country in the world, and we still have plenty of health problems, if not more than some of the other countries, even with all the available medical advancements. Maybe it's time to look at things from a different perspective? "

    Like "good eating won't solve all problems" ? that sounds like a good start. How about "nanotech can solve many problems, so let's get hacking on it." That might do it...

  • If people exhibited some control and kept it in their pants and didn't share needles, HIV wouldn't be as contagious. HIV can't spread if you've got a little willpower.

  • A few years ago, a sports physiologist was doing a study using a temperature pill that NASA developed that measured core body temperature. He was comparing the pills results to the standard
    methods which required me to put a thermistor on a wire in two places, one of which was up my nose and down my throat. The other we won't mention. TMI!! I had to wear an antenna array harness that picked up the signals from this pill. Pretty cool being a part of the developement of this stuff. Anyway, it was I guess a precursor to these devices plus I got paid, had my body fat measured, got to watch a couple of Arnold movies and get some exercise!

  • Re:Cancer vs. AIDS research (Score:4)

    by Cuthalion ( 65550 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:21AM (#1136985) Homepage
    I find HIV scarier than cancer because cancer is not contagious. There is NO WAY cancer could concievably wipe out the human race. There are regions of the Earth where upwards of 50% of the population is infected with HIV. I suspect that it its infection rate is increasing much faster than cancer rates are.
  • I'm not questioning that this is science, but perhaps it's time to create a "Nanotechnology" topic.
    --
  • At risk of setting myself up as bait for a good flame, I'll say your claims about milk and oranges is complete bunk.

    For instance, humans have an estimated existence time of only a hundred thousand years, IIRC. So your claim on time frames is slightly exaggerated. Milk and milk products have been popular for a very long time. Long before the advent of big corporations. Cheese and butter have been around for a long time as well.
    I believe the Israelites described Canaan as the "land of milk & honey" to Moses.
    Some African cattle herders drink milk as well as the blood of the cattle they herd, I can't imagine that even they have succumbed to the "marketing tools" of big business.

    Oranges. Ummm, ever hear the word "scurvy?" Yes, they didn't have pasteurized, vitamin D fortified oranges but they still used them as a source of vitamin C.

    Of course, I can't say I disagree with the claims to smoking or MS...I personally think those two comments are dead on. >;)

    I also mostly agree with your claims to big business as well. The alternative isn't necessarily non-milk/non-orange products but perhaps purchasing those commodities from small farmers/non-corporate entities. I know that I do.

    -Vel
  • Who will get the Raquel Welch part? :-)
  • "Gee, and Cancer isn't?"

    In some cases it is, but in a lot of others its not. We're not talking just about lung cancer caused by smoking here. There are many other types.

    But its not like this is the only case, in Canada at least, breast cancer gets 10 or 20 times the funding that prostate cancer research gets, when they both kill about equally.
  • What happens when they can't get out of you again? What do you do to keep them from causing more troubles?

    Maybe you'll have to have something like this [unc.edu]. ;-)
    --

  • ...and a biotelemeter "Trisponder" to read the data...

    I suppose you need a Tricorder to record the data from the Trisponder.
  • Another good book to read about this type of thing is Blood Music by Greg Bear...

    pretty cool stuff..
  • I think besides the troll-like tone to this person's comments, he has a real point

    Nanotech has never been used outside the laboratory in real-life conditions. It seems very fragile, etc...

    Why reinvent the whell? The best nanotech already exists:
    THE LIVING CELL

    Instead of neglecting billions of years of evolution, we should start breeding our own "nanotech" cells - via natural selection in a controlled environment with induced mutations and a nearly infinite resource of catalogued genes - to do our bidding, like eating up tar in lungs, killing viruses and alot of other good things.

