Apple Again Recognizes World AIDS Day Online and In-Store

[dpruitt]

Originally Posted by bedifferent

Tell that to the thousands of women who are raped in villages in Africa.

Tell that to the countless AIDS victims in the 80's who were left to die with a disease no one knew or cared about as at the time is was a "gay thing".

Your comment is beyond ignorant and wreaks of disdain. Many diseases are preventable, such as type II diabetes which has become an epidemic in the U.S. due to alarming increases in obesity, also preventable. I certainly hope no one you know has to fight with such a horrible "preventable" illness, I certainly hope you do not have to as well.

Oh, if you think that is bad, I have plenty more where that comes from. I know far more people who have lost a battle with cancer. The US needs to stop policing the world, and take care of our problems at home.THEN we can worry about the rest of the world. In fact, why not let them help themselves?

Fact: AIDS/HIV is preventable. There will always be savages raping people in villages. We will never be able to stop that. Let's work on the problems in a civilized world.

[hface119]

^^ Comments like that are why the world still struggles with problems such as AIDS. You can be all about the homeland in many respects, but in a world where travel is at a moments notice for millions of people every day, the number one most powerful/influential country in the world cannot ignore the problems, such as AIDS, going on in places like Africa.

I'm a Ph.D. student that has done a lot of research in sexual communication, specifically attitudes and high-risk behaviors of those infected and their potential/past partners. While a cure would be fantastic, and the jury is still out on whether donations and fundraising really goes directly to finding a cure, plenty of money DOES go to education programs which are paramount in getting people that are infected to disclose their status to their partners and to get their partners to begin asking the important questions: have you been tested? what is your status?

This is an American, heterosexual problem just as much as its homosexual and international. In fact, it's almost MORE of a heterosexual problem today.

[Rocko1]

http://www.duesberg.com/presentations/$bnAIDSQuiz.ppt

[kryca]

What about a PRODUCT(FOXCONN) where you donate one dollar to the underpaid people at Apple's contractors?

[truettray]

It's crazy how our society thinks that if someone doesn't boast that they donated, it means that they haven't. It's actually disgusting. I read this story and was made excited about the progress being made, let's not make silly judgement calls.

[ThunderSkunk]

Originally Posted by dpruitt

The US needs to stop policing the world, and take care of our problems at home.THEN we can worry about the rest of the world. In fact, why not let them help themselves?

Fact: AIDS/HIV is preventable. There will always be savages raping people in villages. We will never be able to stop that. Let's work on the problems in a civilized world.

Just curious, how old are you? That's not an attack, I just hear this said a lot, and I've noticed that the one thing the people who make it have in common is that they all fall into a pretty tight age group. Curious...

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by dru`

Ignorance. AIDS is preventable and if people had self control it would be all but eliminated at this point but the research into the immune system that HIV has sparked has had far reaching consequences across disease study and that would include cancers like those caused by or linked to viruses.

I'm stick of pressured as if I must prostrate myself any time the words AIDS is mentioned. The gay community is obsessed in an unhealthy way. If half as much effort was put into peer pressure regarding behavior as goes into whining about funding or evil Republicans, the disease would be effectively eliminated in the western world by now.

Citation? WHERE is this happening right now in 2012?

Come to the 21st century. You admit "no one knew" but the posters point is, thirty years later, everyone knows in the West about its preventability. It's taught about in every school, even Catholic and other parochial schools and has been for twenty years at least. Youth can't escape the condom campaigns in mass and social media.

Citations? Read about what happens in third world nations. In the Middle East, many countries are low on blood. Due to the current strife between Palestine and Israel, there is huge demand for blood donors. Human error coupled with rushing people into ER's with low blood supplies and people donating on spot, it happens. That's just one example.

How about children born with HIV from mothers who may have been raped (a very common occurrence in Darfur and Africa), IV drug users, or individuals who practiced safe sex yet were infected? Safe sex doesn't always mean one will not become infected.

Most of us here live in first world nations in which we are fortunate to be educated and sitting in our armchairs, that doesn't mean any of us have the right in passing judgment on others. Education and safe sex alone do not mean you are immune to infection. As others have stated, with all sincerity as a 36 year old gay man who has donated much of my time in NYC in HIV and drug awareness, you seem rather young or naive to the world outside the comfort of our first world homes. I would never make such comments on people with morbid obesity, addicts (my brother being one such instance, and we come from an affluent family), cancer, etc.

