Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Paradigms in history of health advances

There isn't that much the industry can do at this point.  They went all out with huge research spending over the last decade.. and didn't get much.

Longer patents and higher cost per drug are not really reasonable.  The issue isn't funding for research.  They could double research spending and I doubt they would find anything more.  Its not like they are aware of a promising area but not funding it because of lack of funding.

But while it is the end of the pharma-chem paradigm, its not the end of progress for health technologies.  Stem cells are nearing commercialization for the first treatments.  Several nanomedicines are in trials.  And genetic engineering has been successfully done in research programs.  Progress is being made on the vectors for the new genes to enter the dna strands.

There have already been a number of health paradigms since the enlightenment, each reaching near its full potential.  To name some of them..

-Vaccines- eliminating the big 7 scourges of mankind.  Now new vaccines are for obscure targets where the benefit of widespread vaccination is highly questionable.

-Public Sanitation/Public Sewers- You can imagine how bad the disease was when they threw their sewage in the streets.  Today I don't know of anywhere in the developed world where raw sewage flows.  One of the great breakthroughs was when Doctors began washing their hands before giving birth.  A shocking change in the death rate of infants.

-Antibiotics- This really was the big breakthrough of the pharma-chem paradigm.  Penicillin is still amazing how many ailments £5 pounds worth can cure. 

-Cheap Protein/Public Nutrition -Europeans are tall, healthy and intelligent in good part because of the amount of protein and fortified nutrients they get growing up.  Probably 100% of the UK population has enough money to get the minimum protein required for healthy growth of the organism.  On the other hand this is slipping in recent decades with the regulators being asleep at the wheel.  Sugar, excessive salt, many fats should be taxed and or regulated out. 


So what paradigms are coming down the road?  I will cover that in the next threads.

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