    -nick

  • there used to be this game for the Apple IIe or IIgs where the story line was along the lines of a doctor being shrunk with some gadget and given this little nano-type-ship to pilot, and then being injected into various parts of the human body.

    the missions where to clean up a certain health problem or fix certain problems, battle germs and bacteria and such, navigate the heart, etc... was really lame, but every time I hear about nanotech and healthcare, that game always pops into my head. Damn wasted braincells... atleast I can't remember the name of the game.
  • Good film. That involved actually shrinking the person and ship, though. Now THATS a technology I'd like to see.

    The Good Reverend
  • I'd assume they'd be programmed to clean out tar & that's it. Then they'd just be coughed out or something.... Either that, or they'd stick around & you could smoke and not have to worry about tar ever again.

    Eruantalon
  • I've always wanted nanites to be available to normal people. It'd be a whole hell of a lot easier to have somewhat intelligent nanites inside your bloodstream and to have dumbassed chemicals just doing their thing. It'd be pretty damn cool, too. Now, all they need to do is figure out how to get nanites to scrape tar off lungs. Now that would be a great invention.....cough....hack.

    Eruantalon
  • dumbassed chemicals just doing their thing.

    What a great description of psychopharmacology! Can I use it when I teach undergrads?

    For all the chemicals it pumps out, the body is surprisingly parsimonious sometimes. You can take Prozac(TM) or ecstasy to raise your mood, and end up with high blood pressure, confusion, tremor, possibly death (admittedly more likely if you take both at once). Serotonin syndrome [biopsychiatry.com] occurs because lots of receptors throughout the brain and body have the same chemical as a signal to do different things. But if we had a substance that could stimulate receptors with the serotonin-seeking shape and tell the difference between a mood-affecting receptor and a blood-pressure raising receptor, we could get the benefits without the side effects.
    This is only crudely possible with dumb chemicals. But nanomachines could communicate with a transmitter at a known location on the subject's body, using it to position themselves and either stimulate receptors or release chemicals at a single, tightly controlled locus. Such micromanagement is already used in neuroscience experiments, but at this time they require inserting a catheter directly into the desired part of the brain (yeah, we can treat your depression if you don't feel like getting out of bed anytime soon...). If the drug could place itself...

    - laborit
    do you know more now, or not?

    The bad do bad because the bad is rewarded. The good do good because the good is rewarded.
  • I guarantee that you DO know someone with HIV/AIDS. It's just dormant and won't show for 5 or more years. That's a huge problem with it... granted. People still going out and having sex, not knowing what they're spreading.

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) - AOL IM: MicroBerto

  • Cancer vs. AIDS research (Score:3)

    by MicroBerto ( 91055 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:00AM (#1137000)
    Did you know that for every dollar of govenment funding that Cancer Reasearch gets from the US Govenment, AIDS gets $20?

    That's quite a disgrace, seeing that AIDS is so much more preventable.

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) - AOL IM: MicroBerto

  • When we they be able to shrink me down in mini sub and inject me into the human body so I can do battle with evil villains who intend to cause damage?
  • (although an effective troll at that--exactly the right mixture of offensive moralistic crap and unsubstantiated "evidence". sheesh.)
  • Martin Short was in Inner Space.

  • (I dimly recall that they might be called 'rotoviruses')

    The correct term is retrovirus.

    -marc

  • Obviously you have never heard of Liver, skin or the other types of cancer that exist. One of the worst being Leukemia which strikes randomly. Or how about esophagle(sp) cancer that my friend is dying of? Yeah he really lived it up not smoking or drinking his whole life.
  • MicroBerto said:
    Did you know that for every dollar of govenment funding that Cancer Reasearch gets from the US Govenment, AIDS gets $20?

    That's quite a disgrace, seeing that AIDS is so much more preventable.

    Maybe you read the MicroBerto Expanded Post that the rest of us didn't have access to. I don't recall mention of Limbaugh or use of the word "faggot".

    It's sad, that people allow passion to cloud their ability to reason. While staying Anonymous, no less.

    Imagine a slightly less-rapid virus, more rapid than HIV, but not constrained to sexual contact, and the possibilities are terrifying.

    Imagine how much I'd be willing to donate to research it. Then remember we're in the land of hypothetical viruses, while cancer and AIDS are real and kill daily.

