Rent-seeking in the modern pharmaceutical market

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AIDS is not 'autoimmune diseases'. It stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It is most definitely not related to treatments for autoimmune diseases, which generally involve suppressing the (over)action of the immune system in some way.

Rather, AIDS is the collection of symptoms and diseases that typically arise following an untreated HIV infection, mostly as a result of the completely absent immune system in untreated HIV-infected patients. It was first described when physicians noticed groups of young, otherwise healthy patients coming into the hospital with extremely rare or unlikely diseases. Eventually, the cause of AIDS was proven to be the destruction of the immune system secondary to infection with the newly discovered HIV retrovirus.

Fuzzy's point is that one of the largest current-day patient populations that need drugs to treat toxoplasmosis infection are those suffering from AIDS (toxo is rarely dangerous except in people with compromised immune systems). Thus, it is hardly a misnomer (though certainly less than precise) to call the drug in question an 'AIDS drug', though it can obviously be used to treat toxo infections in the broader population.

And my point is that illness, and patients' ability to pay, too often drives public health initiatives and national funding.

"Acquired" illnesses usually blame the patient, and not their employers, as some genetic experiment.