Is it time to rethink the purpose of medicine?

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"Death is simply a technical problem for which there are technical solutions" claims Yuval Harari. But if the last few years have taught us anything, it is surely that unpredictable disease is unavoidable. And with 2.8 million deaths due to antibiotic resistance each year some claim a new health crisis is only just beginning and that "we are facing a post-antibiotic apocalypse." One thing it seems is clear, death is not a problem medicine appears close to fixing.

Should we conclude that there is an indefinite amount about disease that we do not, and will never, understand? Are we fighting a losing battle, and will antibiotic resistant superbugs and emerging diseases show current successes in health to be a temporary blip in human history? Would we be better to accept doctors are not gods and cannot save us from death or can medicine and technology be combined to make us super human after all?

#Aging #Dementia #DenisNoble

Denis Noble is a world renowned biologist, and Professor Emeritus of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford. Famous for developing the first mathematical model of cardiac cells.

Nessa Carey is a ground-breaking British biologist working in the field of molecular biology and biotechnology. She is International Director of the technology transfer organization PraxisUnico and a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London.

Guy Brown heads a research group at the University of Cambridge working on cell death in the brain, the heart and in cancer. His previous book The Energy of Life won the Wellcome Trust Prize for popular science.

David Malone is an independent filmmaker, Green Party politician, and author of The Debt Generation.

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