Okay, let’s see…the AIDS cocktail costs $10,000 to $12,000 per year. The typical AIDS cocktail patient can survive for…20 years? 30? 50? Who knows? The disease isn’t that old yet. But AIDS generally afflicts young adults, so we’re talking a potential lifetime of consistent income.
An AIDS vaccine would cost…how much? $50 to $100 would be my guess (any more than that, and the drug companies would be accused of price gouging.) Plus you’ve got the very loud & obnoxious anti-vax crowd to deal with, so you’re NOT going to get 100% sell-through…perhaps only those people at high risk for catching the illness, and maybe not even all of them. Sure, you’ll get moral props for eradicating one of the most feared and deadliest viruses in human history, but that sort of accolade doesn’t always prop up the bottom line. From the viewpoint of a multinational corporation in a capitalistic economy, the numbers don’t add up – it’s clear which procedure produces maximum profit.