On September 9, 2016, Aethlon Medical released the following note authored by the company’s chairman and CEO, James Joyce: After a seven-week vacation, the U.S. Congress and Senate returned to work on Tuesday and immediately restarted the fight to advance a Zika virus funding program. Beyond normal political posturing, government officials face the dilemma of whether to allocate resources to support the advancement of traditional drugs and vaccines or emerging broad-spectrum therapies. As it relates to viral pandemics, there is often an assumptive complacency that drug and vaccine cures are just a matter of spending sufficient capital resources. In reality, the effort to align a disease-specific drug or vaccine with an emerging pandemic threat is immensely challenging and not often successful, especially in the case of a virulent pathogen that may prohibit human studies from being conducted to demonstrate treatment efficacy. Emerging pandemics represent significant threats to mankind and Zika is just one of many active pathogen threats not addressed with a traditional drug and vaccine. Beyond pathogens known to be infectious to man, a proliferation of international travel, urban crowding, and global warming are expected to accelerate the emergence of new pandemic threats in the future. Then, there is the issue of pathogens created and released by man as agents of bioterrorism. Our government has an opportunity to inspire the biotechnology industry to fuel innovation through the development of broad-spectrum treatment countermeasures that can cross the boundaries of treating different strains, species, and families of life-threatening viral pathogens. The facts underlying the challenge of aligning a disease-specific drug or vaccine with each pathogen threat reinforces the need for broad-spectrum therapeutic innovation.
Login Or Register To Read Full Story