@jca – I do not agree with your view. I didn’t agree up above and I still don’t agree.
What has happened is that we have solved the easy problems. Now we need to deal with the hard ones.
When we figured out that germs caused disease, we started washing hands and the disease rate dropped. When we figured out bad water spread disease, we put in clean public water systems and death rates dropped. We figured out that insects and rodents carry disease so we came up with DDT. We discovered that antibiotics could kill bacteria that cause disease so again death rates dropped. We got better and better at surgery so people don’t die as often from things like appendicitis or even accidental and violence-related injuries. We have even figured out how to “fix” some of the bad genes that cause people to die early.
What we are left with are diseases caused by viruses and prions (which do not respond to antibiotics), diseases caused by chemicals such as DDT and other byproducts of our consumer-based culture, diseases based on people making bad choices (changing human behavior is a real toughie), diseases for which we still don’t know the cause, diseases that have evolved to outwit the cures we found, and ethical concerns about how far we want to go to change the genes inherited by our offspring.
You must admit that spending millions or billions to cure a disease that kills or damages millions of people is much more rewarding than spending the same money to cure a disease that affects hundreds, unless, of course, you are one of the hundreds. Think how many families are untouched by polio these days, and then think about how many families world-wide are still impacted by malaria.
And then there is the problem of convincing people not to smoke, drink alcohol, sit in front of their computers all day, eat processed foods and drink things like Red Bull, and in general act as though they will live forever. Changing human behavior is one of the toughest tasks out there.
Yes, pharmaceutical companies do make research decisions based on money. They have to because they are not non-profits or governmental organizations. However, we have made great strides. Some statistics for you :
“In 1900 more than half of the deaths involved young people, age fourteen and younger. By 2001, only 1.6 percent of the total reported deaths occur among young people.
In 1900 microbial diseases, often striking rapidly, accounted for about 40 percent of all deaths.
In the early 2000s they accounted for only about 3 percent.
In 1900 the average life expectancy at birth in the United States was 47 years.
In 2000 this figure increased to a record high of 77.2 years.
In 1900 more than half of the deaths involved young people, age fourteen and younger.
In the early twenty-first century heart disease and cancer together account for more than half of all deaths in the United States each year, and and the vast majority were in people older than 50.
In the past century the experience of death has changed from a time when the typical death was rapid and sudden, often caused by acute infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, syphilis, diphtheria, streptococcal septicemia, and pneumonia, to a time when the typical death is a slow, progressive process.”
We all know someone with a disease or physical problem that does not seem to be curable at this time. Usually, someone, somewhere is working on a way to either cure it or slow its progress. But sometimes it takes a very long time to find something that works, and sometimes the thing that might work costs so much that society literally cannot afford it.
Shilolo is possibly tired of saying the same thing over and over so that may be where he is now.
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