From: Elizabeth Childs (echilds@linex.com)
Date: Mon May 10 1999 - 10:59:15 MDT
I'm curious when people anticipate various diseases being cured. I am
in no way knowledgeable about this, but my general sense is that it will
probably happen in this general order:
Cancer, if the big breakthroughs happening now prove themselves
Infectious diseases except retroviruses
Genetic diseases
Immune disorders
Rare disorders and disorders of unknown cause (including Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome)
I'm not sure where to put retroviruses, organs grown especially for
transplant, heart disease, psychiatric disorders, spinal nerve regrowth,
artificial retinas, diabetes, etc.
I would put Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a disease of unknown cause; I'm
particularly curious if anyone has any sense of when it might get cured,
since I've got it. (Advice also welcome.)
My reasoning: cancer is fairly well understood, and current experimental
treatments are very promising. Infectious diseases are also well
understood, and it's a matter of getting control over the invading
organisms on a chemical level. This is somewhat invasive and
potentially dangerous, but it doesn't involve any fundamental change to
the patient's body, and thus is less dangerous.
Genetic diseases are well understood, and have a single cause, but
treating them in adulthood involves both the discovery of a new
mechanism for changing the genes, and the risks involved of
fundamentally changing the patient's biochemistry. Immune disorders are
poorly understood, and appear to have multiple causes. Changing the
mechanisms of the adult immune system also seems very risky, as a number
of immune disorders involve too much or not enough activity, and it
would be easy to overshoot your goal and cause the opposite of the
problem you initially had.
Diseases that are still poorly understood, even with all of the
scientific tools we have to study them, seem as though they will
continue to be the most intractable, although I suppose that a single
new tool could reveal any given disorder to actually have a single
simple origin, and from there make it much easier to cure.
Any thoughts? I have very little background to be making such
speculations, and I only put them up in order that someone more
knowledgeable can correct me.
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