HIV and AIDS knows no bounds; it doesn't differentiate on class, sexual orientation (current statistics demonstrate that black males are at the highest risk, with females - mostly in Africa due to rape - second), gender, race. Your comment on gays being promiscuous - guess what, this isn't the 80's, the gay male community is at a much lower risk and those at risk are under the influence of methamphetamine. Your homophobic comment(s) are more telling on you than the individuals you believe you know so well as to pass judgment. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, donate your time with HIV and AIDS patients, learn their personal stories, put a face with this infliction you believe to be above, it will educate and humble you.

(Why bring Republicans into this discussion? What is your basis for your comments? Citations please)

[mixel]

I really don't understand anyone having problems with world aids day.. Cancer, even it's various types have their own high profile days too.

As for HIV being avoidable, it isn't for a lot of the people who have it. Cancer is often in large part avoidable too, depending on lifestyle and things like smoking. I've lost a friend to cancer but you can't, and shouldn't prioritise stuff like this. Different teams work on different things with different finances.

What about the less well known conditions? Are they more or less deserving of public attention. Anything that raises awareness and funds for such good causes is totally worthwhile.

Good for Apple.

[coolfactor]

Originally Posted by dpruitt

Can we focus on something more important? Like Cancer? At least AIDS is preventable. Cancer has been around A LOT longer. Let's focus on this one first, and then we can work on AIDS.

Billions of dollars from hundreds of fundraisers are raised each year for cancer research, and Canada has already found a possible cure, but the pharmaceutical industry is too powerful. There's no way they will allow a cash-cow like cancer be cured.

[MacAddict1978]

Originally Posted by champ01

As if money solves aids.

Its all marketing nonsense. There is never enough budget for good research therefor its always lacking.
The whole monetary system is research down if really think about it.

How about giving scientist what they need to do their research properly and kill budgets.

Originally Posted by dpruitt

Can we focus on something more important? Like Cancer? At least AIDS is preventable. Cancer has been around A LOT longer. Let's focus on this one first, and then we can work on AIDS.

Cancer isn't contagious and HIV does not discriminate. There are treatments that do CURE people of certain cancers. Cancer is too general... there are hundreds of cancers and new ones all the time. LOTS of cancers are preventable too.

Anyone can get HIV. ANYONE. Straight. Married. Abstient Nun. The biggest cause of HIV infection is iggnorance.... because dumb asses think, "I'm straight I can't get it..." "I'm married... I can't get it." Meanwhile, contraction vaginally is hundreds of times greater than anal sex. Go figure! So you're wife had an indiscretion and doesn't tell you... guess what you might have and not know? You slept with someone 5 years ago, were ignorant and never got tested and get married and guess what happens?

AIDS is preventable... so is stupidity. Prevention isn't just safe sex... it's testing to know your status so you don't spread it. Most people would have no health symptoms for at least 5 years... even as many as 10 or 15 depending on your life style.

ps. I'm not calling the op stupid... stupidity is a disposition of the general public.

You can readily and freely be tested for HIV in minutes.... not so much for cancer. Just saying.

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by coolfactor

Billions of dollars from hundreds of fundraisers are raised each year for cancer research, and Canada has already found a possible cure, but the pharmaceutical industry is too powerful. There's no way they will allow a cash-cow like cancer be cured.

Being diabetic since 12, now 36, and taking excellent care of myself, I read up on diabetes research daily. I also have friends working as project managers for such companies as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, the stories I hear make me sick. The companies invest 95% of their money into R&D for treatments and a meager amount for cures (there is a set amount required for R&D into cures which I never knew about until recently).

In my lifetime, Lilly and other pharm companies will make more money from insulin, test kits/meters and strips (I test 15-20 times a day), insulin syringes, pumps, A1C tests, not to mention possible surgeries in my later years for neuropathy, glaucoma, etc. no matter how well I take care of myself (heart disease effect 70% of Type 1 diabetics) than a one time cure. That's billions. I work out 5/6 times a week, weight training, cardio, eat well, keep my A1C around 5.5 (which is non-diabetic range), and yet I will live shorter and suffer from diabetic complications no matter what I do.

A one time cure, even if hundreds of thousands of dollars, is less profit than a lifetime of treating my genetically inherited Type 1 diabetes. It's all about the money, and the pharm companies make $300 billion off American's each year (Americans spend $2.7 trillion dollars a year on healthcare, that's more than any other first world nation, or any nation). We have increased our pharm intake by 90% since the 1950's.

