Noted and respected. Not saying that stuff isn't getting a LOT better, and with much more to come. Just saying that "cures" are bad business, which I'd guess any med business man would have to agree with. If not, I'd love to hear why. If the answer didn't involved the bottom line, I'd have to ponder its honesty.
Hello, Wes,
Like many threads that have grown longer than a single page, this one contains some good information and some highly-biased, and usually wrong, opinions.
Let's try to establish a little perspective here, shall we?
First of all, an effective treatment can (and usually does) cost millions of dollars, require years of research, development, tests and trials. In other words, it's quite difficult to accomplish. And a true
cure takes several orders of magnitude beyond that!
Certainly, selling treatment drugs are good for the bottom line - but not nearly as good as an actual cure would be. Not only that, it would take years for the cure to be dispersed all over the world - AND even a cure does not eradicate a disease. It can resurface at any time and therefore create a steady market which is
ALSO good for the bottom line. For example, cholera can be cured but it regularly breaks out in places hit by floods and other natural disasters. And the same goes for many others for which a cure exists.
And as has already been pointed out, there's always something new showing up that needs a cure. Along those same lines, a recent news article stated that scientists have discovered over 100 distinct and different forms of virus that cause the common cold. So is it any wonder we don't have a cure for it yet?
It should also be remembered that all drug companies continue to make more than just a decent profit from pain medication. And I'm not talking about the simple frequent headache or stubbed toe but rather the pain that follows oral and other forms of surgery. There's also a very large percentage of the population that suffers from true chronic pain like back problems and arthritis. Ordinary NSAIDs (OTC) do little to nothing for those folks.
Just imagine the HUGE windfall that any drug company would reap if they found a cure for AIDS or the common cold! There would still be plenty of infectious outbreaks to follow for decades and longer. It most certainly would not be just a one-shot boom then bust.
Does that help a little?