Cartoon 801: Medicine

Real medical progress is a very slow process, often over centuries. First there was spiritual healing. That was followed by potions concocted to heal. In the Goethe story of Dr Faustus, Faust at one point laments all those he might have killed trying to heal. The proposed cure was as deadly as the illness.

Arguably manipulations of body energy through acupuncture was a major advance. It is one that today we still do not have a full understanding.

The next medical advance was surgery based on insights in to anatomy. The following advance was linking medical conditions to targeted medications. This has given rise to the pharmaceutical industry.

In each case of medical advance it was a tremendous battle to reach the next level. The impediments were tradition, folklore, religion and the incumbent providers. One interpretation for the Salem Witch trials is that they were to remove women mid-wives encroaching on the purview of male service providers. Often medical practices have been denounced as anti-religious or evil and of the devil.

Today there is a new challenge to medical progress. That barrier is economics. Modern medicine is economically based on continuing services in regard to ailments. Seldom is anything completely cured. Some of this is by design, it especially applies to the pharmaceutical industry. Protection of the subscription business model is plain to see. That is why the pharmaceutical industry fights so hard to extend patents. It is why generics are not so prevalent. It is why America with its vast buying leverage for purchases of drugs through Medicare is barred by Congressional legislation from price negotiation.

Now on the horizon is medicine at the genetic level. At least today, a person cannot consume or inject a genetic fix. It must be crafted through medical procedures. However, genetic fixes more often than not appear to be able to provide a cure without the need of continuing service. This flies in the face of the current medical business model. It is based on perpetual services for a medical condition.

Most medical advances that are finally adopted by society are the result of wars. Large numbers of soldiers with injuries provide a human experimentation and testing ground. If something works in this environment it becomes legal and accepted in society. I suspect because of the immense barriers faced by genetic medicine it will only be adopted through the mechanism of war.