The medical progress is coming to brick wall.

[nec209]

The medical progress is coming to brick wall.

 

 

The medical progress is slowing down and yes medical breakthroughs is slowing down .Yes the public does expects medical breakthroughs to occur all the time and medical progress but it is slowing down very fast.One can just look at cancer,autoimmune diseases and organ failure.

 

 

The problem with medicine is there is two approaches to problem drugs or surgery.And for the past 100 years drugs ware flying out like flies but are slowing down now and there is nothing surgery can do for cancer,autoimmune diseases and organ failure.

 

When it comes to electronics that stop working or going bad we pop out the bad part and pop in the good part.This cannot be done with human body we cannot pop out the bad part and pop in the good part or take soldering iron .This means drugs are the only option.

 

But drugs work well for chemicals or going after living things not cancer,autoimmune diseases and organ failure.The drugs do not have intelligent to tell cells what to do or to heal.

 

And surgery cannot heal or tell cells what to do.So the two approaches to problem of drugs or surgery is coming to brick wall of what it can do.

 

And dotors do not heal they use the two approaches to problem of drugs or surgery and this is coming to brick wall of what it can do..

 

 

Well some dotors hope in 50 or 100 years from now we will tell genes when to turn off or when to turn on and there will be a three approaches to problem of drugs or surgery or telling of when to turn on or off the genes.

 

 

But yes other than that medical progress is slowing down and yes medical breakthroughs is slowing down very fat .

 

Look at cancer,autoimmune diseases and organ failure what a joke it is no breakthroughs here.

[CharonY]

What I often feel is that biological knowledge has not kept up with medical innovation. Right now for more steady improvements it is important to understand the biology of cells in more detail rather working on the end of the assembly line (i.e. finding cures for cancer).

Unfortunately this kind of basic research is much harder to get funded. Innovations need good foundation. Unfortunately, the work on the foundations takes time, tend to be uneventful, get ignored by most of the public and gets much less funding.

[John Cuthber]

"The medical progress is coming to brick wall."

"Well some dotors hope in 50 or 100 years from now we will tell genes when to turn off or when to turn on and there will be a three approaches to problem of drugs or surgery or telling of when to turn on or off the genes"

 

While we are working towards the latter, the former cannot be true.

 

"other than that, medical progress is slowing down and yes medical breakthroughs is slowing down very fat ."

So, because we are working towards revolutionising the whole of medicine, you think we have hit a brick wall.

 

BTW, have you noticed that the medical journals are getting fatter, and more numerous because they have so much progress to report?

Did you notice that survival rates for most cancers are getting better?

Have you spotted the fact that, apart from overweight Americans, the lifespans of people are getting longer?

 

In fact, is there any real evidence for your assertions at all?

[Marat]

We had a thread on this topic earlier, entitled 'Medical Stagnation.'

 

Some evidence supporting the theory that medicine is stagnating is:

 

1) The FDA put out a panic bulletin in 2008 complaining that for about a decade it had not been receiving signficiant new drug approval applications, but that these were generally just minor modifications of existing drugs to circumvent patent protection.

 

2) The last major disease overcome in the West was polio, almost 60 years ago.

 

3) Most drug treatments today just suppress the symptoms of disease but are not curative.

 

4) Despite huge increases in the basic science knowledge of disease, this accumulated knowledge is not being translated into clinically significant progress.

 

5) Major diseases are expanding as public health problems rather than coming under control. Thus the number of type 1 and type 2 diabetics is burgeoning, autoimmune illnesses of all kinds are becoming more prevalent death rates for many cancers are not improved (apart from apparently longer survival because of earlier diagnosis), lung cancer deaths are increasing now that the world has largely given up smoking, and new cases of endstage renal failure are skyrocketing -- yet medicine seems powerless to do anything about these problems.

 

6) Life expectancy in the United States is now ceasing to make gains, and in some population groups in the U.S. it is even declining -- for the first time since statistics on this topic were kept. The 'true' life expectancy, in the sense of the useful lifespan, is probably declining in all population groups with the rise of Alzheimer's Disease. Should people really be counted as alive if they are essentially just brainless zombies wandering about? If this happens to someone at 75 and they live to be 85, I think we should more honestly say that people are now dying younger.

 

7) I once wrote a history of the development of medical thinking on a given topic and consulted journals from 1980 to 2000. I was always worried that something new would come up that I would not include, but I realized that nothing seemed to have changed between the articles of 1980 and those of 2000, so what was I worried about?