    I stand by my original post, and I suspect that if we want to really find out what MicroBerto really thinks about cancer and AIDS, we should wait for any follow-up posts by him before resorting to hypothetical discussion about the Right Wing Boogeyman.


    Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org [steelmaelstrom.org].

  • Re:_ (Score:1)

    by Rantage ( 96467 )
    Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I should have said sportspersonlike so I can cater to those individuals who cannot differentiate between a sexist remark and an attempt to use a commonly-accepted gender-neutral term for the sake of brevity.
    Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org [steelmaelstrom.org].
  • This is a dangerous sub-thread to jump into, but I felt compelled to add my two cents.

    I agree with MicroBerto that AIDS is more preventable than Cancer. Sex, however, is not the sole method of AIDS (rather, HIV) transmission....needle-sharing is also a major vector, and it's on the rise in developed countries.

    Cancer can also be prevented: don't smoke, don't chew, avoid tanning, etc. Unfortunately cancer's causes are legion whereas HIV/AIDS may be contracted in a limited number of fashions such as unprotected sex, IV drug use and unscreened blood transfusions.

    Both maladies have claimed victims who avoided dangerous and/or hedonistic lifestyles which might have put them at higher risk.

    I take the side of cancer research: pancreatic, lung and breast cancer have claimed the lives of three members of my immediate family. HIV/AIDS has not.

    While I sympathize with those who have lost loved ones to AIDS and neither desire to trivialize their losses nor lobby for reduced AIDS research donations, I cannot ignore that which has struck closer to home.


    Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org [steelmaelstrom.org].

  • ...and that's the development and release of nanites designed to kill people.

    Not quickly, of course...unless the hapless victim(s) ingested scores at once without noticing a grainy consistancy to their food.

    Maybe these killer nanites could be designed to block arteries with cholesterol, or dissolve platelets to prevent the stop of bleeding on the battlefield, or change the chemical structure of certain food items to slowly poison a victim. How about severing optic nerves to cause blindness, or causing spinal cord injuries to cause paralysis?


    Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org [steelmaelstrom.org].

  • When will cool stuff like this filter down to the average US citizen, and how much longer after that will it take to get it to (Fill in this spot with the current name of your favorite third world country.)

    As a side note, those neato thermometers are just now making their way into Mexico and Central America. I suspect that it'll take another 20 years before that NASA Tricorder makes it to the nice hospitals in Belize, much less to the really poor folks down there.

    CSG_SurferDude

  • Point taken, I was just reacting to un-supported claims. OTOH, It's really surprising the things folks are finding that cause cancer that are avoidable. (For instance, Sex. [mayohealth.org] Follow the link, it's interesting reading.)

    CSG_SurferDude

  • Gee, I'm just a posting fool today...

    What have we gotten from NASA? Tang, Microwave ovens, pacemakers, Protective paints to better resist weathering, weather Satelites, and (My personal favorite) Cordless tools! and the list goes on and on and on.

    For a quick list, check out spacepupnew.pdf [nasa.gov].

    CSG_SurferDude

  • Dang, wouldn't you know, I just found this page too. from the AIP [aip.org]

    CSG_SurferDude
  • Who owns NASA tech? We (US Citizens) do! If you want to license some NASA Tech, check out: http://nctn.hq.nasa.gov/technology/index.html [nasa.gov].

    CSG_SurferDude

  • Re:Cancer vs. AIDS research (Score:3)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @11:02AM (#1137015) Homepage
    Did you know that for every dollar of govenment funding that Cancer Reasearch gets from the US Govenment, AIDS gets $20?

    I don't buy it. What's the source of your information.


