Child cured of HIV

At what point do we say no to mother's giving birth with known illnesses that are hereditary?

On the one hand we have an NHS budget, on the other we have many irresponsible parents having children that they could not financially support themselves and take up a higher percentage of the budget which is finite.
 
Way too many people in the world already so I never see the point in finding out all these new medicines to make people live longer.

Just let people die unbtil we can work out how to live sustainably.

I contradictorily include myself in this though I have the option to stop taking my meds. If they didn't give me the meds I would be dead and less of a burden on the planet.
 
arknor said:
Bet it won't work on everyone either.

Isn't there a lot of stages to HIV before it becomes full blown aids? and many people live fairly normal lives with HIV these days pretty long ones to
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The difference between HIV and AIDS is simply down to the level of immune system - the HIV virus slowly damages production of CD4 cells which are instrumental in our immune system defence; once the count of CD4 cells goes below a certain level, this can be classified as a patient entering into AIDS.
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) itself is simply an overall description for the symptoms caused by the HIV virus.

Current retro-viral medication has come along way in the last 10 years to the point where HIV is no longer considered a terminal disease but a critical one. As long as the virus does not build up an immunity to a patient's drugs (of which there are several combinations available) a patient could expect to live as long as someone without the virus.
 
TommyV said:
Should they be doing this? Imagine if HIV/Cancer/Aids/Any terminal illness was all cured and we get to a point where only old age is incurable?

How long would it be before the world becomes ever more populated and the global resources cannot cope with the influx of such a population increase?
By curing this kind of illness we are effectively giving two fingers to human nature and natural selection??

Obviously at a personal level it is gut wrenching knowing a family member/friend has cancer etc, and I've had a family member in the past who had cancer so can relate, I'm not completely heartless!
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Whilst I can see your theoretical viewpoint, can you imagine anyone (except Hitler or a similar dictator) ever actually trying to enshrine that kind of policy in law?
 
Let's see how the long-term survival rate of this is. Because every other program that uses a similar methodology seems to indicate that the expected lifespan may have been better if they had HIV and didn't have the treatment.
 
Treating people with anti-retrovirals can and does prolong life. If the pregnant mother is taking these drugs it is entirely possible that a baby could be born hiv negative or even if they are born positive with some potent post prophylaxis exposure treatment they could be rid of hiv permanently. Does not seem to work that way with adults though unless they have just exposed themselves to the virus in which case ppe may work but for those who are already positive there is little hope in the foreseeable future of a permanent "cure" for one there is not the "will" .
 
TommyV said:
Should they be doing this? Imagine if HIV/Cancer/Aids/Any terminal illness was all cured and we get to a point where only old age is incurable?
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Old age might be curable too. Our bodies are self-repairing and able to make replacement parts, so it's theoretically possible to either improve that ability or to augment it with technology (or both) to such an extent that people age far more slowly and possibly even not age at all.

How long would it be before the world becomes ever more populated and the global resources cannot cope with the influx of such a population increase?
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I think it wouldn't make all that much of a difference if people did still die of old age. Disease isn't placing a limit on human population. It's just slowing the increase and not by all that much as far as I know. Whether or not disease existed, humans would still face global overpopulation sooner or later and have to deal with it in some way. Prosperity seems to work best - wealthy countries have smaller average family sizes and without mass immigration have populations that are stable or even shrinking.

By curing this kind of illness we are effectively giving two fingers to human nature and natural selection??
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Hominids have been giving two fingers to natural selection since before humans even existed. As soon as the first hominid made the first tool, they were giving two fingers to natural selection because tools provide a way to survive and breed more successfully than natural conditions.

All that's changed since is how powerful our tools are, i.e. how forcefully we can back up our two-fingered salute to natural selection. We fart in its general direction :)

Alternatively, you could say that tool use and intelligence are natural to humans and that therefore anything that comes as a result is itself natural and therefore part of natural selection.

Human nature is a different question...but what is human nature? People usually use the phrase to mean "whatever I approve of", as a false appeal to authority. Maybe it's human nature to use intelligence and an aptitude for tool use to forge our own future on our own terms. Maybe it's human nature to change human nature. Maybe there's no such thing as human nature.

Obviously at a personal level it is gut wrenching knowing a family member/friend has cancer etc, and I've had a family member in the past who had cancer so can relate, I'm not completely heartless!
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Sad for the child but had my doubts at the time, it can hide itself away in the body to quite an extreme extent that its almost impossible to say for sure someone is cured.
 
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