 

8) To take an example from one field, as a student I was assigned to do a study of renal medicine in 1984, and then again later I dealt with the same subject from 1996 to the present. There is nothing different in dialysis centers, and very little of any significant difference at renal transplant centers, between 1984 and now, and when you listen to talks given by the manufacturers of dialysis machines and the makers of immunosuppressive drugs, they don't plan on there being much different over the coming 20 years. But dialysis technology was developed in 1942, and the first successful renal transplant occurred in 1954. The worst part is that almost no one working in the field seems to notice the stagnation! It is becoming a ritualized trade rather than an expanding science.

[nec209]

We had a thread on this topic earlier, entitled 'Medical Stagnation.'

 

I cannot find the thread 'Medical Stagnation' in your post history list or in Medical Science> section of the group

 

 

I cannot find it.The admin must of move it or delete the thread.

 

 

none a search using the search box key words Medical Stagnation and still cannot find it.

Edited June 2, 2011 by nec209

[blunderbuss]

Well...in terms of organ failure, the solution is well known. Transplant or grow a new organ. While pharmaceutical research is declining, stem cell research is blossoming. It's not inconceivable that new organ creation will be possible in the next 50 or so years.

 

Biomechanical interfaces are also expanding well with lots of novel research which is a new front.

 

The pharmaceutical problem has a lot to do with economic, social, and political reasons rather than simply being unable. My big fear is lack of antibiotic research. We're losing more and more antibiotics to resistance than we are gaining in novel mechanisms. It sure would suck if after 100 years of steady biomedical advancements we end up dying of consumption in sanitoriums again...

[swansont]

I cannot find the thread 'Medical Stagnation' in your post history list or in Medical Science> section of the group

 

 

I cannot find it.The admin must of move it or delete the thread.

 

 

none a search using the search box key words Medical Stagnation and still cannot find it.

It is discussed in this thread

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/55100-should-medical-doctors-salaries-be-slashed/

[nec209]

Biomechanical interfaces are also expanding well with lots of novel research which is a new front

 

What do you mean here?

 

This thread is so depressing.

[Realitycheck]

We are finding cures for cancer every day, the possibilities created with stem cell technology are really amazing, and the technology progresses we make every day leading to prevention are above all, stopping disease before it happens, to where the biggest cause of disease will be ignorance!

[Marat]

The data in the thread above don't support the idea that significant advances are being made in medicine. Lung cancer deaths are many times higher now than they were in 1950, for example, even though the major habit known to promote lung cancer, cigarette smoking, has for a long time been in decline. Someone argued earlier that lung cancer deaths might have sykrocketed since 1950 because other causes of death have declined so lung cancer has taken up the slack, but a healthy population dies not of cancer but of pneumonia, which is the characteristic disease carrying off the very old who have no other serious illness. The fact that life expectancy increases recorded almost every year (with the exception of the Spanish Flu years) since records were first kept have now ceased in the developed world is further evidence of this medical stagnation.

 

The other day further evidence of the catastrophe emerged with the National Institute of Health announcing its 'Advancing Translational Science' (NCATS) program to provide federal subsidies to address the problem that now for the first time in the history of modern medicine there are absolutely NO new blockbuster drugs in the developmental pipeline. This is something my patent-attorney friend has been complaining to me about for years. According to him, the intellectual property laws are a mess since they were designed to respond to rapidly-appearing blockbuster drugs and now there are none.

 

Stem cell therapies hold great promise, but you won't see anything significant in clinical practise for another half century in that field. Keep in mind that the slow pace of drug development, if the cure for cancer were found tomorrow it would be another 15 years before you could get it with a prescription.

 

Preventative medicine is a favorite mantra of our age, but it utterly unrealistic. The major diseases producing patient suffering, morbidity, mortality, and huge financial costs simply cannot be prevented by any know means. Lupus, type 1 diabetes, 50% of renal failure cases, 50% of heart disease cases, many cases of spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's diesease -- all these and more are simply unpreventable. Medicine tries to pretend the situation is less dismal and to shift the blame for its failures onto the general public by exaggerating the percentage of diseases which are preventable. To do this, it tries to label as preventable all diseases whose onset might be delayed or slightly influenced by medical or lifestyle interventions, even though these conditions ultimately cannot be prevented, but only feebly influenced. Typical among these is type 2 diabetes, which is powerfully genetically determined, though the onset of the disease can be influenced by diet and exercise.

[John Cuthber]

"The data in the thread above don't support the idea that significant advances are being made in medicine."

Sort of true, but only because "We are finding cures for cancer every day," is an assertion not evidence.

