Bill Gates is making a bold move. I like his commitment--both financial and personal as well as his search for " a lot of ideas." I hope he hasn't spent the last year in the R&D drug focused echo-chamber because if he has, my enthusiasm will wane--quickly.
"You have a nearly 50 percent chance of developing the disease if you live into your mid-80s. In the United States, it is the only cause of death in the top 10 without any meaningful treatments that becomes more prevalent each year. That trend will likely continue as baby boomers age, which means that more families will watch their loved ones suffer from cognitive decline and slowly disappear. Despite this growing burden, scientists have yet to figure out what exactly causes Alzheimer’s or how to stop the disease from destroying the brain."--Why I'm Digging Deep Into Alzheimer's, Bill Gates
Publications by the Alzheimers Association perpetuate myths assigning race or ethnicity as a risk factor. If you read on, statements like this are pushed beneath sensationalized talking points, "Variations in health, lifestyle and socioeconomic risk factors across racial groups likely account for most of the differences in risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementias by race." Why race? Are we looking for biologic differences or the impact of social determinants? There is one race. The human race. I don't know what you think skin color will add to our search for answers. We need the granularity of genetic variants or we need the social constructs and political implications of how we answer questions of race in our society--but also in the field of medicine.
I sincerely want to see approaches outside the capitalistic forces upstream from disease but are we ready to change policy? Should we be gobsmacked that so many of us will suffer from dementias in our 80s? The insult of toxic air, agri-business, poor food policy, wealth inequality, poor education, food deserts, unequal access to healthcare, subsidized low nutritive school lunches, lack of attention to mental health, low literacy, and more should come to bear towards the end of any lifespan.
These chronic diseases are metabolic derangements and diseases of lifestyle and we seek pharmacologic cures? One monotherapeutic cure to unravel a life time of medical-industrial complex exposure and the politics of not only race but disease?
What could go wrong?
Social Correlates of Health: What if the bear comes home every night?
These chronic diseases are metabolic derangements and diseases of lifestyle and we seek pharmacologic cures? One monotherapeutic cure to unravel a life time of medical-industrial complex exposure and the politics of not only race but disease?
What could go wrong?
Social Correlates of Health: What if the bear comes home every night?
