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Former Intel CEO Rips Medical Research
Himuanam writes "Former Intel CEO Grove rips on the medical research community, contrasting their lack of progress with the tech industry's juggernaut of breakthroughs over the past half-century or so. 'On Sunday afternoon, Grove is unleashing a scathing critique of the nation's biomedical establishment. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenges big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways.'"
Minoxidil was a heart medication. Growing hair on bald spots was a side effect that the pharmas did the trials on so they could sell it as a baldness cure.
Viagra... blood pressure medication. Boners were a side effect.
A number of the medications you rail against as fluff were actually discovered while trying to fight something more important. They turned out to be better at the fluff than the intended purpose, but fluff makes money too, and gears were switched so they got marketed for the side effect instead of the intended effect..
Start a happiness pandemic
Just one more example - a couple years ago, I had two spontaneous pneumothoraces (collapsed lung) in the span of six months. That calls for surgery to repair it. Even 10 years ago, I would have been looking at a thoracotomy - basically the same as open heart surgery, but for the lungs. They make a large incision, push your ribs out of the way (ie. break them) and then work on your lungs out in the open.
Instead, with modern advancements I was able to have the VATS procedure. This involves three tiny incisions and the insertion of a small camera to help the surgeon work. It's still a painful recovery, but there's a lot less interior trauma.
So it's BS to say there have been no advancements made over the last 20-30 years. Look at our life expectancy over that time - it's only gone up. That's not because we're net healthier (true, we smoke less, but then we're also much more obese), it's because we're eradicating or controlling more and more diseases, we're performing fewer and safer surgeries, and we're using more effective medications (yes, even for so far incurable diseases like HIV).
In fact, one of the things most people don't realize is that almost all of our life expectancy gains over the last 100 years have been due to disease control, not better overall health. In 1900, lots of people made it to 70 or 80 years old before death, but lots of people died when they were 20 from things like polio, smallpox and TB. Infant mortality was also much higher than it is now. In other words, we're living longer lives because of the health care industry, not because we're all eating better food.
That's to say nothing of modern pain management. Say what you want about oxycontin, I don't know how I would have gotten through the first six months after my surgery without it. A lot of modern medicine is focused on quality-of-life issues, which are important issues. 20 years ago, a doctor would have said to just live with it; the pain is good, means your nerves are coming back. The current thinking is it's not enough to just save a person's life, it's also about giving them a life worth living. After my pain meds ran out the first two weeks after my lung surgery, I was in absolute hell until I made it back to the doctor and got my prescription for oxycontin. People who have never gone through major surgery have no idea what real pain is like. Oxycontin made life bearable until I healed well enough to get off it (and seriously, it was about a year).
The pharmaceutical industry has its share of problems. But it's just way off base to say there have been no advancements over the past however many decades.