    ====
  • If they should need to remove them, how might they go about doing that? and what reasons might they want to anyway? Is it even possible?
  • About the only way you can get HIV without having yourself to blame is through a blood transfusion

    Except:
    1. Being born of an infected mother.
    2. Being a nurse, and having an accident while treating a HIV+ patient.
    3. Using a condom that breaks
    4. Sleeping with someone who is HIV+ in some third world country (or even first world...) where nobody bothered to explain to you that there was anything wrong with that.
    5. Being raped.
    6. Falling on or playing with an infected needle left lying around.
    7. Sleeping with someone in a long-term trusting relationship/marriage who becomes HIV+ because they are cheating on you.
    8. Being in an arranged marriage. I doubt that all men in arranged marriages take AIDS tests. Culturally a lot of these people have absolutely no choice in their sexual relations

    One could further argue that in situations where one partner plays on the youth, naivety and trust of the other (consenting) partner in order to have sex without protection, that other partner is not truly at fault. In part, situations like that are caused by the fact that parents and teachers are so up tight and embarrassed about discussing the issues that the issues don't really get discussed.

    Many kids in my class at school lost their virginity at about 13. If the school had given sex education (of the "if you have sex, use protection" sort, not "This is how ovaries work") to 13 year olds, their parents would be up in arms shouting that the school was trying to encourage sex among minors.

    Even more importantly, given the demographic of AIDS sufferers, is that few schools will ever tell you... "If you have gay sex, use protection". In England I think it is illegal for teachers to say anything which could be construed as encouraging (read "condoning") being gay, so the subject is just avoided.

    AIDS sufferers have quite enough of being shunned, since by having the disease they must clearly be a depraved Godless homosexual and a heroin addict as well. You don't have to add to that. And saying that less money should be put into their treatment because their disease is their own fault is at best a debatable position

  • Are we forgetting that this is the agency who recently lost one probe because they confused metric and imperial measurements [nasa.gov], and lost another due to rushing and cutting corners [nasa.gov].

    I'm not a NASA basher, but do we really want these folks putting things inside our bodies?

  • 98% of cancer is lifestyle related
  • Whoever marked this as flaimbait needs to think a little. HIV is much scarier than cancer as it is contagious. It is quite concievable that a new lethal virus could emerge that is transmitted (like the common cold) by hand contact. In fact this virus thrives in computer keyboards. Nerds all over the world are the group that is spreading the virus. They soon are treated with all the respect that gay men currently get.

    Bottom line...infectious lethal virus currently spread by exchange of body fluids could be the source of the next spanish flu. By funding this area of research we are investing generally in viral research and laying the groundwork to be able to prevent future epidemics of nastier versions of these viruses.

    Cancer is a very serious problem and needs big time funding too, but the threat to national (international) well being of lethal viruses is much greater than cancer.

  • There is, at least one known form of contagious cancer. It started out in a dog and then developed (with metastasis) the ability to be sexually transmitted. It is called canine transmissible venereal sarcoma (CTVS). Yang even argues that it is a new form of parasitic life. Here is the reference:

    T.J. Yang. 1995. Parasitic protist of metazoan origin. Evolutionary Theory 11:99-103.

    Of course, I don't claim that cancer is likely to become a highly contagious disease. It is a hard enough problem as it is. I just bring this up because it shows how bizarre life can be.

    Enjoy, Carlo

  • The 1999 NIH budget for the National Cancer Institute was $2.9G, $235M of which was spent on AIDS (because AIDS patients are more susceptible to cancer due to the fact that the immune system often attacks tumors). The total amount spent on AIDS, across all the NIH institudes was $1.8G. So I think it is fair to say that the NIH spends more on cancer than AIDS.

    These numbers come from http://www4.od.nih.gov/ofm/budget/00conference.stm - Carlo

  • NASA + NCI is an invalid LValue, and cannot store the result of the expression "Nano-Explorers For Humans"
  • I could swear that you were going to hit on the beowolf clustering of these nanites...
  • how can you take a 'pill' of nanites and, 1st, have them survive the digestive system - it can get really acidic in there, and they'd have to pass thru the stomach or intestinal wall and - geez, I find it a little difficult to beleive that anyhing is able to do both THAT and do anything useful from a micromechanical perspective

    Or the nanites 'ride' a particular molecule from the pill that will essentially carry the nanite to the molecule's destination which would in turn be the nanite's destination. Once the molecule is dissolved at it's destination, the nanite is deployed and it is ready to do it's work in that area. IANAMBONE (I Am Not A MicroBiologist Or NanoEngineer) but that is how I picture it working. Essentially how chemicals in drugs get to the specific organs that they have to do work on..
  • Cancer should be as preventable as AIDS - our society lives in such a way that makes cancer happen more and more frequently.

