Quote:
Originally posted by AKA2D '91
Still, we can clone a dog, but can't seem to find a cure for cancer, the common cold, AIDS, Sickle Cell Anemia...the list goes on and on and on!
|
You're totally out of line here.
We may be able to cure Sickle-Cell Anemia, but you wouldn't want it cured for QUITE a long time, since we . . . don't know the long term effects of gene therapy, and sickle-cell is an allele-based trait that would require significant genetic work. We know the mechanism, but curing it would most likely kill you.
We can't cure the 'common cold' because there is no such thing - every cold is a different animal, and addressing such a wide-ranging (and non-dangerous, i might add) disease would be a waste of precious funds.
Addressing AIDS is completely illogical on your part, when the latest drugs work wonders to defeating the condition (in its present condition) . . . and I don't want to assume anything about your background in virology, but needless to say pinpoint distruction of a virus is THE cutting edge of medical science . . . but we can't do it. Yet. Millions are being spent trying, though - billions even.
As for cancer . . . I worked in a lab that had functional gene therapy techniques for attacking cancer cells, and killing tumors. However, these would most likely kill YOU as well. We can cure cancer, we just can't keep you alive while we do it. It is FAR easier to clone a dog than cure cancer . . . this is without bringing back the virology arguments (think HPV).
Even past that . . . do you really not think there is tons of money in store for whoever brings about 'cures' (most likely, effective prevention or in vivo treatment) for the most common forms of cancer???
Some of the brightest minds on the planet are working on this problem.