It's a sad state when money dictates health.

[iGrip]

Originally Posted by unlinked

I think people should be applauded for any piece of good they do.
If you don't and want to rank good causes then I understand thousands of people starve to death every day. That has a cheap and available cure. Cancer not so much.

Let them starve. First we need to work on Nuclear Nonproliferation or else all of humanity could be destroyed.

[arkhanjel]

Originally Posted by KieranDotW

True. I don't know what they could do, but right now we have some kind of Product (RED) version of every product (be it the product itself or an accessory) except for Macs and the iPhone 5.

You're right. I wish they would do the iPhone 5. Another cool thing to make product (RED) would be the EarPods.

[makotoisle]

[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by dpruitt

Can we focus on something more important? Like Cancer? At least AIDS is preventable. Cancer has been around A LOT longer. Let's focus on this one first, and then we can work on AIDS.

I'm thinking troll, but I'll bite. Cancer gets an entire month where we wrap everything in pink ribbons. And AIDS isn't preventable when you're born with it. Oh, but we shouldn't do research to help those people? Bad luck, your mum got raped, better luck next time?

Originally Posted by dpruitt

The US needs to stop policing the world, and take care of our problems at home.THEN we can worry about the rest of the world. In fact, why not let them help themselves?

Humanitarian research efforts are not policing the world. That's being helpful. Policing the world would be going in to the country and laying down the law. And there are many gay people in the United States that would benefit from said research and education, too. My best friend works in public health and you wouldn't believe the amount of misinformation that goes around that he has to teach against. Most of the people in our own country lack common sense.

Being diabetic since 12, now 36, and taking excellent care of myself, I read up on diabetes research daily. I also have friends working as project managers for such companies as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, the stories I hear make me sick. The companies invest 95% of their money into R&D for treatments and a meager amount for cures (there is a set amount required for R&D into cures which I never knew about until recently).

If you have friends working for big pharma, then you should already know the billions upon billions and years upon years of research they must invest before they can get a drug passed. They can spend 300 billion and 27 years on a drug and have it fail in the final FDA trial and have all that money washed away.

To say the big pharma wants to keep you sick is a little conspiracy theorist. I'm not going to say that they don't have an incentive to keep you sick. Sure they do, there's more money in treating a symptom than curing it. That said, there's more money for your doctor if he never makes you better. Do you think he's intentionally holding back curing you, too?

I think if you want to see more therapeutic development, the companies need incentives to making said therapeutics - not slapped with thirty years of red tape, 300 billion dollars, and layers of expensive animal trials and FDA pre/clinical trials to find out if you can sell your drug or start over.

[hamkor04]

Originally Posted by bedifferent

Tell that to the thousands of women who are raped in villages in Africa.

why we see only Africa when comes to decease, poverty and crimes.
i don't won't argue about any above problems in this site. but it's worth to mention.
A. We should see other end of the Stick
B. There are more sex crimes (west countries, Europe and America) than Africa. if we look at UK sex crime record in 2010-2011 only recorded sex crimes even more than entire continent (Africa).
Please correct me if im wrong.

this post nothing to do with Africa aid support.

BTW. Apple is one of the biggest "consumers" that who gets their rare materials comes from those African countries for a tons of bloods.

[jw2002]

Originally Posted by dru`

I'm stick of pressured as if I must prostrate myself any time the words AIDS is mentioned. The gay community is obsessed

Wowza, someone is reeking of entitlement. All I can say is o_O ?

And 3 people uprated this drek???

[Puevlo]

Apple has enough money to cure AIDS tomorrow if they wanted to. But they'd rather hoard it all for no reason.

[spillproof]

Originally Posted by Puevlo

Apple has enough money to cure AIDS tomorrow if they wanted to. But they'd rather hoard it all for no reason.

I could say the same about you. Donating all your money could help find a cure, but you rather hoard it all for no reason. You could say the same thing about your mother, Dell, Starbucks, the corner bookstore, and the guy selling hotdogs on 22nd street.

Apple is not a medical research lab. Apple is an electronics company. They can do what they want with their money (within the law). I rather see an electronics company invest their money into something they know/ something in their realm of knowledge- like building nanites that destroy cancer cells.

