In a message dated 8/31/2004 9:16:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
And I have a suspicion as to _why_. Every other science has progressed geometrically over the past 50 years. If Medicine had advanced the way computers have, we would have a life expectancy of 500 years [except that once every 42 days our bodies would burn, and we would have to be rebuild from the clone backup :-)] Here is the reason. Computers are childs play compared to biology. Just take your 500 year question. Ask it this way: Why aren't animals immortal? Cell liines can be. Why do our systems begin to fail at around 70 or 80? Why do they all fail at once. Simple answer; we wear out. Machines wear out, all artifacts do so it seems intuitive that we should do so. Looked at in this way it should be simple. Replace worn out parts. But organic creatures are not like machines in important ways. We turn over the materials that we are made from constantly. Replace cells replace the things that make up the cells. There is no obvious reaons for us not to be able to do so indefinitely. Aging is more complex than this. It is an important part of life and we are just starting to understand how it occurs. > Why, exactly, do you blame the pharma companies for > not succeeding in doing something that no one has ever > succeeded in doing? > I am not blaming them for _not_ doing this. I am blaming everybody else that allows them to control medical research. > They have successfully managed to > cure every bacterial disease - that's a pretty good > record. > Did they? What about the new superbacterias that resist every antibiotic? The new super bacteria are a good example of the limits of medicine. Bacteria have very short generations time so mutations occur quickly. Treat bacterial diseases and you kill a billion bacteria. The one that survives has a mutation that renders it immune to the drug. It multiples rapidly because it now has no competition from other bacteria. Soon the entire population of bacteria is immune. Bacteria can evolve faster than we can devise treatments. >No, I am not. But there is no _cure_, just expensive drugs to turn cancer into a chronical disease. Cancers are a mixed group of diseases that share the common feature of uncontrolled cell growth and replication caused by mutation. Since mutation is inevitable in dividing cells we are always creating potentially cancerous cells. Within each cell there is a war between genes that make cells grow and divide and genes that prevent this from happening or kill the cell when this occurs.Cancer is what occurs when the imbalance shifts in favor of unconrolled growth. The model of "cure" would be to kill all cancer cells but this is typicallyh impossible because cancer cells are our own cells and non-cancerous cells always have the potential for becoming cancerous. If the cells can be surgically removed as is the case in benign circumscribed cancers in organs or parts that can be removed cure can be achieved. Otherwise control is what we can get. This is not a conspiracy it is reality _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
