Researchers at Temple University in Philadelphia may have found
an entry-way to the cure for AIDS.
Once the HIV virus enters the body it can lie dormant for
years. It can also evolve into AIDS.
But, until now, it could never be removed.
It’s far too early to claim an AIDS cure—there still has to be
several years of clinical trials— but this may be as close to a solution as
scientists have come.
There can be a lot of politics in medical science, but the
researchers at least have the wisdom to know they must work together and focus
upon the people not the politics.
Even if there is a cure for AIDS, even if there are significant
advances in the treatment and cure of other communicable diseases, it may not
mean much if patients can’t get the medical treatment they need because
obstructionists are doing their best to separate the people from the solution.
Two hours west of Philadelphia is Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania
state capital. This is where Gov. Tom Corbett and his well-oiled legislature
shut down 15 of 60 public health clinics, have plans to shut down nine more to
“save” about $3 million a year, and laid off 73 nurses and support staff. In
July, the state Supreme Court issued an emergency injunction to prevent the
state from shutting down more health clinics, and is reviewing a petition to
force the administration to reopen the other clinics. Under the Corbett
administration, Pennsylvania ranks 43rd of 50 states in per capita public health spending, according to the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation. The governor also vetoed a budget item to spend $2 million
a year from tax revenue generated by oil and gas companies to do research about
the effects of fracking upon the people’s health, to provide health care
information, to treat those who may have been affected by air and water
pollution from fracking, and to establish a health care registry that would
help identify problems. But he was more than willing to give all kinds of tax
breaks to oil and gas companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, a foreign
corporation, which he handed a $1.7 billion tax credit. If the state taxed gas
extraction companies at a rate at least that of other states, there would be at
least another $500 million a year that could be used to help protect the
people’s health and their environment.
More than 50 times, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of
Representatives has tried to wipe the Affordable Care Act (ACA) off the books.
This quixotic mission will continue to fail for two reasons. First, the Supreme
Court of the United States, which has a majority of conservatives, ruled the
Act is constitutional. Second, all evidence shows the Act has led to better
health care and at least 2.3 million Americans covered who couldn’t get
insurance prior to the passage of the ACA. More than eight million Americans
have already signed up for ACA coverage, and are now receiving better health
care at lower insurance rates. Further, because of the ACA, more than 5.5
million senior citizens and disabled have saved about $4.5 billion on
prescription drugs in the past three years, according to the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. Fourteen “red” states have chosen not to be a part
of the ACA, their legislatures adamantly refusing to agree to anything that
President Obama has proposed, even if it means the people suffer. The impartial
Rand Corp. estimates these states will spend about $1 billion more taxpayer
funds than if they expanded Medicaid under ACA provisions. Because of their
refusal to agree to the ACA, almost four million residents of their states will
continue to be uninsured, forcing the state and hospitals to pay for emergency
medical care for low-income individuals. (In Pennsylvania, with a Republican
governor and legislature, if the state agreed to implement the ACA, the savings
would be about $600 million the first year.) However, the rabid Right Wing has
continued to sling a barrage of lies and half-truths, usually picked up,
channeled, and reported by the mass media. The time and money devoted to this
political gesturing by Right Wing politicians could better be spent on funding
research to find cures for Ebola, multiple sclerosis, numerous forms of
cancers, and dozens of other life-threatening diseases.
This is the same Congress that had blocked funding to improve
the VA system, while spending $3 million this year alone to investigate what
they have created as the Benghazi Scandal. It’s already been investigated and
re-investigated. Senior military commanders and impartial diplomats have already
told the truth, but the House still wants to throw out its chest and throw a
junior-high tantrum. Think of what that $3 million can do to help the nation’s
homeless, about one-fourth of them veterans.
Members of Congress believe they have to travel all over the
world on what they call “fact-finding tours.” These tours often find facts in
tropical island nations. And now, thanks
to a decision by the apparently misnamed House Ethics Committee, members of
Congress don’t even have to report if their trips were funded by lobbyists. Think
of what several million more dollars can do to help improve the health of the
impoverished rather than help members of Congress get sun tans.
It’s just politics. But, how many more will suffer and die from
our misguided priorities.
[Dr.
Brasch’s latest book is Fracking
Pennsylvania, which looks at the health, environmental, economic, and
political effects from fracking.]
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