Doc Makes Candid Comments on HIV Vaccine

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Originally Posted by basschick

"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.

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I read this news article more closely, and it seems potentially misleading. Why is this written around some bureaucrat doctor's testimony in a trial?
What is the context of this "whistleblower trail" anyway?

All the writer here bothered to do was find a story to rehash the same age-old conflict of public heath vs. stingy private drug companies. Could we criticize this as journalistic bias perhaps?

Furthermore, it's weird to me to read how the writer makes it a point to quote
these doctors as predicting that a vaccine will be created. [ Tramont predicted in his testimony that the government will eventually create a vaccine ] We, the readers, can now sleep better at night knowing these Men of Authority allegedly see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Gee wiz - can Dr. Tramont also tell me what the best day would be to sell my Google stock? Will a hurricane hit New Orleans next year?

Can you image for a minute these government or United Nations groups saying "hey, we have no confidence that a vaccine would be created" ?
This will never happen of course because their livelihood is based upon funding from Congress, and other organizations. Who would state things that essentially state their job is not necessary?

People are quick to point criticism at private drug companies. However,
I am not pursuaded that the National Institutes of Health or these UN health agencies are particularly beneficial, nor are they very effective.

The whole concept of an "insta vaccine cure" (just add barrels of federal money) is very misleading. Last week Congress passed a budget that included Billions of dollars for "bird flu pandemic preparation" .... hey after all no one wants to let others get sick, so who would possibly have a problem with that?

Fear and hype? Or is the Congress and federal agencies just restricted to overreacting in areas like child porn and obsenity on television?

Steve

I would not bet on a "vaccine" anytime soon...

It's already been 20 years since the first reliable HIV test hit the market...
No vaccine yet and not a hint of a cure although treatment has launched a trillion dollar industry…

It makes sense to me if a company stretched out treatment or therapy of HIV infected persons, thus capitalizing on long-term drug consumption...a vaccine would only limit the number of people getting infected.

If you take a modern day HIV long term survivor who might consume $1,500-$5,000 a month in HIV medications and look at the cost to society over a 20-30-40 year lifetime with the miracle drug formulas, we're looking at a person who will consume millions of dollars in drugs - multiply that times the gay population of West Hollywood, let's say about 5,000 - so, over a lifetime, we've got about
$6,000,000,000.00 for that one population - not bad for a drug company's bottom line...(now multiply that times a few other cities and so on, and so on…

If the same company developed a vaccine, that company would need to sell hundreds of thousands if not millions and millions of single doses at $20 each (let's say the same as a flu shot) to earn the same profits...and, there's no money to be made in developing nations who can't even afford to test their populous for HIV…

The drug companies are like the oil companies, big and all consuming and only interested in big profits.