Modern Medicine

Another trip to a doctor's office today. While I'm hoping this one will bear some fruit, or help me improve my quality of life, I couldn't help but feel frustrated once again. I get the impression that doctors these days are another part of the machinery.

The mass-production, distribution machinery to get us well enough to go back to work and that's it. I know I shouldn't saddle individual doctors with the burden of healing the world, but I don't get the feeling that they have much curiosity anymore.

With all of our technological advances and the increased communication made possible by the internet, I would expect an increase in revolutionary drugs, cures for diseases, and every other sort of miracle. I don't see it happening, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

It's scary to think that what drives innovation is simply profit, that companies decide what gets studied and what sits on the shelf.

With the Social Security and Medicare programs set to be bleeding our government dry, I'm worried about the prospects for even maintaining our current levels of health care.

Maybe we go back to leaving the sick and old out on the hillsides to perish.

Wouldn't it be nice if we spent all the time, money, lives, and energy that we spend on war on curing all the diseases and ills that plague us?

Forgive my ramblings.

Promising new study results regarding ulcerative colitis:

"Experts claim bowel disease cure

Experts at one of the country's leading scientific research centres

believe

they have discovered a cure for the chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
A team from University College Dublin's Conway Institute successfully used a new class of drugs to treat the debilitating illness which affects 15,000 people in Ireland.
Researchers are now teaming up with experts at University of Colorado to develop a safe way for people to use the drugs. Current therapy and treatment options are very limited and surgery to remove sections of the intestine is often the only option. Professor Cormac Taylor, from the Conway Institute, said the treatment has the potential to completely reverse the symptoms of IBD."

Here's a link to the article