Science20, 22 April 2014

Do we spend too much on HIV/AIDS research?

I ask this question, but do not plan to give an answer. It is an open-ended question of mine because,as a biomedical scientist, I am trying to understand the philosophy of how government decides to spend money.

Most biomedical scientists receive funding from the National Institutes of Health(NIH). For 2014, the government wants to allocate 2,722 million dollars for HIV/AIDS research. Based on the number of people living withHIV/AIDS, the government plans to spend ~$2500 dollars per person per year in2014.

If one looks at deaths, it isabout $180,000 per death per year in 2014. Another way to look at it is per new cases, which is $54,000 per newcase per year. For the most part,HIV/AIDS is a preventable disease in the United States. Yes, women who are raped would not beconsidered in this group. I am notcertain how many women in the United States contract the disease each yearbecause of rape, but ~20% of new cases are in heterosexual women each year.

These data are likely very different inAfrica, but the focus of this discussion is the United States.

So, in comparison, how much does NIH spend onother preventable diseases? Well, themost similar preventable disease is lung cancer due to smoking. Currently, (for the most recent year I couldfind data, which is 2012) NIH spends $314 million on lung cancer. Based on the number of deaths by lung cancer(159,260), the NIH spends $1971 per death per year. Based on the number of new cases (224,210),the NIH spends $1400 per year per new case. Contrast this with HIV/AIDS, and the NIH spends 38 times more money onHIV/AIDS based on new cases and 130 times more based on deaths per year.

The interesting thing here is deaths becauseit would appear that medicine is doing a better job at preventing HIV/AIDSdeaths compared to lung cancer deaths. Thisis most likely due to the difficulty in treating HIV/AIDS vs lung cancer.

It would be cynical to suggest it is due toless money being spent on lung cancer. Again, this is all rhetorical. It's just interesting.

By Matthew Lazenka

Source: Science20