January 8, 2007

What incentive do the drug companies have to find a cure?

When is someone going to stand up to the drug companies about only being concerned about controlling HIV/AIDS, as opposed to finding a cure? What incentive do the drug companies have to find a cure?

The World AIDS clock states that more than 2 million people are living with HIV in North America and Western Europe alone. To say that a majority of those people are on meds is not out of the question, let's say 1,500,000. That means the drug companies are making $1,800,000,000 (one billion eight hundred million dollars) a month industry-wide on controlling HIV, instead of curing it. And that's just North America and Western Europe.

It's time we made the drug companies do the right thing and spend a fraction of that amount on finding a cure. How sad that we live in a world where money is more important than human lives.

Drew Colvin