Sure, the hundreds of millions of dollars Apple has would be very benificial to finding a cure, but just because you have money doesn't mean you have to fix something wrong with the world.

[Cavalier777]

Originally Posted by TeachMeiOS.com

I have personally worked among people in East Africa who were born with the HIV/Aids Virus. It is an awful thing. But the Antiretroviral drugs (ARV's) are available and can help people live a relatively normal life. However, a ton of education and other resources are needed to get these drugs to the people who need it. That's why I think this is such a noble thing of Apple to do - ever dollar counts!

lol i was wondering how to stop HIV babies from being born... apart from not allowing HIV positive people to reproduce

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by Cavalier777

lol i was wondering how to stop HIV babies from being born... apart from not allowing HIV positive people to reproduce

The majority of those babies are born from women who were raped by HIV positive men. I recall ~85-90% of HIV positive babies were from women who were raped (and not simply claiming to be raped). Many, if not the majority, from Africa (Darfur/Sudan), the Middle East, and other patriarchal third world nations in which education and safety are near non-existent for women.

Either many are simply posting to inflame others or there is an abundance of ignorance in this thread. Do some honestly believe people are "bug chasers", rushing out to get infected? SMH

[darkplanets]

Originally Posted by bedifferent

SNIP It's a sad state when money dictates health.

I wasn't going to comment on such a political topic, but I have to call you out on this post because quite frankly it's inflammatory ********.

I'm a chemist. I've worked at one of the companies you've named. I also know middle and upper management in most of these companies. The charge that these companies invest R&D differentially for "treatments" vs "cures" is quite ludicrous really. It takes a very complex field and normalizes to stupidity, and doesn't at all consider the underlying science.

In short, there's no such thing as a one time "cure" for a variety of ailments, and rightly so. One size does not fit all when there's hundreds of factors, and the concept of a one dose fix is more or less a mathematical impossibility. Furthermore, from a technical perspective, the disbursement of research funds is actually rather lax -- so long as the project has scientific validity and is within your research core, chances are the uppers won't contest. Where I worked, almost every target known to man was being looked at -- the end goal of R&D is to find a solution to improve the disease state better and faster than the competition. Given the failure rate in clinic, R&D has to fire on all cylinders in order to remain competitive.

Let's take your disease of interest, diabetes, as my case example.

In type I, your beta cells are destroyed, typically through an autoimmune response. Theres a variety of causes for this, from genetic to invasive. Loss of beta cells confers loss of insulin, ergo diabetes. Like any disease state, the symptoms are easy to watch and monitor, which confers the negative effect. Therefore treating the symptom, though not solving the underlying problem, can allieve most of the negative effects of the disease state. In this case, giving insulin restores function. For there to be a "cure" as you put it, it would have to factor in the myriad of conditions that lead to underlying problem. You wouldn't want immunosuppresants. That will eventually confer other issues. You can't outright surgically replace beta cells (which would again be destroyed by an immune response, host-native or otherwise). That leaves genetic modification of your immune system and/or beta cells to alter the immune:b-cell interface, under the pretense that the most adaptive system in your body won't adapt to the changed interface. Guess what: that sounds infinitely easier to do on paper than it is in practice. We're only just beginning to play with genetic modification and gene therapy, and there's a whole host of technical and ethical challenges to overcome. When you factor in the complexity of the immune system, we're talking about a project thats beyond the understanding of science at the moment, let alone the massive cost (we're talking tens of billions+) it would require to advance such an endeavor (provided gene therapy ever makes it past congress…)

In type II diabetes, the landscape is similar. Here the immune system is removed, but now the complexity increases -- cell types are no longer responding to insulin along signaling cascades. Would small molecules work? Depends on the cause; typically SM inhibitory restoration of function only occurs when an adjacent pathway is responsible for the regulatory effect. If the issue is a mutation in the active site which stops ligand binding, the only feasible solution is to again carry forward with gene therapy to replace the implicated proteins of interest, depending on the cause (which varies by person). Reasonable solution? Not yet. We're still figuring out decent ways to deliver genetic cargo. Any downstream effector of the originator would be no different than current treatments, which modulate the symptoms, not the cause.

The same logic can be applied to most disease states. (ex: beta amyloid plaques; symptom, not cause) Scientifically, it's typically more feasible to treat the downstream side effects, and it's almost always more economical to do so when the science isn't there yet to support it.

