DailyDirt: Cures For Everything..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Medical technology has come a long way from leeches and barbers. But there are still a lot of horrible diseases without cures. Here are just a few projects working on some important cures. By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
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Filed Under: antiviral drugs, cancer, cures, dracos, gene therapy, hiv, polio


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  1. icon
    Jeffrey Nonken (profile), 15 Aug 2011 @ 5:25pm

    Today's xkcd covered the first one.

    http://xkcd.com/938/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    freak (profile), 15 Aug 2011 @ 6:02pm

    I was reading up on the polio one earlier.

    Apparently, there's been huge problems eradicating polio due to social backlash to vaccines, (and western medical initiatives in general), to some of pfizer's experiments in kano, Nigeria.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Michael Ho (profile), 15 Aug 2011 @ 11:50pm

    Re:

    Missed that XKCD...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Chris, 16 Aug 2011 @ 12:40am

    Zombie apocalypse here we come

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    TDR, 16 Aug 2011 @ 7:15am

    As long as big pharma is in control, cures will never be widely available. After all, healthy people don't buy medicine, sick people do. That's why most medicines only treat symptoms, not the actual root cause of a condition. They don't want to cure it, they you to get it again so you'll buy their stuff again.

    It also makes one question some of these "search for a cure" charities. What happens if such a cure is found? Once the very reason for the organization's existence is found, there is no reason for the organization to continue to exist. Their existence is bound to not finding a cure, because once they do, they have no function left to serve. So it makes one wonder whether they really do want a cure or not or are just trying to prolong their own existence while pretending to search for a cure they really don't want found.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Jeffrey Nonken (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 9:16am

    Re: Re:

    ...And as usual xkcd does it with mirth and sarcasm. :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    Jeffrey Nonken (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 9:22am

    Re:

    The last time (years ago, and not here) I pointed out that it was in your doctor's best interests to keep you alive but unwell, I was told my viewpoint was "dystopian".

    And I thought it was a quite reasonable argument. Tsk.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 3:43am

    Let me make something very clear, since no one seems to get it (and I've said this before). The cure to the common cold and the flu and most respiratory ailments is an open window. I hardly ever get sick and the reason I don't get sick is because I keep my house ventilated.
    The chemistry is very simple. It's practically chemistry 101. Think of what happens when you insulate a container of water. The water doesn't evaporate away, instead, it stays in the container. When you remove the insulation, ie: take off the cover, the water evaporates.

    Now your body can be modeled like a container of water. The virus in your body is like water and the virus in your environment/house/the air you breathe is like water vapor. What happens when you insulate yourself? The gas/virus takes the form and volume of your house. The (net) viral diffusion rate into the air that you breathe is much lower because the air that you're breathing contains viruses as well. Now, you open the window and diffusion forces will powerfully and quickly force the viruses outside of your house. Diffusion forces are powerful and quick. So now you constantly breathe in clean air with no viruses. The powerful and rapid diffusion forces will quickly force the virus outside of your body. and the more viruses you have in your body relative to outside your body, the greater the pressure gradient of viruses in your body to viruses in the clean air that you're breathing in and out, the more powerfully and quickly the virus will be forced outside of your body through diffusion forces. Hence the equilibrium point of virus production vs virus expulsion results in a much lower number of viruses in your body. Now to get sick you must have a virus that multiplies very fast and even then you will be much less sick and will get over it much quicker since your immune system doesn't have to work so hard to overcome its apparent viral production rate (that is, the apparent viral production rate to your body is now the viral production rate minus the viral expulsion rate due to diffusion which is now much greater, so the net viral production rate is the viral production rate minus the viral expulsion rate due to diffusion minus the viral destruction rate due to your immune system. As your immune system builds up, that last figure increases. In the meantime, with sufficient ventilation, the net viral production rate will hit an upper limit due to the fact that diffusion forces increase as viral concentration rates increase. The more ventilation you expose yourself to, ie: go outside, the more powerful the diffusion forces and the more rapid the viral diffusion rates and so this equilibrium point gets lowered. Your immune system's necessary viral destruction rate to create a net viral reduction rate is now much less).

    Plus, half the time you are sick, it's actually due to toxins that your body releases (and toxins that you release into the environment via glass cleaner, air sprays, etc... Remember, when you clean your glass with Windex and you wipe all of the Windex with a napkin and throw away the napkin in the trash can in your house, what happens to all of the Windex that was on the Napkin as the napkin dries up in the trash can? All of it enters your environment and you breathe it. That's bad for you. Same thing applies to just about anything including surface cleaners. As the surface dries all of that stuff enters your environment and you breath it, no different than had you simply sprayed it in the air directly). For example, when you take your socks off after wearing your socks and shoes all day, your feet stink. That's because your skin is constantly releasing toxins. Yes, that bad smell is toxins, your body is telling you that it stinks because it's bad for you. Notice how your exposed forearms don't smell as bad? Because your arms were releasing those toxins the whole day, where? Into the air that you breathe. In fact, if there is little resistance to the release of toxins (ie: via clothes, like the clothes on your feet) the exposed parts of your body are releasing toxins at a faster rate. Those toxins are bad for you and need to be ventilated.

    If you don't believe that ventilation can cure your common cold, just try it one day. Open a few windows and keep them open for a few hours. It works very well.

    Also, try this experiment. Cover yourself, your entire body, completely in a blanket so that there are few leaks. After about 20 minutes (or less) you'll notice that you start to get ... sick. Your symptoms mimic ... the common cold very closely. You need to escape and blow your nose. So what makes you think it's healthy to then cover your house with insulation and have your family and yourself live in it for hours at a time with no ventilation? It's not and the results are you get sick.

    "According to the EPA, air pollution indoors is often two to five times worse than it is outside."

    http://www.naturalnews.com/028018_indoor_air_pollution.html

    Well, duh, indoor air pollution consists of outdoor air pollution (because your indoor air comes from outside) plus all the toxins you release into the air from your body and all the junk you put into the air (ie: air fresheners and window cleaner and surface cleaners, whenever you cook something the gases from the food or if something gets burnt, etc...). Open some windows and diffusion forces will rapidly clear the air.

    Also, it's a good idea not to put a lot of biowaste (ie: food that rots over time) in your trashcan and leave it sitting in your house for a long time. That stuff produces toxins and disease that also gets in the air you breathe and that's also unhealthy.

    Another thing ventilation does is it reduces the chances of those around you getting sick from your sickness since it reduces their viral exposure rate (for reasons mentioned above).

    link to this | view in thread ]


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