Big
Pharma, and the misinformed media, would have us all believe that
medicine can cure every disease, and that as a result, we might one day
achieve immortality. Hardly a week goes by without reports of some
genetic 'marker' for some cancer or chronic disease, with the
implication that this genetic 'imperfection' might be remedied by the
miracles of modern medicine, and the disease eradicated forever. Or
that a virus or bacteria 'suspected' to be involved in some infectious
disease has been discovered, with the implication that, by eradicating
the microbe, we can be free forever from the disease.
We have, to be fair, made significant headway in the fight against infectious
diseases. That is, we have recently (in the last century and a half)
identified that most infectious diseases are caused by viruses or
bacteria, learned how these microbes spread, and discovered or invented
vaccines, antibiotics and antivirals to kill many of them.
That
doesn't mean we are winning the war against infectious diseases,
however, or that this war is even winnable. Viruses and bacteria can
evolve much faster than we can ever hope to invent vaccines and
antimicrobials to keep up with them. That's the reason heath experts
are so worried about pandemic influenza -- antivirals like tamiflu may
not be effective against it (and the regimen for using it is involved,
expensive and carries risks of complication), and vaccines need to be
tailored to the specific form of the virus, which can take months. In
addition, the endemic use of antibiotics and antivirals in modern
society is encouraging the more rapid mutation of viruses and bacteria
which are resistant to most or all antibiotics and antivirals. And some
infectious diseases (like Mad Cow) are spread by prions, which are not
treatable with antimicrobials of any kind.
So infectious
diseases will continue to threaten us, and, as we run out of effective
antimicrobials, they could easily become once again as great a scourge
as they have been throughout most of the centuries since civilization
began. Nothing suits bacteria and viruses better than creatures crowded
into close quarters who travel quickly and extensively across
communities.
Diseases that are not infectious are called environmental or chronic
diseases. These are the illnesses (physical and mental) that are
growing at epidemic rates, especially in affluent nations. It is simply
not true that the staggering increase in these diseases is largely due
to better detection, better reporting, or an aging population. We have
our suspicions about the reason for the increases, but we cannot prove
it.
What we do know is that such diseases only seem to emerge when three prerequisites are present:
- Genetic predisposition: some people are naturally more immune to some environmental diseases than others.
- Exposure to environmental poisons: chronic exposure to and ingestion of dangerous levels of toxins.
- Situational catalyst: a trigger that 'sets off' the disease in the presence of the two factors above (usually that trigger is stress).
Our
natural stress-responses are fight-or-flight adrenal responses, and as
suited as they were to gatherer-hunter culture, they are maladapted to
modern forms of (mostly psychological) stress, and to the chronic,
relentless stresses that most of us face.
I
believe that all three of these prerequisites are becoming increasingly
prevalent. In recent centuries (and still today in many struggling
nations) a larger proportion of the population has each had a large
number of children. Since then, our temporary victory over many
infectious diseases has slashed infant and child mortality rates. In
Darwinian terms, many people who would not have been born, or would not
have survived, have entered the gene pool, to the point that genetic
weaknesses have inevitably increased in the population at large.
We
have more toxins and untested chemicals in our food, water, air and
soil than we have ever had before, and we live longer than we have
since civilization began, so over a lifetime we surely ingest more
poisons than previous generations. Even if we wanted to change this,
through the precautionary principle applied retroactively, we could not
-- our economy depends utterly on the 'efficiencies' that poisonous
production makes possible. We could not sustain even a fraction of
today's human population with healthy, careful, expensive production
methods.
And we unquestionably face more chronic stresses than
previous generations. We can talk about methods to mitigate our stress
reactions, but many of these are visceral, subconscious, not in our
power to control.
So, in short, there is nothing we can do to
stem the current surge in chronic diseases. At a personal level, if we
can afford it, we can try to eat and drink healthier, and try to find
places not afflicted by poisoned air, water and soil. And, if we have
the luxury of time, opportunity, awareness and self-knowledge, we can
try to self-manage to minimize our stress reactions. But at a societal
level, we are literally stewing in our own sewage, and in a weakened
condition to start with.
Of course, the big polluters, their
political and media handmaidens, a big chunk of the medical fraternity,
many religious groups, and the Big Pharma oligopoly would have you see
it differently. They'd have you believe it's your
fault: not taking care of yourself, having bad genes, suffering for
your sins, being too lazy and hence too poor to afford good food and
decent medicine.
And guess what all that guilt and self-blame does to those who believe it?
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