Title says it all. One caveat: It must be a real disease that actively causes problems. Please refrain from posting fictional/nonexistent/extinct diseases.

What counts as diseases in this topic?
-Infections
-Parasites
-Harmful genetic mutations
-Environmentally acquired chronic syndromes
-Autoimmune disorders
-Deformations caused by biochemical errors

What does not count?
-Physical injuries (as a general rule, a "broken" anything does not count)
-Any non-serious perceived mental condition that wouldn't qualify for hospitalization.
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I will start by suggesting that the flu be removed from existence. Why?

Because the flu is dangerous, causes a lot of problems, and can't be countered effectively.

There are 4 main types of infectious disease transmission:

Blood-transmitted: Easiest type of disease to avoid. With few rare exceptions, if you avoid doing stupid things, you likely will never get a blood-transmitted disease.

Food/Water-transmitted: In the developed world, these are easy to prevent. Practice proper food sanitation, wash/sanitize hands before heating, know your food sources, cook food properly, suppress rodent populations, etc.

Contact-transmitted: Avoid physical contact (including handshakes), wear long sleeves and long pants.

Airborne: Can't be countered in practice. The only ways to prevent an airborne disease are:
-Live in isolation as a hermit. No visitors allowed.
-Filter or irradiate incoming air; wear an exo-suit for life
-Stop breathing.

The flu can hide in many types of animals, notably birds and pigs, so even if you stamp out the flu from the human population, it can always remix its genome in wild birds and pigs and come back anyway. Globalization makes it even easier for the flu to spread.

tl;dr; the flu is the most dangerous disease in existence because it can't be countered or prevented with modern technology.

And, on yearly basis, keeps your immune system on the edge and prepares it to fend off more serious illnesses.

Probably HIV - it kills slow enough to get chance of contracting a good amount of people, while crippling its victim for life. Very silently.

AIDS

WANKERS!

_ because they are wankers and qualify under each and every count - particularly as its a mental condition that not only qualifies for hospitalisation, but also causes it.

What pray tell is a non serious mental condition? Why would mental conditions not be able to be cured? Why can't I say severe OCD? That condition can be debilitating. You are trivializing a branch if medicine that already has enough problems. Things like this make people with depression and other mental disorders feel that their condition isn't as important as a more physically appreciated one is.

Good question. Bi-Polar (just to name one) is not a joke; it can be horrifically debilitating and require much in the way of hospitalization.
And in the same arena, wouldn't drug addiction/alcoholism, which in many cases do require hospitalization, be considered serious?

the answer is wankers - as above! ;)

(i thought the same, so wankers must be the answer!)

Republicans. :P

Its my hope that we're already on the road to cure everything else.

Ooh,someone beat me to it Bugga!!!!
Ok how about all Politicians???

Diarrhea
That lethal weapon scene ^_^

Humanity?

Then all those poor viruses and bacteria (bacteri?) could go about their lives unpersecuted :P

Yet again: Wankers!

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/if_you_could_remove_one_disease_from_existence_what_would_it_be/post4

Sadly, it isn't just Republicans, its all politicians.

Probably AIDS. Unless you want to consider stupidity a disease, then cure that!

As above - wankers!

Indeed. My brother suffers from it and I can attest first-hand that it's not pretty.

Having said that, I'd probably choose cancer as the one to eliminate. Why? Because my brother is able to cope with his condition, since they've managed to find the right med cocktail for him. But my very good friend is dying of cancer and I absolutely hate the disease because of that. She's a wonderful person and has a great attitude but the disease is going to take her far too soon. I'd want that one gone if I could choose.