[WilliamLondon]

Originally Posted by dpruitt

Can we focus on something more important? Like Cancer? At least AIDS is preventable. Cancer has been around A LOT longer. Let's focus on this one first, and then we can work on AIDS.

You mean like lung cancer and its linkage to smoking, or skin cancer and its linkage to the sun? Or do you mean other cancers and their linkages to poor diet and lifestyle choices?

Its utterly offensive to suggest that we should let people die simply because of the way they contracted a disease, as if they deserve to die because of the choices they made. And actually, if you want to score diseases and queue them up, the communicable ones are the ones we should attack first, because, well, they are communicable.

In your world of scoring and queueing of diseases, what happens to the queue if we never find a cure for cancer? As you say, it's been around for a long time, but we still haven't found a cure, so what happens to all those queue'd up behind cancer? Also, I don't think we should ever dictate to scientists where they apply their research abilities - each should be able to pursue whatever it is that interests them, unless we want to consider them our servants, who exist for no other reason than to do what *we* demand of them? Your solution, though simple, doesn't appear to me to be well thought through.

BTW, cancer research has been progressed hugely thanks to AIDS research.

The real answer, though, is that we shouldn't have to choose, they should all get as much funding as they all require until they are all eradicated.

[bedifferent]

Originally Posted by darkplanets

snip

That's great, you know about Type I diabetes, doesn't mean you know a thing of which you claim regarding the business sect in research. If anything is ********, it's your complete ignorance regarding the pharm industry. I didn't even read through your comment, it was right out of a high school biology text book.

There have been many advances, such as infrared blood monitoring devices that require no blood test strips, and have repeated results that are on par with current OneTouch and Bayer systems. I was a part of this study many years ago. Why isn't it on the market? Because no one would need test strips, that's money lost to the pharm companies. Why do you think a OneTouch Ultra test kit costs $19 at CVS, or is free? The strips out of pocket cost $50-100, for a 25-50 vial box.

How about coating the beta-cells in seaweed? Research has shown this to be a highly effective, yet young, advancement in keeping the immune system from attacking the beta cells necessary for insulin. Funding was cut.

Recently, Canadian researchers found evidence to suggest Type I diabetes to be a result from a viral infection brought on by a genetic anomaly, very different from the immune system attacking the beta cells necessary for insulin production.

As a Type I diabetic since 12, and my father since 6, taking insulin is not a "cure". A cure means there is no longer any evidence of the disease in the system, or that further treatments are no longer necessary. I test 12-15 sometimes 20 times a day, I take Humalog insulin 10-12 times a day on a sliding scale. If I didn't have insurance, my supplies would be:

Per month out of pocket costs:
$300 for 5 Humalog pens
$600 for 300 OneTouch Ultra test strips
$75 100/Ml bottle of Lantus insulin
~$200 for syringes for my Lantus insulin and other supplies

That's over $1,000 per month, not counting the Medtronic supplies for my insulin pump (I only use that to monitor my BG's, but I still need to test to ensure the system is properly calibrated, and the pump cost $3000 of which I had to fight Blue Cross Blue Shield to cover as they attempted to dodge it), A1C blood tests, doctors visits, etc.

It's great you know the medical background of Type I Diabetes, my ex's brother in law is a VP at Medtronic, I have friends in the industry, it all boils down to what the pharmaceutical companies, etc want - money. There is more money in treating diseases than curing. Period.

I appreciate your personal interest in this matter.

[Ugg]

I applaud Apple and especially Tim Cook for this. AIDS is becoming less of a threat through wide spread use of anti-retrovirals (thanks largely to Bill Clinton) but complacency didn't bring about the end of polio nor will it end AIDS.

[darkplanets]

Originally Posted by bedifferent

That's great, you know about Type I diabetes, doesn't mean you know a thing of which you claim regarding the business sect in research. If anything is ********, it's your complete ignorance regarding the pharm industry.

I'm calling you out. Just because someone with experience disagrees with you doesn't mean "they don't know a thing" about pharma-- quite the contrary, in fact. Who was your employer. Place and time of employment. See how it's easy to throw around accusations? While were at it, lets talk about your friends/contacts in the industry. What's their positions? Business development? Market research? Marketing? Clearly NONE of them are from the research side of things. I know Merck, Lilly, and Novartis R&D firsthand. While the business development side of things tends to imagine control over pipeline research, it's not how it's done lab-side. Business development only grabs onto projects that are in the hit-side of things, but even there most projects stall in the hit to lead to due poor PK/PD and ADME. Upper management only takes note during preclinical.

