> The goals of a HSV-2 vaccine are to keep the herpes virus dormant
Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a steady revenue stream.
Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a steady revenue stream.
It's not possible for everyone to get the best of everything. After all, markets are about distributing scarce resources, not abundant ones.
that doesn't mean that the issue isn't real or isn't happening, because capitalism very much incites this kind of behaviour. That doesn't mean that abandoning capitalism is the right approach either, because that also solved other issues that would come back without it. Its just not an easy situation, but its nonetheless a reality that we have to admit that this kind of behaviour is highly rewarded with our current system and expect corporations to do whatever they can get away with, because most of the people that reach the highest position are amoral, simply because you cannot get to this kind of position without having that character trait
> While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.
> the success of [the cure] has gradually exhausted the available pool of treatable patients
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patie...
There is thus absolutely no shortage of people who are willing to burn perfectly profitable companies for big enough short term gain. In this case they would wind up eating an entire submarket. I think orders of magnitude more qualifies as a temptation.
The situation is also inherently a prisoner's dilemma - pharmaceutical companies know that they are not special and that anything they let sit quietly buried may be discovered by another company who may benefit from the short term cash.
This is before getting into how immensely valueable the "ashes" are for any company who goes the cure route successfully. They have a reputational premium and have a collective team whose appraised value has risen. Given the choice between your average team of X years of experience and a disease curing team with X years of experience guess which one would appraise higher in share prices by a considerable margin?
> if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his
> if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using hisI expect there would be a balance point for those who can afford and those who cannot.
At the less extreme end, you have FDA authority to approve a product. At the more extreme end, you have the entire corporate media establishment lined up against you and doctors threatened with disbarment for prescribing (or even just advising) off-label.
you can be sure they will design it like that or select the right versions that have such properties. Thats what you end up with MBAs leading businesses everywhere.
When you work on hard problems like this you’re thankful it works at all.
The mRNA vaccines aren't a conspiracy to milk and control the population, some people are trying their very best to do good. ALSO, there are people that have a sole "job" of milking every cent possible and others that use this as an opportunity to gain influence and advance whatever political/business career they pursuit.
This happens everywhere and every time.
Yes, this "they are in this to get us" get's tiring but let's not put the "scientists" in a pedestal, because they are people e many of them aren't even scientists.
That aside, it certainly possible to have infinite respect for the scientific method, but at the same time be mindful that method meets reality via (often very flawed) humans. Questioning the human element in this equation doesn't make you anti-science (because there's a difference between the two).
If you think you scientists have multiple options in front of them and can pick the most financially opportunistic one, you have no idea what R&D is like
I’ve been in the lab, have you?
Not to be alarmist, but this does happen. There are many classes of drugs that both offer temporary and permanent treatments. Often times, these have different tradeoffs.
Why would the effect be limited? I mean it could be, but it could also cause people to turn green, not sure why we would consider either of those to be likely though without more info.
If you are assuming the effect will be limited because the effect of the covid vaccine is limited, this may be more related to covid than to mRNA vaccines, especially since the non mRNA covid vaccines seems to be less effective than the mRNA vaccines, and not more so. And after all, the mechanism of action for mRNA vaccines and non mRNA vaccines are not fundamentally different, both induce an immune response to a pathogen without giving you a disease.
Not saying I agree/am quite that suspicious/pessimistic necessarily, but that's how I read it.
I mean they could make one that turns you green and then mark up the one that does not also, that has not been the case, and generally vaccines produced by private companies without government involvement have significantly outperformed every vaccine made with government involvement, and every government action in US and most of the west in relation to these covid vaccines has been to favor pharmaceutical companies that make them over it's own citizenry, so basically it seems that the pharmaceutical companies that made these vaccines are much more deserving of public trust than many governments.
I mean if the pharmacutical companies abducted your children in the middle of the night and ransomed them back to you that would also create a steady revenue stream, not sure why it would be something to consider.
Is it? We had immunosuppressors for decades, we know about about AIDS and gene therapy. Doesn't sound like such an extreme feat to me.
On the other hand turning people green or any other such random proposition makes no sense. This is a weak analogy fallacy, dismissing a strong argument that has been observed in practice again and again by attacking an "analogous" but worthless pseudo-argument like "of course they're not turning people green". And I don't even want to get into the whole "if the pharmacutical companies abducted your children in the middle of the night and ransomed them back to you" nonsense. It's not making the point you think it's making, it just makes it look like you don't understand the discussion.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/curing-disease-n...
If you have to back your argument up by some analyist saying companies woudl make more money if they did something other than they were doing, then that does not make your argument strong.
> that has been observed in practice again and again by attacking an "analogous" but worthless pseudo-argument like "of course they're not turning people green".
And yet instead of citing an actual case of this, you cite an analyst that says companies would make more money by not curing diseases. Companies would also make more money if they kidnapped people's children and ransomed them back than if they did not do that, ignoring pesky things like legality and all that of course, but who knows, I'm sure politicans that would allow them to do this would be a dime a dozen anyway.
- the green people "argument" - yes, they could turn people green. But what sells is turning people white, something many black celebrities actually do (skin whitening, look it up).
- the even more ridiculous "kidnap your kids" idea - they could but the kidnapping model triggers a response that grows exponentially towards life threatening for the kidnappers, making it particularly risky, expensive, and difficult to implement. Not a good business proposition, hence it only happens in some countries where victims have few protections, and the response from authorities can be "mitigated" cheaply.
- it's "just a report" - but one with uncontested premise and conclusion, and even confirmed in practice. Pharma companies routinely jack up prices by orders of magnitude even for drugs that are cheaper to make than ever, because they are needed in ongoing treatment (basic things like insulin, 70 years old anti-parasitic drugs, or epi-pens).
Planned obsolescence cartels have been doing the same thing a century ago [0], after not seeing much value in kidnapping kids or turning people green (presumably with green light bulbs).
You made for some really low quality conversation. I wouldn't regret I spent my time on this if I knew it got you past the "green people" and "child abduction" level of argumentation. Alas.