    We choose to put things into our body that are bad for us. When too much accumulates, we get cancer. There are many other ways, of course, and not always voluntary.

    We allow ourselves to be led by marketing, and allow ourselves to be harmed.

    Some examples:
    - Milk is good for you (says who? This should be an urban legend. For hundreds of thousands of years (at least) humans lived without drinking milk (and this means milk from another animal, and drinking milk as an adult, and drinking pasteurized milk), why is it now milk is so popular? Give you a hint: "Got Milk?"
    - Orange Juice is good for you (Again, the same argument. Our ancestors lived without pasteurized, Vitamin D fortified, Juicy bits of orange or not, for a long time, and they didn't have problems).
    - Smoking is cool (helps with digestion, as some of the older ads told us).
    - MS is the best OS, used by more people than any other OSes in the world (well, ok, I should know better, but it fits).

    I know that this is way off topic. But heck, until people realize that the big corporations are using marketing to leverage our health and well-being for their bottom line, and that there are alternatives and people gotta stop being sheep.

  • Antibiotics did us a world of good, I suppose. But if you go through some of the science and medical journals, you will see a lot of people cautioning against use of antibiotics. One of the foremost reasons is that it allows antibiotic-resistant strains to proliferate by eliminating their competition - their non-antibiotic resistant kins.
  • Why is that some people CAN live for a long time without succumbing to cancer and some cannot? Some people get cancer now in their 30's and 40's. There are lots more cancer causing factors. Why is that in this country, the most advanced of all countries in the world, we are constantly battling cancer? I don't need to know any statistics to know that cancer rate is pretty high.

    You are right, though, I guess I should have known better than to open my mouth without having researched and being able to snow everyone with mountains of statistics.

    I wish there was a better forum for this. I'm really not just mouthing off on this stuff.

  • I am catching a lot of hell (ok, a little bit) for my comments. But I will respectfully tell you why I'm saying what I'm saying.

    Milk: Yes, I know that throughout history, people have been drinking milk, using dairy products like cheese and yogurt. Perhaps I should have mentioned some of the other things that bother me about milk. Nowadays, milk is gotten from hormone-laden milk-generating biological machines that resemble something akin to what we call cows. Am I wrong on this? Are the cows NOT being injected with hormones to increase their milk yield? And what effect does the milk that come from these cows have on the human body?

    Orange Juice: Ok, scurvy was a problem - for people who did not have a good source of vitamin C. Was scruvy a problem with people who did not have a good source of vitamin C? Not likely, unless you ate a very unbalanced diet. Vitamin C is plentiful in many fruits and vegetables. We have all been taught since grade school that citrus fruits have a lot of vitamin C and that when the world was being explored by the Europeans, they got scurvy, until they started bringing and using lemons and limes. Those being too sour, the next best thing was oranges. But orange juice is not essential for well-being. Vitamin C may be, not OJ. Oranges are also a warm/hot climate fruit (I don't know if they are tropical, but the most well-known OJ brand is Tropicana, at least from where I am). Where did people who lived in colder climates get their vitamin C from before the advent of global shipping?

  • And I too, shall respond again.

    The world we live in today, has lots of good things and lots of bad things. It's much safer world in terms of all the natural dangers that used to kill off all of our ancestors. I will venture to say there lots of new dangers in terms of, say, nuclear radiations from artifical sources, chemical pollution, and new dangers like car accidents. Can we agree on that so far?

