Biomedical Science vs. Health

Great article on NIH science.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-19/bostonglobe/29677537_1_nih-medical-research-health-care

I have been talking about this for over 15 years. I remember back at a FASEB meeting in Washington DC about 12 to 13 years ago when there were a three Senators and Congressman on a panel talking about the need to provide science that is of value to the public from the public's perspective. One person argued that grants are "independently reviewed". When questioned by the politician as to who is on the review boards, the person answered "a committee of our peers"! Case dismissed!!! Then while at the FDA during the '90s I would go to the occasional NIH internal meeting and mention how the NIH would be judged by the public based on the number of products that would make it to FDA review and approval. Not a popular stance.
This is long overdue. The article talks of the NIH director Francis Collins setting up an Institute for Translational Medicine. This is after NIH killed translational medicine over the last 20 years.

I am not saying that biomedical research is not of value but I am saying there needs to be a long hard look at the nature of the research which is what this article refers to. It's about time!

On standards in medicine

http://blogs.forbes.com/davidshaywitz/2011/06/21/standards-and-medical-practices-a-cautionary-prognosis-for-algorithm-based-care/?utm_source=alertsnewpost&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110621

Very interesting article on algorithms in medicine. The first point is that the use of algorithms is a significant improvement than the existing practice of medicine. This leads to the main challenge in health care, and I believe it is because of the way medicine is practiced, i.e. the patient is kept out of the process, resulting in the patient perception that medicine is a science. Patients need to understand that medicine, unlike sciences like maths and chemistry and physics, is not a science, it is much more of an art. This leads to the concept that medicine is constantly evolving and improving which means the medicine of next year will be more concise than what is practiced this year. In other words, what is practiced today is not wrong at the time of practice, but patients can expect, just like consumers, that the next "version" will be improved. Algorithms will enhance this process.

And one more point, it is naive to think (again the perception that the industry tries to portray to patients) that each patient will receive a truly individualized management paradigm.