[DoreenMichele]

The featured article contains mixed messages:

It is hoped the drug — which is not a cure but will make the condition much less painful for sufferers — could also be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and chemotherapy-induced pain in the future.

As a writer myself who has watched journalism dying, crap articles being written by underpaid freelancers, the enshitification of the internet while everyone objects to any means used to monetize content creation, etc ad nauseum, I don't really feel like trying to figure out just how much this "really does" for patients.

The medical industry in the US tends to be about profit and I think people should, in fact, profit for their work but in medicine sometimes profit motive tosses the baby out with the bathwater. And I'm super burned out on trying to have any kind of meaningful discussion of that issue online.

[LoganDark]

"not a cure" means that if you stop taking the drug, the condition comes back, at least as far as I can tell. Which checks out given the other information given by the article.

[DoreenMichele]

Well, going off that, it sounds to me like it's probably mostly pain relief and probably doesn't meaningfully regenerate tissue.

[LoganDark]

I thought tissue degeneration was part of the issue here? Having regenerated tissue doesn't necessarily help if you stop taking the drug and the tissue just goes away again.

(It sounds weird to me that tissue can just disappear from that area so I think this might be wrong?)

[DoreenMichele]

If tissue gets regenerated, it shouldn't "just go away again" once you stop the drug unless perhaps there is an unidentified pathological process involved.

[LoganDark]

yeah, I too find it weird to imagine that tissue can just disappear from the inside of a joint. where would it even go? does it melt into the bloodstream or something? lmao