From: The Baileys (nanotech@cwix.com)
Date: Sat Apr 03 1999 - 13:58:05 MST
Robin Hanson wrote:
>Amazingly enough, researchers have yet to measure a significant aggregate
>effect of medicine (doctors, etc.) on health.
>The studies that have looked at the aggregate health effect of medicine as
>typically practiced, averaging over all the things doctors do, have no
>found a significant effect.
>And it must surely give
>pause to those who hope that medicine will soon give us dramatically
>expanded life spans.
Some excellent points, however, before we scrutinize medicine, it might be
better to begin with health care in general. Can we measure a discernable
effect of health care availability and services on the longevity and health
of a population? I don't have the data readily available but my
understanding is that the increase in average lifespan of the population of
the United States and other countries with relatively high availability of
modern health care services is significantly higher than that of many Third
World countries without such health care services. However, this does not
necessarily mean health care is the primary driver of this trend.
Generally, countries with robust health care systems are more educated and
wealthier than less advantaged countries.
One way to test the importance of health services would be to take a group
of people within the United States that does not utilize health care
services (e.g., Christian Scientists) and compare them to a sample of those
who do. It would be a complex task since there are probably other lifestyle
factors that might contribute to lifespan effects within each group. It
would be more interesting if we completely eliminated health care for a five
year period and observed the effect on lifespan and death incidents in
general. Certainly, there would be instances of increased death (e.g.,
childbirth, cancer victims, heart disease, etc.) However, there could be
ameliorative effects from freeing 14% of the GDP to be spent on education,
hunger, research, and other areas that might increase longevity (not that
I'm naive enough to think that all of this money would be allocated to such
endeavors)
As far as medicine is concerned, its obvious that it can provide immediate,
short-term benefits. The relief that medicine provides from symptoms of
different maladies is real. While the "mind over body" effect is relevant,
it is doubtful it applies to my children who also experience relief from
symptoms. Given that my two year old acts as if medicine were the plague
when we attempt to give it to her nixes the "mind over body" effect as a way
to discount the validity of all medicine. There might be come minimal
lifespan effects to this short-term relief. The toll a sickness might take
on your system if allowed to "run its course" might take some time off your
lifespan. Additionally, the stress I would go through if I had to endure my
children dealing with a particularly nasty flu virus without the assistance
of antibiotics might shorten my own lifespan in some way. I don't know what
the aggregate effects of medicine is over an entire life but I suppose any
increase is a good thing. Whether we could spend 14% of the GDP to increase
lifespan in a more effective and efficient manner is question that should be
asked but I don't know the answer to it.
Doug Bailey
doug.bailey@ey.com
nanotech@cwix.com
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