I Want You To Remember This The Next Time Someone Tells You The Government Can't Do Anything. Especially If You Come Down With The AIDS.

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

-Ronald Reagan 1/20/1981

Government scientists have discovered a new way that H.I.V. attacks human cells, an advance that could provide fresh avenues for the development of additional therapies to stop AIDS, they reported on Sunday.

-New York Times 2/11/2008

Notice the first two words in that second quote. Government scientists. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Far more often than you realize, basic research, the hard, needle in a haystack type stuff that is the foundation of breakthroughs, is the result of your tax dollars, not the research budget of Big Pharma. The first AIDS drug came from the government-run National Cancer Institute, and it looks like the next one will be the result of a big government program straight out of Reagan's nightmares.

Tell me again why I'm supposed to be afraid of socialized medicine?

Dr. Fauci, James Arthos, Claudia Cicala, Elena Martinelli and their colleagues showed that a molecule, integrin alpha-4 beta-7, which naturally directs immune cells to the gut, is also a receptor for H.I.V. A protein on the virus’s envelope, or outer shell, sticks to a molecule in the receptor that is linked specifically to the way CD4 cells home in on the gut, the researchers said.

“The work we did took nearly two years, and there’s little doubt that what we have found is a new receptor,” Dr. Fauci said in an interview

I'll translate that for you. The government spent two years combing through a haystack, and now Big Pharma knows exactly where to look. When things like this happen, Big Pharma shows its gratitude to the taxpayer by making sure any medicines that result are discounted to reflect the amount of research they didn't have to do.

I made that last sentence up. In the real world this is how Big Pharma treats the taxpayer:

Merck & Co. Inc. agreed yesterday to pay $671 million to settle allegations that it overcharged the Medicaid program and gave doctors junkets, dinners and other inducements to promote three of its drugs.

By law, Medicaid must get the lowest price for drugs. An exception, called "nominal pricing," enables the drug company to give lower prices to needy charities. Merck was suspected of giving better deals to hospitals than to Medicaid and not reporting those discounts to the government.

In a statement, the company did not admit wrongdoing.

Of course not. They forked over almost 20% of their profit for 2007 because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Kinda funny though how Merck fought the Vioxx lawsuits tooth and nail but quietly paid off Uncle Sam. Just sayin'

I wish we had more problems like the government Reagan hated so much.