Cures, management, and reasonings.

Some interesting and rather disillusioning ’scientific’ commentary can be found in the feedback to an article regarding the elusive nature of the HIV virus from full eradication from the body. The full article and comments are now only available to view under subscription here. Okay, so the title of the article isn’t very heartening (HIV can ‘never be cured’), but some of the reaction is startling.

Perhaps I am either a humanist or an idealist, but I think that the ‘trillions of dollars are pumped into medical research and we get nothing?’ argument belittles the years spent by talented researchers around the world in trying to find those elements that, incrementally, combine to provide something. Granted, those who have a job overseen by modern management practices are now bound to productivity agreements and targets and to reach the twenty-first century without having a cure for the common cold itself must seem like a kind of ‘failure’.

Virologists, immunologists, geneticists, medical scientists in general do not come out of their four-year degrees equipped to save the world. Post-docs and PIs still are on their way there. Approaching and understanding a complex virus such as HIV or the common cold requires a level of collaboration and cooperation that the current system of academia and pharmaceutical industry is still trying to approach–an interdisciplinary mix that goes beyond identification and isolation, and into long-term treatement, management, as well as increasing awareness, detection and prevention. Training and development needs to begin at the most basic of levels, and have sustained support through the lifetime of a researcher’s career, or more objectively, through the lifetime of an investigative project (which may, given the current plethora of too many fields to poke a stick at, either span several consecutive lifespans, or just consume many parallel ones–assuming the value of interdisciplinary collaboration is identified and addressed early).

We have come a long way from when the HIV virus first came upon the scene. Many prejudices have been addressed and corrected, awareness increased, safe sexual practices encouraged to reduce transmission. In terms of the virus itself, it has now been identified, and its mechanisms and vulnerabilities are now better understood to a degree where there are ways of managing the condition over the long-term, allowing for a longer lifespan. And in third world countries where the proportion of the population affected can be much higher, and many young people are now affected by the condition either through the loss of their parents or having been born with it themselves, there are follow-on effects–these are the generations of today and tomorrow, those regions future leaders and potential researchers themselves. Awareness programs,  identification programs, possible interventions–these efforts are not completely futile.

Efforts to promote healthy lifestyles and practices should indeed be encouraged, to reduce the reliance on generic quick-fixes and medications that resolve the symptoms without necessarily addressing the core issue. But it ought not be seen as an ‘either/or’ challenge–comprehending the underlying mechanisms of some of the most difficult to cure conditions could indeed have practical applications for those who wish to have measurable, tangible, quarterly-or-yearly results that go a little beyond increasing the quality or duration of an individual’s lifespan. For it to be seen as such denies the human capacity to combine their efforts to produce a solution that goes beyond the individual research pathways, to create something effective–and dissenters should really take a look at the historical achievements of the past twenty years in medical science and their resultant applications to other conditions and fields before they claim that ‘nothing’ has been achieved.

Being able to term some forms of the condition as ‘non-infectious’ is a valuable step forward.