Cure it? Whatever for? Where's the profit in that?

Official: Drug Cos. Lack Vaccine Incentive
By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 25,12:38 PM ET

WASHINGTON - In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of
AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one.

And that means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing new medicines and bringing them to market.

"We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up," Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in a recent employment lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

Tramont is head of the AIDS research division of the
National Institutes of Health, and he predicted in his testimony that the government will eventually create a vaccine. He testified in July in the whistleblower case of Dr. Jonathan Fishbein.

"If we look at the vaccine, HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a company," Tramont said. "They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We have to do it."

"They will eventually — if it works, they won't have to make that big investment. And they can make it and sell it and make a profit," he said...

Tramont said the HIV vaccine mirrors the history of other vaccines. "It is not just a HIV vaccine - it's all vaccines - that is why there was/is a shortage of flu vaccines," Tramont wrote.

Of course, drug companies disagree. But their actions belie them.

Some diseases, like genital warts and papilloma-induced cervical cancer are completely curable by vaccine already.

It's estimated 80% of people have been exposed to this virus.

But where's the vaccine?

The TheoCons of course are agin' the "immorality" a STD vaccine would elicit, which is enough excuse for the Corps to not bother with the R&D.

After all, they've got all the anti-virals that tackle the symptoms without curing the disease.

Curing instead of managing disease is for the birds. Just ask Darth Rumsfeld.