# It's the Twenty Fucking First Century, So Why CAN'T We Cure the Common Cold? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 16, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-twenty-fucking-first-century-so-why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold/384410 "2006-12-16T17:09:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-twenty-fucking-first-century-so-why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold/384410/61 "2007-01-10T14:35:48Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] **No one** has ever been rushed to the hospital because their nutsack suddenly exploded and has been told that they have a cold. [/QUOTE] reminds me of the informary at college. The joke was, no matter what you walked in with, you left with Cepacol lozenges and Advil. ---
**Author:** ![Greebo\_Ogg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19adc/32.png) [@Greebo\_Ogg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greebo_Ogg)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-twenty-fucking-first-century-so-why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold/384410/62 "2007-01-10T15:35:15Z")
[QUOTE=Jake] Coxsackieviruses? Some kind of Chinese STD virus? 😃 [/QUOTE] I think that’s the on that causes… [QOUTE=Tuckerfan]…been rushed to the hospital because their nutsack suddenly exploded and has been told that they have a cold. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-twenty-fucking-first-century-so-why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold/384410/63 "2007-01-10T15:48:29Z")
[QUOTE=Polerius] You’re willing to suffer for a whole week for $50? I’d be surprised if many people in the developed world would put $50 above a week’s sufferring. [/QUOTE] I’ve LOST more than $50 this week because I have a cold. Had to cancel over $200 worth of child care jobs because I don’t want to get their babies sick. My husband missed two days of his work last week when he had it, so as a household we’re out way more than $50. Not to mention probably $25 or so I’ve spent on OTC symptom relief that isn’t working anyway. And I’m pretty sure I’ve now got an opportunistic bronchitis that pleasegod let it be bacterial (no crackling, but thick and pus filled with wheezing and a low grade fever), so I have to go spend money on a doc visit and antibiotics for that today. Wouldn’t have \*that \*if the cold had been stopped on day one or two. Yeah, I’d pay at least $50 for a cold cure. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-twenty-fucking-first-century-so-why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold/384410/64 "2007-01-10T16:09:56Z")
[QUOTE=Harmonix] I’d be willing to bet 100$ that many viruses have ZERO percent sequence homology(sequence sameness). This is because Viruses aren’t all evolved from some common ancestor like the great majority of organisms alive today. Viruses are simple enough that they have spontaneously come into existance many many times over the history of life. No evolutionary history means no reason for them to have similar sequences/modes of action etc. [/quote] Except Mother Nature _is_ a lazy bitch and a number of species have been found to have developed identical or nearly identical solutions to problems even though they’re seperated by vast distances and have no common ancestor. > [@](#): > > However, even if they all had a magical sequence in common so what? How’re you going to even target that sequence? The mammalian immune system can’t even do that and it has been fighting diseases for over 200 million years. Gee, I don’t know. I mean the immune system has been fighting things like cancer and we’ve not been able to do anything about that. Oh, wait. . . > [@](#): > > Theres plenty of non-specific antiviral chemicals out there. The problem is that they’ll kill you just as easily as they’ll kill your cold. Even the Anti-aids antivirals they have cytotoxic. They just happen to kill you slower then AIDS will. Therefore it makes sense to use them. And last time I checked, the pharma companies were _still_ researching for better ones, not resting on their laurels. Just because we don’t have the perfect treatment today, doesn’t mean we won’t have it tomorrow. > [@](#): > > um mice have an HIV analog, It’s called MIV. Right, so as long as we slap a rubber on our willy before we have sex with mice, we should be okay. > [@](#): > > Actually Smallpox was so easily eliminated because it DOESN’T mutate. Smallpox was so highly conserved that any deviation from it’s sequence pretty much made it inviable. Given that the first vaccines for smallpox appeared in the 1800s, but it took us until the 20th Century to wipe it out, I wouldn’t say that it was “easy.” It took a concerted effort by the developed nations to get the vaccine out there and wipe the disease out. We’re now attempting the same thing with polio. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-twenty-fucking-first-century-so-why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold/384410.md?page=3)