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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 13 2018, @12:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the end-of-an-epidemic dept.

Bill Gates gave an address at J.P. Morgan's 36th Annual Healthcare Conference in San Francisco:

[There] is reason to hope that the insights uncovered in ongoing immunotherapy research for cancer will eventually help us control all infectious diseases. This would be a huge victory for humanity—and potentially a significant market for the life sciences.

Others seem to think so too. Venture capitalists like Bob Nelsen and Bob More have helped raise over $500 million for VIR Biotechnology—including funding from us—to discover and develop treatments for serious infectious diseases.

We are also investors in Immunocore, which is using T-cell technology to help stimulate the body's immune system. Initially, Immunocore's "T-cell receptor" technology targeted cancers, but it could also be applied against infectious diseases.

We are backing companies like CureVac and Moderna on mRNA approaches for vaccine and drug development, which have the potential to help us tackle cancer. This approach is also intriguing as a potential immunological intervention for HIV, malaria, flu and the Zika virus.

And mRNA vaccines are likely to be cheaper, easier, and faster to make than traditional vaccines. This would be particularly helpful in containing epidemics—whether they occur through nature or are the result of an intentional biological attack. Today, it typically takes up to 10 years to develop and license a new vaccine. To significantly curb deaths from a fast-moving airborne pathogen, we would have to get that down considerably—to 90 days or less.

Also at NBF.

Related: Bill Gates Commits $100 Million to Alzheimer's Research


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @12:54AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @12:54AM (#621627)

    The Wealthy Elite are the Healthy Elite. The rest of you poor people, fucking die and reduce the excess population.

    - TheMightyBuzzard

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:03AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:03AM (#621640)

    Which is why modern society promotes pollution (with the climate change debate centered only on CO2 as a smokescreen). Future plebeians in need of therapy to overcome pollution, of 34 distinct genders using artificial wombs to procreate, fighting each other to a chance of a work, moving with self driving gizmos, under 24h precrime surveillance, are, shall we say, unlikely to cause problems.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:29AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:29AM (#621643)

      fighting each other to a chance of a work, [...] unlikely to cause problems.

      The trolling will continue until I find a job to occupy my time. Until then, fuck NiggeryBuzzard, fuck DickNiggerCrawford, fuck RunawayNigger, fuck NiggerCommander, and fuck you.

      Eternal Death to SoylentNews.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:12AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:12AM (#621692)

        Wot? Eth got his anti-semitic racist ass fired, and is posting AC?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:02AM (#621688)

      I think I'm closer to understanding. Thank you for explaining.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:17AM (2 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:17AM (#621667) Journal

    Actually, throughout most of history, those who could afford medical "treatment" died much more quickly than the poors who had to just "walk it off". Leeches, and bloodletting were common. Probably killed Rene Descartes. Physicians used to have a coat, and the coat had two pockets. One pocket held a bottle of Laudanaum, Tincture of Opium. The other held a bottle of sublimate of Mercury. If the patient had dysentary, a bit of Laudanuam. Tighten you right up, as every Heroin addict knows. If the patient was constipated, nothing like Mercury poisoning to loosen the bowels. But, like I said, if you could afford a "doctor", you probably were dead.

    On the other hand, if you were poor, and you survived the sickness, guess what? Natural immunity!! Evidence-based medicine has changed all this, so the rich now survive, as do others. Fortunately, the CDC has now banned the term "evidence-bassed medicine", so perhaps we can start killing off the rich by means of medical treatment again, in the near future.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday January 13 2018, @12:19PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 13 2018, @12:19PM (#621770) Journal

      Fortunately, the CDC has now banned the term "evidence-bassed medicine", so perhaps we can start killing off the rich by means of medical treatment again, in the near future.

      Wishful thinking, magister... a very interesting one, but still wishful thinking.
      For example, take Apple's Steve J... oh, wait... maybe there is something to your theory, maybe indeed Bill Gates paid the doctors to eliminate competition (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:13PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:13PM (#621929) Journal

      CDC has now banned the term "evidence-bassed medicine",

      So is it now called "evidence-baritoned", "evidence-tenored" or "evidence-countertenored"?

      Or maybe it was due to gender issues, and now it's called "evidence-contraltoed"?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.