[G. Adams]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Waychel,)
Quite frankly, I could care less if a company does not have saintly, philanthropic reasons for investing its own money into a specific criteria of medical research. If they expect to generate some return of investment, then that means another company will take a liking to the proposal too, investing money of its own into the same venture. The only people losing money are the companies and human beings will be the ones to gain from the developments and discoveries afterwards: Win-win.

Why should it matter whether a company funds AIDS research in the hope of getting some return of the profits invested sometime in the future? Shouldn't the only thing that matter be the cure or treatment that comes out in the end? You also seem to think that all scientists are business men, when in actuality they are normal men, simply with the conviction to help people. Not very many scientists live the high life.

If you think these "evil" corporations shouldn't fund their research, then once again, please feel free to do a better job of funding them yourselves. Your complaints are impractical.

Another thing to note is that literally billions of dollars have been poured into AIDS research since the 1980's and we're still far from having a cure. So really, there is no immediate return of profits when it comes to medical research and very little chance of gain in most cases when it comes to diseases and such. The real reason most companies invest their money to such causes is actually because they want to appear to have a "humanitarian" image. If they appear to be "giving back" something, the public has a warmer image of them and will have an inclination towards choosing their product(s) or buying more of them. So in most cases, these companies invest money into medical research not expecting a direct return in profits, but a boost in sales and public image as a result of the contribution.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

You've got it the wrong way round, if they were doing aids research for profit fine, but what is happening is they are NOT doing aids researchy because there is no profit. In these areas governments should be spending to support the researchers.

Money went into it in the 80's because westerners were frightened. Now its limited mostly to Africans, who cares?