Forums → WEPR → Cures?
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I was thinking about this the other day. There are many businesses that are corrupt. It is no surprise. I started to wonder if businesses that are supposed to help us are corrupt. My mind went to the hospital and the main disease I thought of was cancer.
Around 23 million people are diagnosed with cancer each year in just the US. Help for cancer is not exactly cheap. It costs around $10,000 per month for someone to buy a drug for cancer. That is just one drug too. Now, people can have insurance like myself but that money is still being paid to the hospital. So, in around a month, the hospitals make about 46 billion dollars just from cancer.
You are probably wondering why I am figuring all of this out. Well, look at that amount in just a month. Economy is not in the best shape right now. I find it interesting that we could find vaccines for diseases such as smallpox but we can't find just the cure for cancer yet. So, my question is, do we really have the cure for cancer yet or other "uncured" diseases or are the hospitals just hiding them from us for the money? I know this seems a bit wild but think about when Magic Johnson had AIDS. He was amazingly cured and I don't think it is because he was lucky. I think money was involved.
What are your thoughts?
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I completely agree with you. I am a huge skeptic on everything. I always think this way. Those are some very peculiar things you bring up, especially Magic Johnson.
We can put men in space, design remarkable A.I., invent new technologies everyday, etc. But we can't seem to fix the big money-maker diseases. Makes you think at least.
We can put men in space
...40 years ago.
Just adding onto your point.
I am not saying we should all revolt against hospitals but this is to get you thinking about what the government and businesses really could be hiding from us.
Well, Magic Johnson is a very famous NBA player. I also do not think that the episode of South Park is right either. However, that would be freaking awesome if that was true. They probably just gave him something that might help and Magic Johnson has something that most humans don't have like something extra. It can be possible even at .0000000001 %.
If you think you are so smart descover the cure. The reason it costs so much is because to make it cost less we would need to tax the ecomimy more. Last what do you think they hospitals are doing with the money, making bombs? No they are help more sick people that can't afford help and other thing that benfit all.
If you think you are so smart descover the cure.
You did not get the point of this thread. It was meant to discuss if the government/hospitals are hiding it from us for the money. I never said we were not smart enough to find the cure. Read the whole first post next time.
The reason it costs so much is because to make it cost less we would need to tax the ecomimy more.
Know what you are talking about before you post. Tax the economy? Yes, taxes would maybe rise but to save over 500,000 lives in just the US is worth a couple more bucks from everyone.
Last what do you think they hospitals are doing with the money, making bombs? No they are help more sick people that can't afford help and other thing that benfit all.
Wow, you really do not have a clue what the government can do. The money does not have to go to the hospitals. The government could use it. I am not saying I am automatically right but it is just a theory.
There is cure for most diseases but not public you have to have big money for them and you have to be in the right place to get them or find about them
Heh, nice topic. As a doctor in training I know this much:
You're right in that money makes the world go round. I would not go so far as to automatically say that money --> corruption although as far as the pharmaceutical industry, there have been multiple examples of such happening. This is no great surprise seeing as the current prevalence of capitalism also means that sometimes this money influences things against peoples' better interest. Any system is subject to exploitation, after all.
There are also examples where pharmaceutical companies may exert an unreasonable or disproportionate influence on the treatment procedures of doctors- in some cases doctors are directly paid by such companies and certain projects and initiatives are funded by them (because otherwise there would be no money). Sometimes this can raise the suspicion that a doctor is in fact pressured to treat a patient with a drug that isn't as effective because the others are no longer available either to the doctor or altogether due to marketing and the fact the money has moved elsewhere. This is a part and parcel of reality- ultimately we're paying for the allocation of resources.
However, the meat of the original post seems to concern itself with the disproportionate 'expenditure to significance' on diseases. It's true- by the World Health Organisation gold-standard measures (Disability-Adjusted Life Years, incidence and prevalence,mortality rates, global disease burden estimates), it's plenty clear that certain diseases with a low incidence or low total burden are being given HUGE amounts of money whereas others with a much greater impact seem to go unnoticed. The other factors that influence what is spent on what can be summed up as such:
1) Who has it?
2) How glamorous is it?
3) Who cares about it?
4) Who's willing to pour money into it?
5) Who's going to make money out of it?
Ultimately we must all remember that we value everything and most people don't have the foggiest about how 'important' things are in perspective, or even what their perspective is. We have a narrow focus, are easily led by the nose and have a prodigious ability to ignore that which we don't want to believe is important. There's a lot of information to process, after all.
Personally I'm interested in public initiatives for mental health awareness seeing as my assessment of the evidence at hand indicates to me that issues in mental health provide the greatest challenge globally because of its significance and because of just how little people know about them, despite their global prevalence. That's just me, though. Everybody's got to do something for somebody. We're all people.
Well, I think that they already have the cures. But they just wont bring them out beacuse of the money that would cost them.
If the cure did exist and we knew it, then it would be pretty much promptly trotted out as soon as it was ascertained that the cost could be passed onto the consumer/healthcare system.
I don't know a lot about these cures but I did read and hear that they are getting closer to finding the genetic cause of autism which may lead to a cure down the road which would be cool.
Do I think that scientists have the cure for conditions that we think can't be cured? Sure I do.
Do I think that they are holding it back for some reason? Yes.
Do I think it's because they would lose money? No.
Do I think that if there was a cure for cancer or what ever disease that they would be able to keep it a secret? No.
I think the only reason that they have had for holding possible vaccines and cures is that the testing has showed horrible side effects or they can't find a way to produce the drug cheap enough for everyone to have it. It's not fair to have this magical drug but no one can afford to have it except for the extremely wealthy because you can bet that no insurance company would help pay for a new or experimental drug.
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