Iran - Greatest country in the world

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

You don't think there's some truth to this?

A couple years ago, tumeric was found by a university study to prevent/fight cancer. The study was funded by the government.

You think any pharma cos have picked up researching the life-saving qualities of a substance available in the spice aisle at the grocery store?

FTR - I don't think there's an evil conspiracy by Rx cos to keep people sick or whatever, just that there's little incentive for them to do research on things they can't patent.

[gomer_tree]

Originally Posted by Uma Karuna

I hope it's true...although I doubt it.

On the optimistic side, it seems to me that "herbal remedies that cure things" won't be found by Americans, or by members of any society as capitalistic as ours...if the cure is herbal, it can be grown by anyone and can't be patented....if it can't be patented Rx cos can't make money off it, so what's the incentive to research it?

In this area, I will agree with you. We've got a screwed up system because our patent procedures encourage certain kinds of research, and discourages other types of research. Unfortunately, this goes beyond the simple profit issue, and actually influences how doctors tend to get educated in the area. I have known a few doctors who are open to researching alternative remedies, and they successfully treat patients with a combination of natural herbs/supplements as well as medicines. Too often, they are considered as quacks just because they are willing to look into things that aren't produced by a leading pharmaceutical company at lofty prices.

I am not against medicines or vaccinations or anything like that, but all these things are way overused and not always produced in the safest way. They serve a very real and good purpose, but I think overall have actually done more harm than good in their overuse and dependency creation.

[gomer_tree]

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

I know this story is true because MattTheSkywalker told me drug companies in the U.S. don't want to find cures, they're just trying to maximize their profits. I think I saw a movie about this once too.

This makes it perfectly believable that there was an easy to develop cure out there but it was just the capitalist greedy pigs who didn't want it developed. Way to go Iran!

I don't know that they "don't want to find cures," but they definitely want to maximize profits. And the system is set up in such a way that the way to do this is through medicines and medications for every ailment under the sun, few to none of which actually do cure you.

Originally Posted by gomer_tree

In this area, I will agree with you. We've got a screwed up system because our patent procedures encourage certain kinds of research, and discourages other types of research. Unfortunately, this goes beyond the simple profit issue, and actually influences how doctors tend to get educated in the area. I have known a few doctors who are open to researching alternative remedies, and they successfully treat patients with a combination of natural herbs/supplements as well as medicines. Too often, they are considered as quacks just because they are willing to look into things that aren't produced by a leading pharmaceutical company at lofty prices.

I am not against medicines or vaccinations or anything like that, but all these things are way overused and not always produced in the safest way. They serve a very real and good purpose, but I think overall have actually done more harm than good in their overuse and dependency creation.

When we were talking about the tumeric thing a couple years ago, MountainHawk had a great idea to fix this issue...medical insurers should create institutes to study such things...kinda like the car insurers did with highway safety.

Anyway, all I'm saying here is that, since this hasn't happened yet, for the time being it's more likely that an herbal cure for AIDS (if possible) would come from Iran before it came from the US.

[gomer_tree]

Originally Posted by Uma Karuna

When we were talking about the tumeric thing a couple years ago, MountainHawk had a great idea to fix this issue...medical insurers should create institutes to study such things...kinda like the car insurers did with highway safety.

Anyway, all I'm saying here is that, since this hasn't happened yet, for the time being it's more likely that an herbal cure for AIDS (if possible) would come from Iran before it came from the US.

Medical insurers first have to understand the benefits. Right now, insurers cover very few alternative treatments that can actually cure a person or at least improve the condition, but will cover expensive medications that a person will be on for life.

I fully understand that you have to be careful about what alternative treatments get covered, because a lot of them are crackpottish. But I think medical insurers tend to take their lead from the medical profession, and if their expert panel - all doctors - say that certain treatments shouldn't be covered, then they're looking at short-term savings of no coverage rather than potential long-term savings with future healthier customers.

Not sure that I'd still say that a cure would first be discovered in Iran. But I woould agree that if someone here suggested they found a cure using herbs, the medical community would all but ignore it and convince a lot of others to ignore it as well.

Cool.

In the meantime, it'd be wonderful if Iran were telling the truth, and the results stood up to testing. Guess we'll find out.

[gomer_tree]

This is weird. I think I just agreed with Uma, Tupac, and MattTheSkywalker to varying degrees.

I feel unclean.

[Kenshiro]

How much research is done via government grants and donations?

And not that I don't respect MTS's vast experience with pharmaceutical companies and marketing reps, but I know a lot of people in research, and I don't think I could find a bigger group of bleeding hearts. They all want to find cures and help humanity and all that jazz. I really doubt the entire industry, including researchers at universities, would purposely ignore a promising cure.

Now the marketing of drugs seems really shady to me, but I'm not going to go ask for a drug I saw on tv, so I don't let it bother me much. It's probably better than hidden gifts to doctors for prescribing it.

Originally Posted by gomer_tree

This is weird. I think I just agreed with Uma, Tupac, and MattTheSkywalker to varying degrees.

I feel unclean.

And we both like Prince!

[Kenshiro]

Originally Posted by gomer_tree

This is weird. I think I just agreed with Uma, Tupac, and MattTheSkywalker to varying degrees.

I feel unclean.

As long as it's only this once, it might not be a problem...