As I said before, all possible angles are looked at during R&D, especially nowadays where big pharma isn't afraid of biologics. Hell, even combichem has finally gotten the boot. Product development is not some strict delineation of therapy types. While we're on that topic, I'm also calling you out on your total scientific ignorance. You claim to know something, yet keep spewing this "cure" nonsense. More below.

I didn't even read through your comment, it was right out of a high school biology text book.

OK. I get it. The real reason you didn't "read" it is you didn't like my answer. As I said, right now there's not a feasible "cure" using SM or biologics. If you had any iota of scientific knowledge and/or reading comprehension you'd understand this. But hey, what do I know, I only make drugs for a living. Since your so clearly competent (citation please), let's step up the level of conversation and take off the kiddie gloves, shall we?

There have been many advances, such as infrared blood monitoring devices that require no blood test strips, and have repeated results that are on par with current OneTouch and Bayer systems. I was a part of this study many years ago. Why isn't it on the market? Because no one would need test strips, that's money lost to the pharm companies. Why do you think a OneTouch Ultra test kit costs $19 at CVS, or is free? The strips out of pocket cost $50-100, for a 25-50 vial box.

From what I understand, there were a few issues, but I'm not an expert on medical devices (although those strips are quite neat electrochemical cells):
1) Device size (why NIR is only in ICUs)
2) Light source intensity and range. From what I understand the device sweeps a broad range of spectra at the moment. Near IR excites molecule vibrational rotations, although I have to question whether its actually NIR. Glucose -OH vibrate up near 3000 cm-1, but thats not true NIR which is 14000-4000 cm-1. If they're looking for higher freq overtones, how would this method differentiate between sugars? I see it being quite noisy at best given how ****** FTIR are even in lab settings.
3) Analytical low-level detection thresholds. Your strips are analytical electrochemical masterpieces, as I've said before. In order to get FDA approval you need reproducibility and accuracy, especially in a life critical device.
4) Lack of hypoglycemia patients in the trial

Fortunately, most of the patent apps seem to be from 2001, meaning that there's still some time for market exclusivity. Make no mistake -- if they did get it to work, they would be selling it. Your strip cost would just be averaged out and adjusted to be the unit price adjusted for unit lifetime. Hell, there'd probably be a hefty premium for the convenience. For supposedly understanding the market you seem to know quite little -- it's an intense area of competition, and any device such as that would claim a large share of the market. Companies like Novo or Lilly would jump on such an opportunity, and I know for a fact one of those two has not expressed any interest.

The only recent trial I could find (admittedly with 5 minutes of searching) was from a Japanese study published in Appl Spectrosc in 2006. Were you a part of that?

How about coating the beta-cells in seaweed? Research has shown this to be a highly effective, yet young, advancement in keeping the immune system from attacking the beta cells necessary for insulin. Funding was cut.

I'm sorry, but your lack of knowledge is showing. Immensely. You do not "coat" beta cells in an organism to potentially deliver cells. Assuming for a second that this is actually what you meant.... it would never, ever work. You'd have an immune response from a non-native organism. If you mean orally....

By seaweed, you probably mean a sugar based resin... alginates, agaroses, hyaluronan, chitin, pullan... etc. The thing is, you don't "coat" these cells, even with these sugar resins. Any sort of flow processing or microfludic LBL assembly would kill the beta cells which are already fickle enough as is. You likely meant hydrogels, which are macroporous non-soluble crosslinked resins that behave much in the manner of most SEx resins. The reason why these work? They're biocompatible and (mostly) non immunogenic (I say mostly because even PEG has an immune response, contrary to popular myth); the beta cells are suspending in the um pores in the resin, thus immobilized. The resin is then inject subcu or locally during surgery, and the cells are released by a combination of passive diffusion and/or slow breakdown of the resin. (As a side note, computational passive diffusion for hydrogels suck, even when considering the most basic of brownian motions).

Here's the reason why it's a stupid idea in this case: in either surgical or subcu scenario, you're releasing beta cells either in serum or locally, and since you have an auto immune response, these beta cells too will be cleared by your immune system, just like your native ones. Therefore you'd have to repeat dosage ad infinium, just like insulin. How is this any better than insulin? This is of course assuming the best case scenario -- that these beta cells are yours. If not you'd potentially have dose-limited toxicity from a foreign immune response going absolutely *******.

