Indeed. And like AIDS, it's overwhelmingly self-inflicted. Personally, I want to see my tax dollars focus on diseases that are not self-inflicted, and preferably federal tax dollars should only be spent on truly *public* health threats -- i.e. highly contagious diseases that threaten people going about their legitimate daily business -- these present issues of national security concern. It's not at all clear to me that the federal government has any business spending money on research for diseases which are unfortunate for the individuals who have them through no fault of their own, but pose no threat to the general public (though of course, as long as the federal government *is* funding that sort of research, the allocation of funding should reflect the number of people affected).
And just how big a threat is West Nile?
Pretty big, potentially, and a lot of the expense is to figure out how big, and under what circumstances, and in what locations. Its potential threat is pretty directly related to "global warming" and also to short-term local warming trends, but without regard to whether warming is human-caused. Studying the correlation could help ensure that preventative measures like spraying are done in areas where the expected weather forecast for the coming season is especially hospitable to mosquitoes. It's also worth studying what types of wildlife and livestock are affected.
While a lot of COPD is self-inflicted, not all of it is.
Nor does that account for those who are trying.
My f-i-l smoked for a while, not heavily and not long. He quit many years ago, but the damage was done and he is dying from emphysema.
So while it is true that it was self-inflicted, it isn’t like he didn’t do something about it. Besides, that was in the day when everyone was told that smoking didn’t harm anyone.
Sometimes people can be cut some slack.
The other thing is, the disparity between spending on COPD and other conditions, is way greater than can be justified, because even in many of those otehr conditions, cancer for example, much of that is self-inflicted through smoking, diet, lack of exercise, etc.
Making self-infliction a criteria for justifying spending is not good.
I’d hazard a guess that AIDS is far more self-inflicted than COPD.