What If There’s No More Drugs That Work?
After all the talk about Pfizer’s cholesterol drug failing, it got me wondering–what if we’re out of drugs to fix common diseases like high cholesterol and high blood pressure? After all, these drugs work by altering the body’s own enzymes and proteins–and there’s only so many enzymes you can alter. And sure, we can try to develop drugs that target certain enzymes in certain tissues to prevent side effects, but what’s really meant by “target?” It means that we develop a drug that is only active if certain other molecules are around it, or can alter or activate it. Or that there’s a portal on the cell wall that can allow the drug in. What if we’re out of portals? Or that they’re too small to fit our big drugs through?
What if we’re stuck? Sure, we can find more drugs to do more things, but what if they’re all so complex that they cause too many side effects (we’ll call “death” a side effect)?
I kind of actually think this would be a good thing. Now, it would be a terrible thing for older generations who ate Crisco and smoked without knowing any better–but for society overall, it would make us take a more realistic view of our lives. Make us consider the notion that there’s not a magic pill to fix our bad habits. That our actions have consequences for our lives and our health. That the magic doctors won’t be able to necessarily fix me–perhaps I need to fix me.
We would probably eat a little healthier, exercise a little more, feel a little less rushed, and spend more time with our loved ones.
Oh… we’ll find ways to continue our comfy lifestyle. That’s the impetus of progress! :) I think that RNA interference might become the poor man’s gene therapy and the new wave of treatments will utilize this somehow…
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2006/
This friend of mine figures it’s OK to smoke because medical technology can “fix” the side effects. I wish a sudden stop in med development would shock humanity into a healthy lifestyle, but human nature is illustrated perfectly in my friend; intense, intentional ignorance will never leave her, no matter if every hospital in the world exploded today. She’d puff on. Drives me nuts.
Make us consider the notion that there’s not a magic pill to fix our bad habits.
Make us? You would make us? Is there a profit driven conspiracy between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry that works against the population to ultimately keep everyone unhealthy? If there were, then what you speak of would rescue us.
But if instead the sick and the ill among us are being offered compassion and hope, good care and good treatment, then what you speak of, while clothed in the best of good intensions, appears to me as unbelievably harsh and cruel and the suffering engendered is difficult for me to even imagine.
While it is necessary for physicians to harm patients in order to help them, what you speak of on such a grand scale to me is revolting. Anathema to what being a physician is about.