The European estimate on rare diseases is more realistic and 6-8% of the general population has a rare disease.
But not the same rare disease.
Orphan drugs collectively may benefit 10% of the population, but not individually.
Not that I disagree with what I think is your main point: a profit driven medical industry hurts those at the extremes, relative to those in the median. I don't know how awful that is or isn't. 100 years ago, those folks would just have suffered. It's a profit motive, in some part at least, which has fueled advanced treatments. If all healthcare and healthcare research were socialized, maybe the expensive treatments wouldn't exist at all.
What I'm not sure about is if you are critical of, or in favor of, this collaboration. Bringing "commercial-grade" AI to healthcare sounds like a good thing to me on its face. I've read here and there (perhaps it's sensational, but still) how some AI can be order or orders of magnitude more accurate than doctors when evaluating x-rays, or scans, or other diagnostics.
My worry here is in the profit motive of Google and the fact that, well, they suck these days in that they do not care about user privacy.
Obviously. Clearly you do not understand what it means to have a rare disease and that rare diseases play by a totally different set of rules than common health conditions.
AI can be order or orders of magnitude more accurate than doctors when evaluating x-rays, or scans, or other diagnostics
Rare diseases manifest much more dynamically than something that can be trained to an objective via AI.
There are huge ethical issues involved.
If all healthcare and healthcare research were socialized, maybe the expensive treatments wouldn't exist at all.
I do not know what you mean by socialized. Most of the groundbreaking research in general occurs via grants from governments. If that is what you mean by socialized, then I support that.
Comments
But not the same rare disease.
Orphan drugs collectively may benefit 10% of the population, but not individually.
Not that I disagree with what I think is your main point: a profit driven medical industry hurts those at the extremes, relative to those in the median. I don't know how awful that is or isn't. 100 years ago, those folks would just have suffered. It's a profit motive, in some part at least, which has fueled advanced treatments. If all healthcare and healthcare research were socialized, maybe the expensive treatments wouldn't exist at all.
What I'm not sure about is if you are critical of, or in favor of, this collaboration. Bringing "commercial-grade" AI to healthcare sounds like a good thing to me on its face. I've read here and there (perhaps it's sensational, but still) how some AI can be order or orders of magnitude more accurate than doctors when evaluating x-rays, or scans, or other diagnostics.
My worry here is in the profit motive of Google and the fact that, well, they suck these days in that they do not care about user privacy.
Obviously. Clearly you do not understand what it means to have a rare disease and that rare diseases play by a totally different set of rules than common health conditions.
Rare diseases manifest much more dynamically than something that can be trained to an objective via AI.
There are huge ethical issues involved.
I do not know what you mean by socialized. Most of the groundbreaking research in general occurs via grants from governments. If that is what you mean by socialized, then I support that.