It comes down to the fact that drugs can only treat the symptons of disease or in a sense control the disease. I think this is one reason why people distrust the pharmaceutical industry..Why? It is fundamental, DNA and gene-expression. State of the art science allows us to design drugs which will act on cellular targets that are downstream from the gene-expression and thus control the disease. BUT, in order to completely cure a disease you need to remove the root cause of that condition from genetic code of that person - this is currently beyond the ability of modern science but it will happen eventually. When you say that an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure, I completely agree with you BUT genetics also plays a significant role.
Like I said, I think it is like curing a hurricane. It is a natural event in nature. There is no cure for it really as a natural event such as a the diseases we are talking about are not predictable in general and one cannot determine whose machine will malfunction. think about it. A disease free world assumes the human body is perfect without defect. Such a complicated structure is bound to have a % of defects in a normal distribution or parts of the body are expected to have some sort of normal decay or mutation. We see this in the plant world, as a bad example, in that in a forrest of trees un-polluted by man (if they still exist) some trees will just have natural rot or deformities. MLS, alzheimers, cancer etc. will always occur naturally in humans unfortunately and we cannot stop no more than we can elimintate tornadoes and hurricanes. We can recognize under what conditions they are more likely to occur and deal with it at that point and I think that is what research needs to do. What conditions exist such that a cancer occurs most frequently, etc... The true advances in science are not in curing cancer itself, but killing many cancers or treating the tougher ones once they do appear. We can catch colon cancer early and get rid of it, same as breast cancer. We can discover what things have a higher "tendency" to cause such cancers than not and attack those (asbestos, poor diets, etc..) and that is where science works best right now. I am not morbid on science but accept that science can cure the diseases caused by bacteria or viruses we identify (polio, yellow fever) but a natural occuring deformity or mutation in our human machine is for now unstoppable. That is why genetics is so amazing and important. We can look at similar machines (family members) and track which parts most commonly break down in this model.
There are lots of proven cures out there. For Beriberi there's thiamine. For scurvy there's vitamin C to name a couple.
There are lots of proven cures out there. For beriberi there's thiamine. For scurvy there's vitamin C to name a couple. Most bacterial infections can be cured with antibiotics.
That's disease via deficiency. Beriberi patients are transformed once they receive thiamine. It's akin to stating dehydration is a disease cured by drinking water.
Scurvy to me is not a natural occuring defect or mutation. If your body is dehydrated or low on vitmain C I guess you get scurvy so an orange can prevent scurvy. It is not curing a disease really. Your body would not get scurvy if you just fed it properly and drank enough water. Just like the deydration example above I think. Scurvy is caused by an external factor created by man. Lack of a vitamin the body needs.
"That is why we will never cure MS or Alzhiemers unless we discover that the cause as a man-made one and we kill that. However if it is a normal defect that occurs in a distribution of life, we will just have to deal with these fat tails." I respectfully disagree. We already are able to either cure, prevent, or successfully treat a vast number of human maladies and diseases that arise naturally through no fault of mankind. I don't know how old you are, but it is highly likely that in your lifetime you will see either cures for or prevention of the non-man-made diseases you specifically referred to, viz. , MS and Alzheimers -- even if these prove to be genetic in origin. There is no point in me listing specific examples because they are endless and everywhere. The twenty-first century will be the century of great advances in molecular biology. Biological research in Genomics (which is far advanced at present), and Proteomics (which is less so) will result in huge progress in the prevention, cure , and treatment of human disease in the 21st Century.
It's sad to think of how many people we lost to the hypothermia virus before Wilbert L. Gore found the cure. (Gore-tex)
I see your argument I somewhat agree but they can cure bacterial infections. Also with some people they can reverse diabetes with diet and exercise. I'm not gung ho medical community but I do realize it isn't a black and white issue. Some natural treatments work and some definatly don't, the same with the traditional medical treatments some work and some definatly don't. Melanoma can be cured if caught earlier enough same with colon cancer. I should of remembered the melanoma gotta go in and get some spots on my skin checked out.