A
mong the many benefits brought by modern
specialists, issued a call to action to address the growing
scientific medicine to almost all of humankind are
public health threats posed by antimicrobial resistance.
treatments for disease once universally fatal. But
JA Johnson states in the Archives of Internal Medicine
some, like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while often
(1995): 'Drug-related morbidity and mortality has been
being effective are also toxic. Many other pharmaceutics
found to cost more than $76 billion per year in the United
manage a thin line between cure and suffering. When
States. The largest component of this total was the cost
examined, medicine's progress is mostly in the past –
of drug-related hospitalisations. Adverse drug reactions
antibiotics are 70 years old (with very few new forms
cost every man, woman, and child in the United States
of this type of treatment in the offing), polio vaccines
nearly $300 per year.'
are 60 years old and the first information on smallpox
American health care is the most expensive in the
inoculation was written in 1759, while Edward Jenner
world, with 17.7% of gross domestic product (GDP)
began inoculation with cowpox serum in 1770. Modern
spent on healthcare. This is significantly more than other
scientific surgery began during the Age of Enlightenment
developed countries. Australia, for comparison, which
in Europe. An important figure in this regard was the
spends the least, spends only 8.9%.
Scottish surgical scientist, John Hunter (1723-1798),
For the costs involved, you might assume Americans
generally regarded as the father of modern scientific
enjoy the best health care in the world, but this would
surgery.
be a mistaken assumption. According to a new report
The medicine of the future will be different from the
released by the Commonwealth Fund, the US ranks last
today's medicine. It will not be about breakthroughs,
or near last in all aspects of health care, from access and
amazing new drugs and devices or the promise of a
equity to efficiency. A review of US healthcare expenses
universal panacea. These are actually the unfulfilled
by the Institutes of Medicine (IOM) revealed that 30 cents
promises of medicine today. Despite all the hype and
of every dollar spent on medical care is wasted, adding
great expectations, modern scientific medicine has
up to $750 billion annually.
peaked. New drug development is declining, an insight
Researchers have long documented that the most
into the causes of disease is a trickle of what has gone
educated Americans were making the biggest gains in life
before, there is increasing drug-resistance and, most
expectancy, but now they say mortality data show that
importantly, medicine is increasingly inefficient in spite of
life spans for some of the least educated Americans are
an ever-increasing cost.
actually contracting.
In the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (2012)
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO),
Jack W Scannell declared '...the number of new drugs
the US lags far behind Canada, Australia and swaths of
approved per billion US dollars spent on R&D has halved
Western Europe in life expectancy and rivals third world
roughly every nine years since 1950, falling around 80-fold
countries. WHO has reported that the US, factoring in both
in inflation-adjusted terms. The last several decades
genders, has an overall life expectancy of 79 years (76
have seen a relative decrease in the introduction of
for males, 81 for females) compared to 83 in Japan and
new drugs despite increased investment in research and
Switzerland, 82 in France, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Australia,
development'. It is important to remember pharmaceutical
Canada, Israel, Luxembourg, Singapore and Sweden,
companies spend more on marketing than they do on
81 in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, New Zealand,
research. If you look at the R&D percentages versus those
Finland, South Korea, the Republic of Ireland and N ܝ