    Ok, I don't know if you remember a Breyer Ice Cream commercial from the '80s that touted how they used only natural ingrdients, unlike all the other Ice Cream makes that had ingredients like Polysorbate 80 and locust beans (yes, I remembered those exactly from the commercial). What the heck are those things? And why are we putting that stuff into our bodies?

    Meats and milk - animal products from animals that have been injected with hormones to increase yield. We are putting yet more stuff into our bodies. Because we are on the top of the food chain here, we accumulate a lot of these chemicals in more concentrated doses, especially the fat soluble stuff. I'm not making this stuff up. You can look it up.

    I'm not trying to spew all the New Age bullshit. A lot of those claims are just as bogus, just as bad. Where there's an opportunity to make money, people will try ot use it.

    Maybe my linking cancer with these "unnatural" versions of natural products was a little severe considering that I'm not really offering up proof.

    As for me, I don't buy into all of the New Age homeopathic stuff either. I just try to eat naturally. I try to avoid foods that are processed and comes in a package that has one of the RDA labels and lists ingredients that I can't pronounce. I don't think that's very unreasonable.

    By the way, where and when was life expectancy around 35 for most of human existence? And if huge number of people died in childbirth, wouldn't say that of those who survived, quite a few of them lived well past 35? Statistically speaking, it would make sense in order for things to balance out, no?

  • Since people are living longer in first world nations which have things like "artificial" nuclear radiation and cars, it's safe to say that the new dangers are far less dangerous than the old dangers.

    Agreed. But maybe, just maybe, some of the "new dangers" (not things so immediate like car accidents) manifest themselve in the form of diseases and cancers?

    Life expectancy was 35 (the source says 37) around 1800 (Source: http://www.positive.net/perspective/archive/96-08- 04.html). My fingers typed "childbirth" when I meant to say "childhood." However, Women frequently died while giving birth. There are two people involved in that birth process, after all.

    Ok, childbirth or childhood, point is they were young. Childhood, I think, we can agree, is younger than 35 (though I may disagree with that myself, sometimes :). But it still means that significant number of people were older than 35 if there were so many people dying so young. I'm not going to beat this one into the ground anymore than it already has.

    I do, however, have a problem with the 1800's figure.

    There's a couple of reasons why:
    1. Whose life expectancy was being measured? From page you referred to, it looked like it was mostly Europeans, who suffered the bubonic plague and other sort of things. It pointed out that prehistoric times until 1400's, life expectancy was in the 20s and 30s. I think this was largely a European phenomenon. Great ancient civilizations could not have been built if the population had those kinds of life expctancies.

    2. I forget, also, 1800's -> Industrial Revolution, no? People were dying left and right from lung cancer because of the coal and soot and stuff like that, right? It was the staple of authors like Charles Dickens (again, European).

    Thank you for a vigorous discussion (really!). I learned a few things. I also learned that I should not be so cavalier in making generalizations. Next time I'll try to offer up more convincing evidence of the stuff I'm spouting here that are not much of the new age bullshit that I personally find distasteful as well.

    You are right on one thing, I didn't take general statistics in school - I only took engineering statistics in school and I didn't do so well in it. I really should go back and study it some more.

  • Hmmm...no study says that the growth hormones are harmful, so no one knows it is harmful, just like no one knows what really causes cancer, right?

    Does it have to come down to something so toxic that you get cancer within, let's say, a year, that people will be willing to say, "gee, I think it might be causing cancer"?

    I'm not saying it causes cancer. But I certainly think it is a big health risk. I mean, if we were to take it directly, would it be a problem?

    The big problem I have with a lot of the things that are "good" for you goes something like this:
    - Scurvy kills off thousands
    - citrus fruits found to ward off scurvy
    - Vitamin C deficiency isolated as reason for scurvy
    - Abundance in Vitamin C wards of colds and prevents scurvy. It's essential!
    - Orange Juice Industry: OJ got vitamin C! Therefore it is good for you! Come buy lots!

