2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
Medicine is a topic which does not very obviously demonstrates the way our technologically based resources are being freed from any resource constraints, but it does most clearly show how technological progress can affect us. In addition, medicine has an especially important impact on all of us as individuals; and this may be the reason why our own research groups put it at the top of their priority list - another good reason for starting our scenario with this topic!
In any case, the rate at which scientific frontiers are being pushed back is perhaps most evident in the field of medicine. It should be emphasised that, in general, it is in this - wider - field, rather than the more glamorous one of surgery, that the key advances are now being made; though at least one major advance will use surgery as one of its key techniques.
The Economist makes the point, somewhat controversially, "...there is, surprisingly little or no evidence that modern doctors, pills or surgery have improved people's overall state of health. The increase in American's average life expectancy from 63 years in 1940 to 76 today has been ascribed to more wealth, better sanitation and housing and the widespread introduction of the refrigerator rather than to medicine." , and Hancock & Garrett predict that these trends will continue "Although technological and organizational developments in medical care will have some impact, future health status will be determined by the environmental, social and economic conditions under which people live."
Chris Mahill reports, "...eight out of 10 children in the world have been vaccinated against the five major killer diseases of childhood" and "...since 1980 infant mortality has fallen by 25 per cent while overall life expectancy has increased by four years to about 65." The problem is, unfortunately, the distribution of this new robust health which the world is experiencing. Again as Chris Mahill reports, "A person in the least developed countries of the world has a life expectancy of 43 years." The difference is not a function of medicine but of political decisions.
15 May 2003
Other pages you might like to consider are:
5002 CHIPS IN THE BRAIN, 5011 DRUGS FOR WORK, 5262 SURGERY, 5147 MEDICAL TREATMENT, 5011 DRUGS FOR WORK AND PLEASURE 5140 LONGEVITY AND HEALTH, 5100 CELL-LEVEL MEDICINE, 5018 CANCER AND VIRUSES, 5046 MEDICINE, 5041 HUMAN GENETIC MANIPULATION, 5018 CANCER AND VIRUSES, 5100 CELL-LEVEL MEDICINE, 5099 GENETIC PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE
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