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Antibody Discovered To Boost HIV Vaccines
An anonymous reader sends this clip from Scienceblog.com. "Scientists have discovered two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory, and have demonstrated how one of these disease-fighting proteins accomplishes this feat. ... Research efforts to find individual antibodies that can neutralize HIV strains have been difficult because the virus continuously changes its surface proteins to evade recognition by the immune system. As a consequence of these changes, an enormous number of HIV variants exist worldwide. However, there are a few surface areas that remain nearly constant across all variants of HIV and scientists have now discovered two potent human antibodies that attach to one of these sites and can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory. ... The researchers also confirmed that VRC01 does not bind to human cells — a characteristic that might otherwise lead to its elimination during immune development, a natural mechanism the body employs to prevent autoimmune disease."
If you cook up a medicine that treats 90% of HIV strains, in the long run are you doing anything more than ensuring that the remaining 10% become the entire body of the disease?
Yes, but you've cured 90% of your patients. By your logic we'd not use antibiotics at all for anything.
Free Martian Whores!
but they can probably cure or prevent the spread of at least a decent percentage of people.
but they can probably cure or prevent the spread of at least a decent percentage of wealthy people.
Which is already being done in the most part in most first world countries. The problem is the lower rung countries that can't afford even simple education on how the disease spreads. It is a Catch-22 of sorts - pharmaceutical companies don't want to come up with a cheap enough vaccine that will be effective in poorer countries where it is needed most becasue they won't profit enough. Unless someone can still make money off the vaccine, it will almost certainly never be done.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Clearly, *whoosh*!
I specifically suggested defining "wedlock" as (a) having the means to, and (b) the commitment to, raising a child and not as traditional marriage. Call it "childlock" if you prefer: making kids while not able to support them or not committing to support them (this can include adoption out if approved by a court), should be a crime punishable by death.
Make abortion criminal as well (which will attract the support of the fundies), and you have a perfect opportunity to find enough of the fucking "useless third" to legitimately kill them off to make room for us responsible folk.
Suddenly too poor to support your kids? Well, kill those people too, if they can't adopt their kids out. After all, it's a small step beyond jailing them (which costs the taxpayer money), and we currently do jail single parents who have suddenly become far poorer and can't support their kids. Google what qualifies as "Deadbead Dad". Basically, if you earn less than you once did, and can't afford to give your kids what you once did, you are a deadbeat and will be jailed.
It's not that much of a stretch to advance to killing newly poor parents, is it?
In Liberty, Rene
Because, ugh, at the sake of sounding like a pinko communist here, money isn't the only thing you can profit from. And I wasn't talking about recouping their expenses, I was talking about making a profit. There is a big difference. Nobody wants to lose money on a venture like this, but sometimes earning some goodwill is just as valuable if not more than earning fiscal profits. (Just ask BP)
"But this one goes to 11!"
Look. Either kill the brats that people produce and can't afford, or punish the people that produce the brats. But, certainly stop forcing other people to pay for the bastards.
Otherwise, with HIV treatments and possible cures improving, you will have more people blase about unprotected sex and unwanted kids demanding that the rest of us support them. Their kids will grow up to do the same, and their sheer numbers in a democratic society will result in enslavement of the responsible to support the lifestyle of the irresponsible.
Producing children you can't support should be one of the most heinous crimes there is, and punished accordingly.
What's with the Hitler reference, anyway? In my call to punish sexual irresponsibility with death, I do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, or national origin.
If this is somehow unfair, because it has become so expensive to actually raise children, perhaps resources have been spread too thin, and the human species needs some serious culling to return to sustainable numbers for a larger fraction of the population. This achieves that too.
In Liberty, Rene
If you can afford it. If they come up with a cure for AIDS/HIV, whats it worth to the person who is afflicted with it? What isn't it worth. They could easily patent it, then peg the cost at $20000 US per treatment. The rich will get treated, the drug companies will make a fortune, the researcher will get more funding for further research, but I won't hold my breath on the average person who is afflicted seeing any benefits from this until the patents have expired.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Troll?
I am dead serious.
I want about 1/2 to 2/3 of the world's population to be eliminated, and this is one good way to do it.
Present human population levels are unsustainable, nevermind growth. Producing more people, particularly when one does not want to is horribly irresponsible, and taken to its logical conclusion, genocidal.
Killing those who can't restrain themselves, and can't afford their "mistakes", is an unbiased means of achieving this.
Does this discriminate against the poor? Only to the extent of punishing them for living beyond their means through irresponsibility: there is no right to "have" what someone else does.
Hitler convinced a nation to eliminate the "Jewish problem". Surely a nation can be convinced that those who breed unsustainably are a threat to national security.
In Liberty, Rene