"I disagree, medical science is still churning out amazing breakthroughs, like HIV and cancer vaccines this year. [...]
Just because it's getting harder doesn't mean we should stop or that we'll hit a wall and be able to go no further (and if we can see that wall coming we might want to think about stopping prematurely?)"
I think both you and the author are incorrect. Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam for not just the reasons mentioned in this article, but at least a dozen other reasons as well. If you look at the last fifty years of pharmacological/nutrition research, there really haven't been more than a handful of important discoveries despite the literally trillions of dollars that have been spent.
>Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, put the improvement down to "faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy and many new drugs".
Notice how new drugs are given the least emphasis of the four factors listed. Plus, one of the biggest reasons so many people are getting cancer is the flawed nutritional advice of the medical establishment.
Anyway, clearly there has been some progress, but we would be in a whole other place if the vast majority of the research dollars hadn't been completely wasted. Not to mention all the potential cancer cures that have been made illegal, meaning that it's not even clear the impact of the new drugs is making up for how the medical establishment is screwing us all to begin with.
There have been a number of successful drugs developed to treat cancer. [1] That said, I've never met a doctor who thinks that drugs are the be-all end-all cure for unhealthy lifestyles. The old Ben Franklin quip "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" still applies today.
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"I disagree, medical science is still churning out amazing breakthroughs, like HIV and cancer vaccines this year. [...] Just because it's getting harder doesn't mean we should stop or that we'll hit a wall and be able to go no further (and if we can see that wall coming we might want to think about stopping prematurely?)"
I think both you and the author are incorrect. Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam for not just the reasons mentioned in this article, but at least a dozen other reasons as well. If you look at the last fifty years of pharmacological/nutrition research, there really haven't been more than a handful of important discoveries despite the literally trillions of dollars that have been spent.
At the risk of this turning into (yet another) argument with you about modern medicine, allow me to suggest that your position is utter crap: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-surviva...
>Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, put the improvement down to "faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy and many new drugs".
Notice how new drugs are given the least emphasis of the four factors listed. Plus, one of the biggest reasons so many people are getting cancer is the flawed nutritional advice of the medical establishment.
Anyway, clearly there has been some progress, but we would be in a whole other place if the vast majority of the research dollars hadn't been completely wasted. Not to mention all the potential cancer cures that have been made illegal, meaning that it's not even clear the impact of the new drugs is making up for how the medical establishment is screwing us all to begin with.
There have been a number of successful drugs developed to treat cancer. [1] That said, I've never met a doctor who thinks that drugs are the be-all end-all cure for unhealthy lifestyles. The old Ben Franklin quip "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" still applies today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer_chemotherapy#...
1) Why is this discussion suddenly about drugs in particular?
2) Regardless, I think your expectations are warping your perception.
>Why is this discussion suddenly about drugs in particular?
Because the article was about pharmacology and I said pharmacology in my post.
If that is what you want to discuss, you should take more care with your wording then.
"Medical research has basically become an elaborate scam"
Devil's advocacy: it may be that our rate of medical discovery is about 1 per 100B at the current risk willingness to human life.