 

On the other hand this

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/cancernews/2011-07-05-Small-US-study-suggests-celecoxib-may-reduce-risk-of-lung-cancer-in-former-smokers-?view=rss

is actually evidence of a drug that reduces deaths from lung cancer.

 

 

"but a healthy population dies not of cancer but of pneumonia,"

Just for a start

 

http://xkcd.com/285/

 

Not since the development of antibiotics they don't, or at least not nearly so much.

That is part of the reason why they now die of cancer.

Also, since lung cancer has a long latency the people who took up smoking in the 60s are still dying from it.

Here's the evidence

 

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/smoking/

It shows that the rates of smoking ion the UK only really started to drop in about 1990 so the people who were still smoking 20 years ago are still dying from it.

 

"Stem cell therapies hold great promise, but you won't see anything significant in clinical practise for another half century in that field"

Can you tell me next weeks lottery numbers or are you not really able to predict the future?

[nec209]

One of the reasons for a greater survival rate is that more people are getting treatment sooner due to various screening programs than say the treatment .

 

You can survive cancer but never be cured. You can live 3 years as "cured' or in remission but still die from complications or the cancer comes back.

Edited July 23, 2011 by nec209

[charles brough]

One factor easily overlooked is that the cost of medical care has been rising at an accelerating rate. It is part of the reason for a general decline in middle class living standards and hence its ability to pay for it. Not being any reason to think the costs are going to stop rising, we have good reason to believe it is going to result in a shorter life span if that has not already begun.

[nec209]

One factor easily overlooked is that the cost of medical care has been rising at an accelerating rate. It is part of the reason for a general decline in middle class living standards and hence its ability to pay for it. Not being any reason to think the costs are going to stop rising, we have good reason to believe it is going to result in a shorter life span if that has not already begun.

 

What does medical cost have to with medical progress is coming to brick wall?

[dedo]

It is not surprising that medical advancement in many areas is slow when the diet and activity level of populations is so bad.

 

How can doctors make up for an unhealthy lifestyle with a pill or an operation when people just return to their unhealthy ways?

 

I think the problem of advances in health at the population level will come in preventive medicine. However, how to achieve improvements in diet / exercise on a large scale is unknown.

 

So far, it is proving very difficult to even change behavior among doctors. It takes on average 17 years for evidence based practice to become fully adopted by doctors once the practice is accepted in medical journals.

 

It may be that once the problem of changing behavior among doctors is solved, enough insight will be gained to advance changing behavior among patients.

[nec209]

Is medical progress slowing down and medical breakthroughs is slowing down with cancer treatment and cure?

 

 

I know 5 friends this year that died with cancer !! Also when the big NDP leader Jack Layton in Canada dies with cancer and rich man like Steve Jobs and man like Patrick Swayze that leaves you in shock how primitive the health care is.

 

What is the scopes on cancer treatment and cure now ? Is there a medical progress slowing down ?

[Greg Boyles]

"The medical progress is coming to brick wall."

"Well some dotors hope in 50 or 100 years from now we will tell genes when to turn off or when to turn on and there will be a three approaches to problem of drugs or surgery or telling of when to turn on or off the genes"

 

While we are working towards the latter, the former cannot be true.

 

"other than that, medical progress is slowing down and yes medical breakthroughs is slowing down very fat ."

So, because we are working towards revolutionising the whole of medicine, you think we have hit a brick wall.

 

BTW, have you noticed that the medical journals are getting fatter, and more numerous because they have so much progress to report?

Did you notice that survival rates for most cancers are getting better?

Have you spotted the fact that, apart from overweight Americans, the lifespans of people are getting longer?

 

In fact, is there any real evidence for your assertions at all?

 

While there have been improvements in cancer treatment we are at great peril of returning to the pre-antobiotic era due to our wide misuse of antibiotics resulting in the rise of antibiotic resistance bacterial strains.

 

 

So yes there is some evidence that we may have hit a brick wall in at least some areas of medicine.

[John Cuthber]

"we are at great peril of returning to the pre-antobiotic era due to our wide misuse of antibiotics resulting in the rise of antibiotic resistance bacterial strains."

http://xkcd.com/285/

 

The evidence is that we are learning to use antibiotics more sensibly (which is progress, not a brick wall) and that we are inventing new antibiotics (which, again, isn't a brick wall.)

Edited October 7, 2011 by John Cuthber

[CharonY]

To me, it is more an arms race rather than brickwalling (i.e. dynamic non-equilibrium situation). Especially in hospitals the bacteria appear to be winning, though a rethinking (not only of the use of antibiotics, but of hospital hygiene in general) has started.