    Is OJ good for reduced risk of heart disease because of Vitamin C?
    Compared to soft drinks, I would say it's much better in terms of nutritional contents.
    However, I don't think any food should need "fortification" with additional nutrients. That sends an alarm in my mind that says: there's something wrong here! Remember Olestra? The fat substitute that is supposed to pass right through your body instead of being absorbed by the body? They had to fortify it with nutrients because it leached nutrients from the body! And just because it is fortified with nutrients doesn't mean your body is absorbing those nutrients. It would still be truth in labeling of nutrients, though. Just like iron in spinach. It's there, but it doesn't mean it's easily absorbable.

    I still say, processed foods are bad for you. If you have no choice, you have to eat. If you have a choice, avoiding processed foods is the best thing you could do.

    Look, the best and richest country in the world, and we still have plenty of health problems, if not more than some of the other countries, even with all the available medical advancements. Maybe it's time to look at things from a different perspective?

  • enough of the damn flamewar about AIDS vs cancer
    I wouldn't want to do that because of that episode
    of The Outer Limits where they did exactly the
    same thing as that article talks about. Not that
    I believe anything on that TV show, but what if
    this is the one time that they're actually right?
    I don't wanna be the freak that took the pill and
    turned into a monster...
    Call me stupid...i'd just rather be safe than
    sorry.

  • NASA discovers micro sized things! (Score:5)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:25AM (#1137034) Homepage Journal
    Ok, who's going to tell them they are looking down the wrong end of the telescope?

    - Andy R.
  • Um, MicroBerto...AIDS is communicable and has no known cure. It may just be a matter of time before some version of the virus evolves that will survive in mosquito guts, and then we're all, no matter what Jerry Falwell et al. say, in very deep dung. Seems to me it's worth devoting significant effort to.
  • Some examples: - Milk is good for you (says who? This should be an urban legend. For hundreds of thousands of years (at least) humans lived without drinking milk (and this means milk from another animal, and drinking milk as an adult, and drinking pasteurized milk), why is it now milk is so popular? Give you a hint: "Got Milk?"

    Ok, this is silly. It's like saying that humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without antibiotics, so therefore antibiotics are not good for you, and instead are a marketing vehicle for evil pharmaceutical companies to take your money. Come on! Yeah, way off topic, but this crap irks me.


    "I shoulda never sent a penguin out to do a daemon's work."
  • Hear hear!

    The fact that there already is a cure for AIDS doesn't seem to thwart the charity-mongers any. There are actually two cures:

    1) Natural Selection - nasty but true. The epidemic will eventually play itself out, much as the Black Plauge did in the Middle Ages. Sure, it may take more than half the poplulation, but it will play out.

    2) Social Change - not likely until a *real* epidemic ensues, then it will be too late. However, if education efforts were successful in changing the culture. . . theoretically you could stamp it out. And we all know the difference between theory and reality.

    Cancer, on the other hand, strikes anyone and everyone regardless of lifestyle. Sure, there are high risk groups and ways of decreasing your risk (i.e. reduce your exposure to cancer-causing chems), but I feel that most cancers today can be attributed to many environmental hazards such as an increase in radiation, chemical and radio frequency exposure.

    So, to recap:

    AIDS == avoidable
    CANCER == !avoidable

    later,
    kristau

    P.S. - Yes, I personally knew three people who died of cancer. No, I have not personally known someone who has died of AIDS. Perhaps that would make a good /. poll?
  • There was a book called the First Immortal which in my opinion kicked ass.......though the time span for this stuff has come sooner then the book predicted. This is fucking cool though..now if we could just take care of this government bullshit.....
  • ...it's called Mentos! Secretly developed by German Scientists in dubya dubya 2, the innocent-looking "candy-mints" are actually packed with mind-controlling microscopic robots. Upon ingestion, the robots travel straight to the brain and force the unwitting victim to behave like a dippy European, smiling vacantly and showing everyone their pack of Mentos (subliminal advertising). The scientists called their diabolical invention "Mentos" as a contraction of the words Mental and Nano. The Freshmaker indeed!!!
  • Remind me not to get sick...
  • ...from your Nano-Explorer

    Houston, we have a problem.
    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • yeah, just stick the little guy in a kernel of corn
  • I would keep typing, but my liver just crashed. Darn wince!
  • And a good SciFi novel here and there as well. FM Busby's Demu Trilogy [best.com] comes to mind. Good read.
  • I didn't know you could buy AIDS? :)

    BTW, you can have my cancer for nothing if you want... Nothing serious, just next to my kidney.

