August 20, 2006
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SUNDAY GOOD NEWSRight on the heels of Bill Gates Foundation funding research into microbicides women can use to protect against HIV, China announced yesterday that initial test results of its first AIDS vaccine showed it could protect people against the HIV virus. Around 650,000 people in China have the HIV virus, but the rate of infections is rising rapidly. None of the participants in the clinical trial’s first phase showed severe adverse reactions after 180 days and some showed immunity to the HIV-1 virus 15 days after receiving the vaccine, the State Food and Drug Administration said. However, testing to ensure the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness could take years. Now here’s an interesting quote from this article. “China’s research into AIDS vaccines has been going on for 15 years but the country does not have the intellectual property rights over its AIDS vaccines in trial and the research has limited global influence, the report said.” What in the heck does “intellectual property rights” mean does anybody know? The only time in my life that I have been in a hospice facility was to visit a friend dying of AIDS 20 years ago and as of 2005 more than 30 million others had died of the virus. And today we’re still talking “intellectual property rights?!! Go China is all I have to say.
Deep Thought: “One thing a computer can do that most humans can’t is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.”
Today I am grateful for: Optimism wherever I can find it
Guess the Movie: “You’re a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses.” Answer: Chinatown, 1974.
Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
This Is Not Your Parents’ Solar System
John Johnson Jr., Times Staff Writer
August 20, 2006
Question: What is a planet?
Answer: Something round that orbits a star, according to the new definition proposed last week by the International Astronomical Union. In the case of our solar system, that star is the sun. (Rest of article here.)
Comments (25)
Jeez…”we” are so wrapped up in our “intellect” that we can’t figure out how to do what’s right…can’t see the forest for the trees comes to mind here!
hi mom
politics is basically what causes so much time in these things…it’s terrible. There could have been a lot more advances if the red tape didn’t exist.
another reason to like china, other than their visually appealing apartments.
i am begining to be more and more impressed with Bill.
And “Go Madonna” with AIDS awareness tour.
DITTO! Bravo! and all that!
I happen to work in insurance and let me tell you…intellectual property rights are a big deal. ::sigh:: Don’t you wish we were all in it for…each other?
That might be too…radical, though. :-/
That quote sounds like it might be from Chinatown.
Chinatown – formidable!
Intellectual property rights are basically about who owns an idea when people collaborate or work in employer-employee relationships. A good example…
A theatre company keeps a resident playwright in staff. While on staff, the theatre asks the playwright to write a play or the playwright proposes to write a play which is intended for production in the theatre’s coming season. It’s written by the playwright for the theatre. But to whom do the rights belong? The playwright wrote it, so s/he can claim the rights. But the theatre paid him/her to write it, so they can also claim the rights.
A scientist invents something while working for a company…is the invention his or does it belong to the company? He created it..but he did so while on the company’s payroll.
I think they’re saying that the government funded research performed by individual companies or scientists…and that the government itself does not hold the rights to the discovery…so it could be up for sale by whomever might have come up with it – in which case it could be sold off to another country and not provided to China at all.
The intellectual property issues probably mean that China has no equivalent to a patent. Chinese regularly violate intellectual property of all sorts, mostly techincal. This includes trade secrets, patents, and copyrights.
intellectual property = they get residuals from ever vaccine ever sold from now till the end of time
amazing how money enters into everything.
In my opinion, intellectual property rights don’t have a place in the discussion about protecting people from HIV. Sadly, in this country, most the time, it is all about the $$$$$$$$$.
I agree with Clog..I really wouldn’t be suprised if there was more collaboration and less feet drsagging and competition that we actually could have a cure.
If this disease primarily affected the heterosexual white caucasion male in statstics, instead of what it actually is, my gut tells me yeah it be tottally different
Intellectual property rights are basically patenting your ideas so no one else can use them to profit. The idea is that if you can protect someone’s intellectual property, then that would be an incentive for creativity. Because they would be able to come up with the idea, make it, and profit off of it, rather than do all the legwork, and have someone copy and profit.
Actually, it was a birthday party for Clawingbear. YAY!
I think the quote sums it up nicely too.
Have a beautiful day!
That was a really hard movie to guess. So familiar, so elusive. I’ll have to read that article, but I understand intellectual property rights and the connection to profit. It’s expensive to develop medical cures and vaccines. It’s not like you can wish really hard and you get a cure. But it’s sad when life and death comes down to money.
Pish posh about rights let’s just save some people.
Thanks so much for your comment. I will pass it on to Craig. He’s a machinist and it is not unusual for him to lift things that way hundreds of pounds or climbing up into the wind tunnel to work on or install parts. In an odd sort of way maybe this is a good thing because he’s really felt like he’s needed some down time from work. He’s really lucky where he works in that he never loses sick time and he’s acquired over 800 hours so we don’t have to worry about finances while he is off.
He’ll be happy to hear the part about being in and out of the hospital so quickly. He has no desire to be there and we just remember years ago when his dad had it done that he was in the hospital for a week. So I really appreciate that tid bit of info.
Thanks!
sounds like they’re on the ball, it’s time to get the treatment out there once and for all!
Yeah, what is intellectual property rights and do I need a lawyer to buy some?
Please world, get with it, without the complications and blather of officialdom, find the cure for what ails so many of us, AIDS or whatever, and make us healthy.
Poor Pluto never gets any respect.
It seems that human life is worth nothing in this world, unless your born into money. It’s funny that a country like China, with its horrible human rights record is in the lead for a cure for AIDS. Profit is a great motivator, but I have great doubt that China’s goverment is motivated by compassion. May the world grow in its desire to stomp out dis-ease…especially in regards to alienation and a lack of compassion.
If theres intellectual property rights on a treatment or vaccine for AIDS I hope every scientist in the world violates them. Anyway, can there be such a thing in a communist society? (just thot of that) Kev