Philosophy Discussion Forums

Skakos wrote:I see the recent case of Angelina Jollie as a good example of medicine taking the wrong path: Behind the "see your genes to prevent disease" hides a very deeply founded mindset of "let's milk the health money cow as much as we can"...

Actually gene therapy is very beneficial for catching the early onset of many diseases. I understand your point now though. Because gene therapy for example helps you find genetic predisposition to certain illnesses which is only helpful if you plan on frequently testing for those diseases which means a perpetual flow of money into health care. I would agree with you that the idea of being healthy is maximized by medical society for profit.

But this is not even the whole picture. Gene therapy is beneficial because doctors tell you so! The FACT is that there NOT ONE beneficial gene therapy today in the market! We dream of many things, sure. But reality is much different. And we have now just started to scratch the surface of what genetics actually mean, i.e. that they are not even the whole picture! There are many more factors (i.e. proteins created in our body play a much more major role than the fundamental genes we currently analyze) which play their part. And we also now start discovering that even our behaviour alters epigenetics. (discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandm ... aScfbUqySq)

In other words: A lot of money for something that we are starting to see that it could even be wrong...