  • Has anyone ever thought that AIDS spontaeneously appeared (or was placed here by aliens, or governments) to bring the worlds population back to a sustainable level.

    AIDS is very indiscriminate, incurable (at present), constantly changes for the conditions and results in death. Perfect population control. I do believe the world is becoming over populated, India is about to pass China for god sakes... How can so many people live in such a tight space?

    Conspiracy theories abound...

  • yeah i did... an episode of "Outer Limits" is the one I remember, although I think it's been the topic of a few shows.

    the nanobots thought that not having eyes in the back of his head was a "problem" ... then that he needed gills... if i remember correctly it ended when they gave him a protective covering kinda like a jelly fish and he killed himself....

    Although this seems kinda unrealistic to me, it brings up a good point: What do we classify as "things to change?" I mean, call me paraniod, but i could see this as a new way of genocide (or something similar) by eliminating what someone calls a "problem."

  • ... and the worst part?? they could do this at ANY time!! toss in some type of location device, a microphone and video camera... they could do WHATEVER they wanted. this person is about to commit a crime.. kill 'em... this person is saying bad things... kill 'em... and if no one knew the capabilities of the nanobots then the deaths would be ruled as natural causes... isn't being paraniod fun?
  • Wonder how long it will take for other well-funded government research bodies (DARPA et al) to realize the utility of such seemingly beneficial applications. v

  • I can see it now..... (Score:5)

    by mfinke ( 160527 ) on Wednesday April 12, 2000 @10:42AM (#1137050)
    Ok, lets say you're sick. You swallow a pill to combat whatever is making you ill.

    However that one pill isn't powerfull enough to fight off the illness by itself. You have to swallow its four friends, and then they all combine inside your body to form a super robot to fight together.
    Sheesh this is starting to sound like Voltron. I hope they don't have some mega-sword which they start swinging wildly around inside of you.

    Let's hope the virii don't start teaming up like this. Soon eveyone will have things popping out of them, al a Alien.

    Ok, this post sounded like a good idea when I started

  • About the only way you can get HIV without having yourself to blame is through a blood transfusion.

    A girl I used to know had HIV. She contracted it from a guy who raped her. I'd hate to tell her that she only had herself to blame.

    So you consider this a hotly contendable issue? Consider this: Several varieties of cancer are triggered by retroviral activity. That's right... the same type of retroviral activity that AIDS research is trying to block. Among these varieties is the only common form of liver cancer that doesn't come from drinking too much alcohol or diet soda, the only common form of lung cancer that doesn't come from smoking, and a rather nasty heart cancer.

    Just because it's labled "AIDS", doesn't mean it's only benefitting victims of that nasty disease.

    Cancer tends to be more of a middle class white anglo saxon protestant concern than any other ailment. Other demographics have other primary worries. Geeks and techies tend to be from the same fringe social demographics as the people who get hit by HIV. Personally, I'm glad that our groups' boogymen get some attention.

    Oh, and for all that, as a guy who has done both cancer and AIDS research, the funding differential isn't very big. Only in private research, where AIDS is big money and most cancers are treatable with proper regular checkups, and don't get large amounts of cash for treatment, is there a gap.
  • Actually, I would think that the funding that AIDS recieves as far more beneficial than just a cure for AIDS.

    A cure for AIDS is not really a cure for AIDS but a cure for viral infections. Such a process would inevitably lead to a number of cures for other diseases (common cold, hepatitis, etc) that would be far more beneficial than just the single cure. If you look at the sum of the parts of the research, it might explain the amount of funding that is applied to such an "easily preventable" disease.

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