Edited October 12, 2011 by CharonY

[nec209]

After doing some reading this weak sure cancer is bad but really what is so shocking with no progress at all is not cancer but disease like motor neuron disease , amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) ,MS, Parkinson's, strokes or spinal cord injury and disease?? In fact over the past 200 years there has been no progress at all.All despite of millions of money for research for past 15 years there is no cure or treatment same with Cystic fibrosis .

Edited October 18, 2011 by nec209

[John Cuthber]

After doing some reading this weak sure cancer is bad but really what is so shocking with no progress at all is not cancer but disease like motor neuron disease , amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) ,MS, Parkinson's, strokes or spinal cord injury and disease?? In fact over the past 200 years there has been no progress at all.All despite of millions of money for research for past 15 years there is no cure or treatment same with Cystic fibrosis .

Do you really think that "they have not yet got to the destination" is the same as "they have made no progress"?

 

Read up a bit on gene therapy. They are working on those diseases- it's just that it's quite tricky.

[nec209]

Do you really think that "they have not yet got to the destination" is the same as "they have made no progress"?

 

Read up a bit on gene therapy. They are working on those diseases- it's just that it's quite tricky.

 

This may show up in the next 10 to 15 years?

 

A artificial kidney...

 

[physica]

I think what's needed in this discussion is a dose of clinical experience. Whilst I am now part-time as I'm studying physics I must say there are some misconceptions here. There is a rise in cancer deaths but this is because we have to die of something. There has been many advancements in the treatment of heart disease with the PCI and statins. Because of this people are surviving their heart attacks and live a bit longer to get cancer. I find that some people fail to look back at what we have cured.

 

However, medical stagnation is a valid concern is a genuine concern. John Cuthber points out that the medical journals are growing however, UCL professors and others have pointed out that there is now a lot of trash published in the medical journals nowadays. In the UK medical doctors get extra points on their clinical rotation applications if they have a publication. The quality of publication doesn't matter they just get a few extra points and maybe the clinical rotation they want. Because of this I have lost count of how many students and junior doctors I've seen writing absolute rubbish just to get published. They openly admit they don't care they just want the points. The other concept that has to be taken into account is the nature of the science. In physics when cold fusion was announced it was disproved by scientists within 24 hours because you can simply rerun the experiment. It's harder and more expensive in medical research as you have to get a load of patients, go through ethics and then do follow up clinics. It can take years and cost loads. Because of this you can get complete morons bumbling through medical research. There was a team that asked for my help. It was a medical professor and 3 medical doctors. They had phds and multiple publications. They measured the effects of two drugs on blood pressure when undergoing endoscopy. They calculated the means for their conclusion. One reading was off skewing the results so I did a distribution showing the opposite of their conclusion. They were very confused and sent me emails like: does it have to be this complex? Another paper our department produced was that if a doctor or nurse witnessed a patient going into cardiac arrest of a ward the patient would have a better chance of survival than if that patient was found after going into cardiac arrest.

 

The majority of medical advancements you'll see now is in medical engineering. This could be that they just have a lot of catch up because it's fairly new. However, the extremely low standards that can slip though the net in medical academia cannot be ignored, they are a real problem. Overall there is advancements in medical research, however, it could be a lot more efficient. The cost to outcome ratio in medical research is terrible.

[swansont]

I think what's needed in this discussion is a dose of clinical experience. Whilst I am now part-time as I'm studying physics I must say there are some misconceptions here. There is a rise in cancer deaths but this is because we have to die of something. There has been many advancements in the treatment of heart disease with the PCI and statins. Because of this people are surviving their heart attacks and live a bit longer to get cancer. I find that some people fail to look back at what we have cured.

 

 

I agree. Even dying of a heart attack at 80 after surviving one at 50 is a significant advance, because the one at 50 is used to be what killed you.

[CharonY]

 

It's harder and more expensive in medical research as you have to get a load of patients, go through ethics and then do follow up clinics.

 

Also in that context I would like to add that incompetent use or blatant misuse of statistics and general data analysis (as the example provided above... eliminating outliers, anyone?) is leading to a huge amount of wasted time and effort. Often coupled with the attempt of post-mortem statistics (i.e. calling in the statistician after the fact). Often, biology students are badly underprepared in statistical analysis. But the worst I have seen are certainly in the medical field (sadly). There have been many (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to change curricula accordingly. But hopefully with a new generation of faculty it will be easier to implement in the future. Hopefully.