This article has also been posted at Heluim.com

The next time you hear a company say that there recent "treatment" is one step closer to a "cure", You should consider the fallowing ...

First a question. What is the basic necessity that a company needs in order to survive? The answer should be obvious. To turn a profit. Without turning a profit a company can go bankrupt. Without turning a profit, a company cannot hope to out sell, out market, and do more research then there competitors. Having said that. The following paragraph is why a pharmaceutical company is not necessarily interested in finding cures for diseases.

Say a company named "Cure Corp." developed the cure for aids while there competitors were only selling treatments. Suddenly the competing companies that sell treatments, would lose there market selling there treatments and have to move on to other diseases to provide treatments for. Hence why would some one continue to spend money on a treatment when they could buy the cure.

In one short paragraph I have summed up a very strong argument towards why pharmaceutical companies are not interested in finding cures for diseases. Pharmaceutical companies are not like other companies, if all they sold were cures the world may be a better place, but the pharmaceutical companies would also cease to exist.

By developing cures for diseases a company is in effect not selling the cure, but committing corporate suicide. That is to say that by selling the cure for aids Cure Corp. would be reducing it's customer base, intern reducing it's revenues, intern making it harder to compete with rival companies selling treatments for other diseases. Yes, Cure Corp. sells treatments for other diseases, but because it has sold off part of it's customer base with the cure for aids, it has left itself and all the other companies who sold treatments for aids, with less income, to produce those other treatments.

From a financial standpoint, finding cures for diseases is virtual means to an end. You have to question what kind of stock holders would put there money into a company that produces a product that would ultimately reduce it's profit's and result in the company filing for bankruptcy and shutting down.

And yes there will almost always be some kind of disease to be "cured" but without a treatment system that the infected person continually has to purchase. A company will only sell it's cure here and there as the disease pops up.

Now this brings up another very important realization because the reverse is also true. It is also in a pharmaceutical companies best interest to find out the different ways that aids can be cured. By having that knowledge Cure Corp. can then ensure that the scientists and researchers that it has hired is kept from discovering that cure.

That may sound counter intuitive, or not make any sense, so I will attempt to explain further. First a question. "That's ridiculus! How can a pharmaceutical company discover the cure for aids and nobody outside the company, except for a select few, knows about it." And to answer this I will site the case of Jeffrey Wigand. Jeffrey Wigand was a scientist working for a big tobacco company Brown & Williamson, and was whistle blower to the on goings inside that company.

You see the thing about large corporate entities like pharmaceutical companies is that in order to work for them it's a safe bet that you need to sign a contract stating that you will not disclose any "trade secrets" you make for the company. And that doing so would result in a loss of pension, wages, and even a lawsuit filed against you for supposed damages done to the company.

It is for these reasons as well a others, that would allow companies to supress and control any information leaking outside the company. Fear and intimidation tactics.

Aids is an interesting selection for a disease and it was selected for a very specific reason. HAART "cocktails". HAART stands for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy. ( see Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy and Aids Treatment )

The interesting thing about a HAART cocktail treatment system is that it relies on three or so different drugs being taken by the patient. Not one, not two, but three. Now let's consider for a moment that all three of these drugs was produced by a single drug company. This may in fact be true, but I have not done the research that would prove or disprove this. We are simply going to suppose that is is true for the sake of argument.

If you were the president an CEO of a pharmaceutical company and you had share holders to appease, what could you do to increase your profits and intern your share holders stock values. Well, you could direct the scientists and researchers in your company towards producing three kinds of drugs for treating aids. Hence tripling your profits, because each drug is purchased separately and marketed separately by the company. Now ask your self what company, who have stock holders to appease, would want to put more money and research into consolidating those three drugs down into one drug for treating aids. Because if you were to do that it would also mean reducing the companies profits by up to two thirds. Something tells me that upon the announcement that the company will be consolidating there three drugs down into one and that they would be intentionally reducing it's profits by up to two thirds, the stock holders would be in there right mind to sell there stocks.

You see the problem with stocks is that they are inherently designed to prey upon peoples greed. And as such any attempt by the company to reduce it's profits or in someway reduce the value of it's stock is most often met with a refusal by the stock holders to participate in that action. The major reason a individual invests in stocks is to get something out of them. IE: Turn a profit.

I do not assume to know the intricacies between a companies profits and a companies stock value. But I think as a rule it is generally considered to be linked in some way. This article is is intended to get you to think beyond the ideals of pharmaceutical companies to come up with cures for diseases, and to take a more realistic, and in depth approach to thinking about today's current situation toward cures for diseases.

So the next time you see or read about a new breakthrough in medicine, try to pay attention to how they choose there words. Do they say "cure", or do they say "treatment"? And ask yourself weather or not you truly believe that the company will one day sell a "Cure". And take the time to consider what would happen if that company actually offered a cure.