Recently, Canadian researchers found evidence to suggest Type I diabetes to be a result from a viral infection brought on by a genetic anomaly, very different from the immune system attacking the beta cells necessary for insulin production.

Again... your ignorance is showing, this time about the immune system. How's it any different? The cause is, but the end result is the same. Viral infection WILL induce an immune response... which induces the exact same result of the immune system attacking the beta cells. I don't have time to explain the entire immune system, but please look up Toll like receptors and the IL family, as well as the MHC class of proteins. The immune response is the side effect of the root cause; the immune system is functioning as intended.

I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with modality when it comes to causality. There's many different causes for everything from diabetes to cancer; the observed phenotypes, ala symptoms, are what generally define a disease state. In this case, it's autoimmune destruction of b-cells, which exhibits the phenotype of insulin modulation.

Type I diabetes is polygenic; there's likely many, many genes implicated, although IDDM1 seems to be the primary culprit. HLDA-DQB1 is part of the DQ heterodimer that forms a cell surface receptor. Mutations in this protein obviously inhibit self tolerance, thus allowing these cells to present self-antigens. The immune response machinery recognizes the DQ heterodimer, meaning that any displayed peptide will illicit an immune response. This is the basis for the disease state. Different mutations in antigen presenting heterodimers can induce the same result, and opportunistic viral infection could also ilicit immune response (albeit through a different mechanism), giving the same result.

As a Type I diabetic since 12, and my father since 6, taking insulin is not a "cure". A cure means there is no longer any evidence of the disease in the system, or that further treatments are no longer necessary.

If you actually read what I said before--instead of acting like a child and getting angry that someone disagreed with you--you would have noticed I said EXACTLY this. A cure is not a treatment. Treatments fix symptoms, not the root cause. As I said before, for a disease state such as diabetes, there is effectively no "cure" with todays technology. Using the term "cure" is misrepresentation of the greater complexity in modulating human biology.

As I said before, if you don't want repeat treatments, the only "cure" to genetic diseases (or autoimmune) is to re engineer the original system with genetic modification. That's not currently possible and faces a whole host of technological and ethical challenges which would take at least another 30 years to chew through. I worked in this area for a few years -- if you want to have a more in depth discussion of the underlying science I'm game.

Per month out of pocket costs:
$300 for 5 Humalog pens
$600 for 300 OneTouch Ultra test strips
$75 100/Ml bottle of Lantus insulin
~$200 for syringes for my Lantus insulin and other supplies

That's over $1,000 per month, not counting the Medtronic supplies for my insulin pump (I only use that to monitor my BG's, but I still need to test to ensure the system is properly calibrated, and the pump cost $3000 of which I had to fight Blue Cross Blue Shield to cover as they attempted to dodge it), A1C blood tests, doctors visits, etc.

Hey, don't get me wrong, that does suck, but a lot of your troubles center around BCBS and insurance companies. I know the pain there; to be quite frank they suck. That's another topic for another day in terms of reform, but keep in mind the reason for the cost: science is expensive, and reagents are also expensive. Take a 20L pail of ether: ~$250. Want that building block? $1000/100 mg. How about that cell line? Thousands to priceless. Animals? 12 monkeys for $1.5 million (for a ****** job, too). It goes on and on. Clinical trials? Tens of millions +. Now account for the cost of 40,000+ employees, global manufacturing and distribution, marketing, a 20% preclinical success rate, and low clinical success rate (under 10%), and you have a recipe for high cost.

Those costs need to be recuperated, and the money stockpiled to pay for R&D and operations until the next big drug(s). Factor in VC wanting 300%+ returns in unreasonable timescales and you have a recipe for a fiscal *****torm. Believe it or not but us scientists are on your side -- most are in for the job, not the pay.

It's great you know the medical background of Type I Diabetes, my ex's brother in law is a VP at Medtronic, I have friends in the industry, it all boils down to what the pharmaceutical companies, etc want - money. There is more money in treating diseases than curing. Period.

Again with the "cure" word. Can't you read? Also, I don't consider Medtronic pharma -- they're a device company. Different ballgame entirely. Also read what I wrote above.

I sincerely hope you put down the tinfoil hat and consider the larger economic implications that give rise to the cost.

I appreciate your personal interest in this matter.

It's a bit more than personal interest... it's what puts the bread on the table.