I have to admit that I'm getting pretty damn tired of hearing about wearing pink ribbons to show support for breast cancer, walk-for-the-cure for autism, and concerts for people with AIDS. What does any of that shit do except to make the participants feel better about themselves? How about we actually start demanding these things be cured instead. That would seem to be a tad more effective don'tcha think?
I never give to these causes. I have no idea where the money is going and the event just seems like so much mental masturbation. We are well past the point where it should be obvious to anyone that major pharmaceutical companies are not interested in finding the cures to ANY of these things: not cancer, not allergies, not autism, not this -ism or that -ism (sorry Mr. Lennon). It's long been known that there's no profit in the cure. The days of eliminating smallpox, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and a whole host of other terrible diseases is over. Thank goodness for the different general mindset of previous generations otherwise we'd probably be applying cream to our skin to lessen the appearance of smallpox scars...if you survived the disease that is. Yes, I will admit that rinderpest was recently declared wiped off the planet. However, in this case, there was profit in the cure. Y'see, rinderpest was a cattle disease that has killed many of those animals over the years. Making the disease extinct means more cattle survive which in turn means more money.
I want these diseases cured and cured permanently. I take great pride in knowing that the human race successfully eradicated its scourge, smallpox back in the 1960s and 1970s. It's amazing we have the power to do that and it gives me hope. However, you'll notice the list of mankind's accomplishments have declined precipitously in terms of cures lately and I really do believe that at the heart of it all is money...or rather the LACK of money in finding the cure. Our mistake, I believe, is relying on large pharmaceutical companies to find these cures. It seems to me that would be the job of the federal government instead.
We seriously need a Department for the Cure of Deadly Diseases, Cancers, and Allergies...a well-funded one in fact. It should hire the best scientists and pay them better both in cash and benefits than what they would receive in the private sector and have them do nothing but find the cures to these scourges. Yes, this department would be in direct competition with BigPharma and that's the point. They have failed to perform their moral duty so now we must circumvent them. If anything, we owe it to ourselves.
It is very much in the interests of local, state, and federal government to cure problems that cost so so much to treat. I wouldn't worry about BigPharma though, there will always be something to treat with a pill or application to fund their enterprises and nature is ever resourceful, so new problems are always just around the corner. But for now, can we please stop it with the bullshit walks, symbols, and concerts and demand that students in this country get educated in biochemistry, biophysics, and other health-related sciences and help them in doing so by offering grants to be educated thusly in exchange for doing work for the as-of-now made up Dept. for the Cure of Deadly Diseases, Cancers, and Allergies for a certain number of years. It would seem like a worthy investment...
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