It seems that in the lead-up to the 2020 summit and (probably more importantly) the renegotiation of the federal-state health funding agreement, every medical specialty in town is trying to drum up publicity. For instance, the sleep specialists seem to have woken up a mass of publicity virtually overnight…
Another group who’ve gotten quite a run are those pushing for early intervention on chronic diseases. This ABC op-ed advocates more programs for preventative medicine, quoting a group called the Oxford Health Alliance:
“Four preventable chronic diseases - heart disease, diabetes, chronic lung disease and cancer- account for 60 per cent of the world’s deaths. Their underlying causes are tobacco use, physical inactivity and poor diet,” Oxford Health Alliance.
If you go to the Oxford Health Alliance’s website, you’ll find the Sydney Resolution, where it turns out that the money statistic is 50%, not 60%. But the substance of the quote is accurate. But let’s think about that for a minute. There are indeed lifestyle choices that can reduce the risk of all of the above diseases. But “preventable” - by any sensible definition of the word? Hardly. Nor does it take into account that we will all die eventually - if a heart attack or cancer doesn’t get us, dementia surely will. The Oxford Health Alliance does, in fact, make a more sophisticated case for greater attention to these diseases on their website, taking into account life-years lost, and, just as importantly, the effects of years of ill-health. But they’re also prepared to resort to attention-grabbing soundbites that stretch the truth a little.
There’s likely to be more of this kind of thing coming from the health sector over the next few months. Not to say that any of it will be unworthy, but some judicious skepticism goes a long way.
I’ll have to be a little sceptical of your scepticism Robert, given that many the the most significant health advances in human history have been preventative measures.
And they are indeed “preventable” in that they are not directly caused by the unavoidable progress of time, but by the gradual and accumulative damage caused by factors over which we do have considerable control. The aim is to more fully exercise that control.
I’m not arguing against more preventative medicine.
I’m just of the view that every medical specialty are going to be out banging the drum for more money over the next couple of months, and they’ll be some dodgy statistics floating around.
And this one is dodgy - or more to the point, a gross oversimplification.
It might be more of a question of news stories giving limited space and time to what are complex issues. Any brief quote or short extract will fail to adequately explain the situation.
Early intervention is different to prevention. There has been a subtle shiftto calling early intervention and anything not reactive/acute as prevention. tota;y wromng in my view. malaria can be prevented diabeties not.
bugger still got a dodgy hand
Type 2 Diabetes , whioch is makes up the majority of diabetes cases, is very preventable. One of australia’s greatest preventable health problems.
Chasing up sources in obesity-panic articles will almost always reveal a conflict of interest beneath the benevolent non-profit veneer, typically a pharmaceutical industry or bariatric surgery source. Sure enough, the “Oxford Health Alliance” is a collaboration between Oxford University and Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk is one of the players in the weight-loss-drug research industry.
‘bugger still got a dodgy hand’
bugger still got dyslexic fingers.
Nice aarticle on the subject in today’s Herald Robert:
[link]
Fair point about type 2 diabetes. I think my concern is the implication that all heart disease and cancers are preventable, where, clearly, even if everybody stopped smoking, drinking, eating excessive red meat, exercised regularly, etc. etc. etc, lots of people would still die of heart disease and cancer.
And, even if the rates of those diseases go down, it doesn’t necessarily mean a reduction in the health budget. To put not too fine a point on it, they might well die of something more expensive.
I meant something like; you can prevent things like malaria and polio to an extent by actions without any need for individual action or change (largly) by people. Diabeties etc cannot be prevented by a broad actin - people need to be influenced, coached etc.