Triumph and Tragedy
Industry growth mirrored innovation taking place in all aspects of understanding disease and ways to ameliorate it. All of this knowledge was needed to tackle the most deadly disease of modern times, HIV/AIDS. The surprisingly old history of a modern disease is related as well as the role that a key research organization, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), played in combatting the deadly virus. We also demonstrate how serendipity intervened in the form of a set of failed cancer medicines developed by a Detroit scientist years before AIDS was widely recognized. The discovery and advancement of pain-relieving medicines, from aspirin to Vioxx, is related. The triumphs and tragedies of these needed medicines fave rise to patient activism and critique of the FDA, some of which reflects an imbalance between resource availability and reactions to over- and under-regulation.