At 13:39 15-02-01 -0800, Doug wrote:
>Andrea Leistra wrote:
> >
> > The article in the NYT last week put a bit of a different spin on the
> > issue; the fact that a profitable use for the drug has been found
> > means that it *will* be produced, as it isn't now, and that some will
> > now be available for combating sleeping sickness. Obviously I'd like
> > to see the pharmaceuticals produce it for altruistic purposes to
> > combat the disease, but as that isn't going to happen I don't think
> > it's a bad thing that it's being produced now especially as it means
> > some will become available.
> >
> > >From http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/health/09SLEE.html:
> >
> > The Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and the Gillette Company have just
> > introduced eflornithine in a facial cream, Vaniqa, and Bristol-Myers
> > is close to an agreement with the World Health Organization and the
> > medical charity Doctors Without Borders for the companies to make an
> > injectable form to treat human African trypanosomiasis, better known
> > as sleeping sickness.
>
>Doesn't it seem a bit bizarre that we need to depend on finding a way to
>market pharmaceuticals to the relatively well to do in order that they be
>produced to save not so well to do lives?
>
>I would never wish for it, but I think that if I were a stricken African I
>would see it as poetic justice if a plague born in Africa, something that
>could have been stopped except that it wasn't economically feasible, swept the
>developed world.
> >
> > Of course, if I *hadn't* read this article last week, I would have had
> > no idea what disease you were talking about, because you didn't bother
> > to mention that trivial little detail in your post.
> >
>It was in my first post, sorry.
Uhh . . . I didn't remember that first post, either, and wondered what
disease you were talking about until I read the article in the "Science
Times" section of Tuesday's NY Times. However, I just checked, and your
first message did arrive, so I dunno how Andrea and I missed it . . .
-- Ronn! :)
