The French has Stopped HIV in its tracks...

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/97/104268.htm?z=1727_00000_5024_hv_03

Nov. 29, 2004 -- It worked in mice. It worked in monkeys. And now in humans, a therapeutic vaccine has stopped HIV in its tracks.

The vaccine is made from a patient's own dendritic cells and HIV isolated from the patient's own blood. Dendritic cells are crucial to the immune response. They grab foreign bodies in the blood and present them to other immune cells to trigger powerful immune system responses to destroy the foreign invaders.

HIV infection normally turns these important immune system responses off. But animal studies show that when dendritic cells are "loaded" with whole, killed AIDS viruses, they can trigger effective immune responses that keep infected animals from dying of AIDS.

Wei Lu, Jean-Marie Andrieu, and colleagues at the University of Paris in France and Pernambuco Federal University in Recife, Brazil, tested the vaccine on 18 Brazilian patients. All had HIV infection for at least a year. Their T-cell counts -- a crucial measure of AIDS progression -- were dropping, meaning their disease was worsening. None was taking anti-HIV medications.

After getting three under-the-skin injections of the tailor-made vaccine, the amount of HIV in the patients' blood (called the viral load) dropped by 80%. After a year, eight of the 18 patients still had a 90% drop in HIV levels. All patients' T-cell counts stopped dropping.

The findings appear in the December issue of Nature Medicine.

"The results suggest that [these] vaccines could be a promising strategy for treating people with chronic HIV infection," Andrieu and colleagues write. "The significant decrease of viral load as well as maintenance of ... [T-]cell counts observed at one year after immunization are particularly promising."

The researchers warn that their study is only proof of principle. It's still not clear which patients do best with the vaccine, although there's evidence that vaccination should be given as soon after HIV infection as possible. Only clinical trials comparing people who get the vaccine to those who don't can show whether this vaccine really is an effective AIDS therapy.

Similar approaches are being explored for the treatment of cancer and long-term viral infections such as hepatitis C.

As best I can tell they're on the trail of a much better treatment, but not a cure. The patients get no worse, but no better? Still a good thing.

I have a subscription to Nature, but not the Medical variant. They haven't put the December papers online yet. If my subscription lets me download this paper I'll mail it to Gen and see if she can tell what they've got.

I do know a few things that first off the American government is very far behind compared to other countries when it comes to coming up with things like this. But only on purpose.

The American government is not really about finding cures and remedies for tumors, cancer, viruses, etc they're just deliberately finding ways to develope medications to prescribe to patients to prolong their life so the government has plenty of money to make off them. If they were to actually develop cures we're more than capable of doing, the this country would be in a shit hole.

You know all those drugs out there that cost anywhere from 20 bucks to a couple hundreds of dollars per perscription? When in reality only cost several cents, maybe a little more to produce especially in such large quantities. It's rediculous.

Majority of medical doctors out there will even tell you that prescribing medications to patients is just an ongoing process that will never be eliminated and know for a fact that coming up with cures is not an option. Only for those who have spinal injuries, inability to walk, things like that. But never a cure for cancer, any form of growth or organ failure.

We're bound for death and they don't mind the death as this world is over populated anyways.

You should see how the professionals handle your bodily organs when in the morgue for an autopsy. They just grab one at a time, toss from one hand to the other, slap it down on a scale and shove it to the next person. Very careless to say the VERY least. And I know these people are dead already but I just see it as a lack of respect.

I can go on about bullshit but you guys get the picture.

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You should see how the professionals handle your bodily organs when in the morgue for an autopsy. They just grab one at a time, toss from one hand to the other, slap it down on a scale and shove it to the next person. Very careless to say the VERY least. And I know these people are dead already but I just see it as a lack of respect.

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That's true. I've seen autopsy footage on a few sites and it's very sobering.

Gen, you are so correct my friend. Because of a medical condition that I have, I have to take an insane amout of help me keep things under control. If it wasn't for patient assistance programs I wouldn't be able to take any meds. It's insane how much these drugs cost and all the research is just about making more drugs to line thier pockets rather than to bring an end to these terrible diseases. It's really a shame.

I'm sorry Redbeard.

There's tons of people who leave this country to get medications. They find out what they need and usually go to mexico to get it. You'd be surprised how many cancer patients do it.

do you know how much it costs to develop a drug and get it approved? the average is 500 million dollars spread over about 8 years. blame the fda after the early 60's for slowing things down too much not the companies who are risking that kind of money to inevitably get ripped off by india.

you're wrong. or at least your facts don't mean much, do you realize how much merck, as an example, spends on their 10.000 scientists and how many labs they have costing over a million dollars that don't produce? the industry makes the money back on the rare drugs that get passed to recoup the 40 DOA projects they lose hundreds of millions on. look at the financials for the industry, they're not exactly running out of ways to spend money and gold-plating doorknobs.

Volume 5 Number 3 • May/June 2003
Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Impact R E P O R T
Development
ANALYSIS AND INSIGHT INTO CRITICAL DRUG DEVELOPMENT ISSUES
Post-approval R&D raises total drug
development costs to $897 million
Rapidly rising clinical period costs account for much of the total bill
The average out-of-pocket cost per new drug is $403 million, but capitalizing those
costs brings the total cost to $802 million (both in 2000 dollars).
Capitalized post-approval development costs raise the average total cost of new
drug R&D, including both pre- and post-approval phases, to $897 million.
Clinical period out-of-pocket costs have grown five times as fast as preclinical period
costs from the 1980s to the 1990s.
Drug development firms have become better at weeding out failures early in the development
process, yet only 21.5% of drugs that begin phase I clinical trials get to market.
During the 1990s, it took, on average, 90.3 months to go from the start of clinical
testing to regulatory approval, a decline from 98.9 months required in the 1980s.

