32994Yunohahode14Within another10yearsnewMedicines

Q&@
TURNED AIDS
FROM A DEATH SENTENCE INTO A CHRONIC CONDITION
(AT LEAST FOR THOSE WEALTHY ENOUGH TO AFFORD THE TREATMENT)!
Just think what would have happened if AIDS had erupted in 1581 rather than 1981...
In all likelihood, nobody back than would have figured out what caused the epidemic, how
it moved from person to person, or how it could be halted (let alone cured)!? Under such conditions,
AIDS might have killed a much larger proportion of the human race, equaling and perhaps even surpassing
the Black Death. Despite the horrendous toll AIDS has taken, and despite the millions killed each year by such
long-established infectious diseases such as malaria, epidemics are a far smaller threat to human health today
than in previous millennia. The vast majority of people die from non-infectious illnesses such as cancer & heart
disease, or simply from dangerously dirty traffic, air pollution, crime, war & lack of food, water, social care & old age?
(Incidentally cancer & heart disease are of course not new illnesses - they go back to antiquity. In previous eras,
however few people lived long enough to die from them!) Many fear that this is only a temporary victory, and
that some unknown cousin of the Black Death is waiting just around the corner? No one can guarantee that
plagues won't make a comeback, but there are good reasons to think that in the arms race between germs
and doctors, doctors do indeed run faster? New infectious diseases appear mainly as a result of chance
mutations in pathogen genomes. These mutations allow the pathogens to jump from other animals to
humans, to overcome the human immune system, or to resist medicines such as antibiotics. Today
such mutations probably occur & disseminate faster than in the past, due to human impact on the
environment. Yet in the race against medicine, pathogens ultimately depend on the blind hand of
fortune. And what about abc-, intercontinental ballistic weapons and rogue-states seemingly
without any kind of recognizably functioning conscience, moral or humanistic values?
17 okt 2018 - bewerkt op 19 okt 2018 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 79 jaar
   
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