I'm old enough to have a clear memory of many of the game changing health discoveries of the twentieth century: penicillin, cortisone, polio vaccine, birth control pill, dialysis, revolutionary imaging technologies, ARVs. These were life altering innovations that inspired the public with an incredible sense of optimism and faith in science. I remember acquanitances being dramatically cured of diseases everybody was afraid of.
I read a couple of months ago Steven Narod the man who identified the breast cancer gene said we are still using the same therapies to treat cancer as in the 1950s. What gives? Has research dropped the ball? It appears life expectancy has actually begun dipping in the UK and USA - and yet hardly a week goes by that the newspapers don't hype some revolutionary medical "breakthrough".