Canada

Explain our prices and why so many Americans are buying prescriptions off of us. Validating American prescription prices is like validating the cancellation of Family Guy, its just wrong.

Americans pay the highest prescription prices in the world and its completely off base with inflation.

As far as the FDA goes.... the American pharmaceutical companies are its personal whore... or is it the other way around? Whatever they are 69ing each other. So don't quote me any research about unsafe drugs coming from Canada because its unfounded and untrue.

ok, you don't have drug safety issues because you just make generics of american drugs. your entire country spent 600 something million dollars on R&D in 98, we spend 37 billion dollars, almost every major drug company in canada is american or european and you have ten or less academic institutions that are capable of conferring an acceptable research degree for the industry. your researchers complain about their vulnerability to outside interests.

whatever, i could care less about this and realize the futility of arguing against a marxist CS student hooked on disnfopedia, but you guys essentially don't have anything for r&d at the moment. i'm sure you could, but it'd be a scramble for a few years if america vanished. freeloading and pumping out generics of drugs we've proven safe isn't that impressive.

argh! JAMESN DONT MAKE ME FUCK YOU!!! LOL

In reality the answer is ... they spend huge sums on BOTH R&D and sales & marketing.

Keep in mind that R&D expenses get favorable tax treatment so companies have a big incentive to shift as many costs as possible into the R&D category. That can make R&D quite a bit larger than it might otherwise be.

The company's annual 10-K filing with the SEC is fairly clear on total profits, total sales costs, and how all of that is divided.

As to Gen's point: it's not necessarily some great conspiracy: the ordinary R&D budget process does this too. When deciding what projects to fund a key, key component is potential Return on Investment, and treatments for chronic illnesses always look better than outright cures (since the revenue stops after cure!)

The obvious solution is to shorten the patent length for treatments of symptoms while leaving patent periods long for cures. That changes the R&D ROI analysis entirely and cures would look better for funding. Of course, it's hardly black & white to designate what falls in each category, but the point is that changing the profit potentials is a very good way to change corporate behavior here.

The other huge problem in the American medical system is cost-shifting. Nobody wants to pay their share, and hospitals shift huge amounts of cost to other groups. Worse, costs are shifted from those who can most afford onto those who can least afford it. Private individuals can easily pay 10x the actual going rates.

This summer a friend of mine moved to Mexico for a few months for the birth of his baby. He had excellent doctors and used top facilities, and paid a tenth of the amount the local US hospital charges. I think the difference was not so much "Mexico is cheap" but rather payment concepts: he paid the doctors cash before each visit and at delivery (*before* delivery!). No billing, no collection hassles, and the hospital has no reason to cost-shift. He paid his share and probably nobody else's.

Cash-in-Advance might not be the thing for the US, but a lot would be solved if each patient/insurer were required to pay at least actual costs of their treatment, and if doctors, hospitals and clinics were forbidden to cost-shift.

ibm, whoever we deem important gets the same breaks even if they're making stuff to kill people. i'd argue that many of the marketing dollars aren't so bad since they actually increase awareness of symptoms and get people to talk to doctors before it's something much more expensive. there's a certain degree of education of the clueless--take the ads for nexium explaining that what people often think is bad heartburn is actually going to rip a hole that is going to be a disabilitating bitch to fix. imitrex ads tell people that they might have migraines and if they do, they can get something that costs them workdays and suffering

. they're bidnesses, not charities.and they do their own research for the rest of the world to eventually benefit from. if they were charities like most people expect them to be, kiss advancement goodbye and watch med schools fill up with stiffs as mckinsey and wall street absorb the potentially best doctors and researchers. people need to budget getting sick at some point into their lives instead of taking vacations and having a reasonably new car, which many of the entitlement crowd don't get.many who should be able to pay end up writing hospitals iou's--next time you're in an understaffed emergency room in a desperate moment thank them.

the companies are just making money off what gets through, reporting to shareholders and trying to improve, which isn't free or priced how you think it should be.

I think Gen is right about this! I know friends that got help in Mexico cuz cancer, but not in this country.

Buttmaster Gen

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i could care less about this and realize the futility of arguing against a marxist CS student hooked on disnfopedia

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Owch, a slap in the face. Or were you backhanding me with your fist? Your right of course, I wont bug you anymore.

It was more in reference to the fact you've still got enthusiasm when it comes to arguing about such subjects. after a while, i start itching to capitalize stuff and write an 80-page thesis, arguing on the internet is unhealthy.

Alright. I've decided... I can't choose between the two having their rebuttle so I've decided that Chicken Master and Jamesn will have to engage in a threesome with me. EWWWW for you two but awesome for me!

i only swing with my life-partner, i think you know him--chris connor?

Gen,

Thank you for your kind words. We all have our burdens to bury. If I remember correctly you have a health crisis of your own.

Thanks for your kind words.

Yea but I'm more sympathetic towards others than myself. I'm ready to go if I have to. I'm a happy camper. So I hope ya kick mother fuckin ass! Or else I'll have to kick yours!

dammit, i hate smileys that i can't figure out. btw, chris can't stop talking about your "long, sexy legs" gen.

cuz he wish he could suck on them like a big cock

I wish he was dead like me so I can rip him to shreds in hell for eternity. Cuz once you're dead you're always dead right? So that means I can rip him to shreds for years to come. Right? THat's awesome. Someone go kill him for me! Someone put me out so I can meet him! Lets get it on!!!!!!

So I can keep the lollipop then?

yes.. take care of my lollipop!

Then I´ll just ask Bianca if she want some...

I like being damned. But I'll save you from going anything further with the conversation. I don't wanna get philsophical on anyone.

Well spoken Gen, can I spank you know? Just a little?