Can anyone asnwer me why more genetic diseases can't be cured in this day and age?

Question

I know there is so much research that has been done on the Human Genome. There are so many fundraisers, telethons for disease, etc. You never hear of a PERMANENT cure for anything. Are medical doctors that greedy that they want you to come back forever being treated for the same condition?

Answer 1

There is no money in the cure, the profit is in the treatment.

Answer 2

Lots of reasons for this one.
1) It's easy to find the cause of some genetic disorders because only one gene is defective. But for many many genetic diseases, more than one gene can be affected and it has different defects in different people. The way the genes are regulated (turned on, off or how much they are turned on) depends on many variables too. It takes a lot of money and time in the laboratory to sort it all out.

2) Even if you find that a certain genetic disease is caused by a single defect in a single gene (the simplest kind to fix), it may take years to develop a treatment that works and is safe enough to use. Also keep in mind that taking a drug cannot change your genes and so there is no such thing as a cure for genetic diseases (with the exception of #3 below) After all you're stuck with the genes you're born with.

3) Scientists and Doctors are working together to insert a correct copy of a gene into people with a defective gene. If can work, it would be a cure.
But this has been really hard because sometimes you have trouble getting the gene to get inside the patient's cells and insert into the right part of your genes. If the gene does get inside, it's hard to turn on the gene so that it starts making the right protein. It can also be hard to get the gene to make the right amount of protein. There is also the pesky problem of turning on the right genes without turning on the wrong genes (like those that can lead to cancer) by mistake. But they are still working on it. It takes thousands of scientists using millions of dollars of equipment and materials all trying different things to finally hit on something that works.
Stem cell transplants are kind of the same concept (putting in cells full of good copies of genes to replace the patient's bad genes).

4) Usually doctors and scientists WANT to discover a cure because it means a) they become famous for discovering the cure, b) they advance their careers, c) they get more money to do more research and find more cures.
Keep in mind that most of the doctors that do research are not the same doctors that actually treat the patients with the genetic disorder.

Answer 3

Genetic diseases are just that, GENETIC-which means they are coded for in your DNA. That means you may be able to treat them, if a compound has been found to be effective. The only way that you could cure it is if, through genetic manipulation (which is in its very early stages and has many ethical problems) in which you insert a "normal" piece of DNA to replace the faulty one. However, that new recombinant DNA would then have to be reproduced by all the cells of the body. Basically, it is simply not possible with the technology we currently have, and may never be possible.
The fundraisers are generally raising money either for research into better treatments or into actually supplying the drugs to people that can't afford them.

Answer 4

I think you have a real cheek to blame pharmaceutical companies for conspiring not to have a cure for the common cold just because you don't feel well. The common cold is caused by a virus - there are in actual fact very, very few anti viral medicines about and they are not easy to research and make. Add to that, the cold virus changes all the time (thats why we keep getting colds, we have resistance to the last cold virus we had but not to the changed one). Millions are spent changing the flu vaccine every year because of these sorts of changes but that can be a very serious disease, unlike a cold. By the way, don't hold your breath for an AIDS "cure". Same principle applies but thank god that virus changes slowly so that existing drugs research is just about keeping up.

Answer 5

If you ask me, I would very much like to know the "universal drug" that would cure all diseases; but sad to say that there's none that I have heard of. You have to remember that research takes time and effort and most importantly great minds...not to mention money. A deficiency in any one of them could result in researches that would most likely be in vain.

While other diseases are treatable and/or curable, genetic diseases are the ones that always end up in vain when it comes to curing them; the most that medicine can do when facing genetic diseases, at least with the non-lethal ones like sickle-cell anemia, is treat them...curing such diseases comes next to impossible since your genes are the blue print of what a person will become. Meaning if, for example, cystic fibrosis has been mapped in a persons human genome, that person would most likely not survive in his teens since that person's genes cannot be altered.

Here is where stem cell genetics research comes in, where physical manipulation of a fertilized egg's genes is but one part of the whole picture...the problem comes with society's moral issues regarding this. So even if there is a way to eliminate diseases, somehow, it is us people who deprive ourselves with the chance to do so...although we cannot blame other people for having various ideas about treatment and research.

Answer 6

Well to make a long story short, it's very expensive and intense work. Not only that, but it is kinda hard to get funding when a good chunk of the population is totally against what you're doing. I personally am fine with manipulating DNA so long as it is only to cure people.

Answer 7

I agree and I felt the same way long time ago. The medical researches usually funded by government grants, yet many private fundraisers always running into some kind of frenzy and thinking they are doing a great noble deed.

In fact, the research results, if any, when used by the hospitals and doctors, you still have to empty your bank account to pay for it.

Average hospital stay is over $1500/night, and after you get out, you ended up with 40K to 200K bills.

I always tell the volunteers for cancer fund raising my deep feeling of this irreverency in the medical system of America.

People are so chicken and afraid of death, when it come to medical, they immediately lower themselves below human level.

Have some back bones, America !!

Answer 8

Genetic diseases are best treated by stem cell therapy.Stem cell research is facing teething troubles, medical,ethical and legal. Other modes of therapy are less useful and more expensive.