It might be of interest to some regarding "conspiracies," etc to consider the problem of vaccines in general. The HIV virus is tiny by virus standards, easily taken in by a single T-cell (which the virus "needs", as it has no DNA of its own, hence its RNA does a neat little trick of using its RNA to infect and make host DNA manufacture more virions.) In general the problem of making vaccines against something the size of a dinosaur compared to an ant, that of makig antibodies and host reactions against something as large as a T-cell itself (or on the order thereof) is entirely different. There are no vaccines against any protozoa ( amoebae, malaria, etc) so the argument of drug company's deliberate complacency is to this partciluar somewhat cynical physician's mind is a fool's errand. Where I DO find evidence of conspiracy and flagrant fraud is the cost of the identical drug here in the USA as compared say to France II, just north of us. A month supply of Merck's drug Fosamax for osteoporosis, for example, here is ~$ 66+ as opposed to $US 14 up in France II. Now that boys and girls is pure shit, plain and simple, blunt and fully grounded in reality. The argument that it costs more here to insure is either pure bullshit or a cogent argument for hanging all the lawyers and sending presidential candidates like John Edwards, himself a trial lawyer, back to the lucrative hell of law practice. All just my opinion, political opinions anyway. It is a fact lamented since those prehistoric days of med school for me when we were told of the century old problem of protozoal vaccines. It IS a problem. Today's news of Bechtel getting a rebuild contract in Iraq once again sends me into a froth of envy, Bechtel stock being totally out of any of our reach. When is the last time anybody looked at the membership of the board of Bechtel? A veritable who's who of retired players in Washington that includes retired, ( or fired by the voters) politicians, cabinet secretaries, bureaucrats and military (high rankers only). But then Bechtel can do what is necessary in the real world to get a contract from a rag prince from Suckarabia, grease his izzslumic palms, but that would never pass muster with the dupicitous SEC and its cohorts. It ain't legal here for publicly traded companies to be involved in payoffs, but it is okay for CEO's to get 14% pay raises even if the stockholders are taking it up the rear by a porcine rapist. And of course Bernie Ebbers will never go tothe gallows.
Happy Good Friday ( now there is one for you BTW, as a boy raised in the Episcopal Church I was never given a good answer to why one would refer to the day when a nice guy was crucified as "Good Friday"...but then okay...I AM slow.
Jim Black |
