tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post3770023709398922426..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Disease driven povertyAnne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-27461021340083953452013-01-28T20:31:33.035-05:002013-01-28T20:31:33.035-05:00I would say that if we could actually eliminate po...I would say that if we could actually eliminate poverty, then we'd probably get more bang for our buck. Eliminating poverty is no easy thing to do though! But perhaps it is easier to raise the floor to a minimum acceptable level rather than to think there will ever be real equality. As an example, I'm not saying everyone should be wealthy or even middle class, but in a region as wealthy as North America, there shouldn't be anyone going hungry. <br /><br />Also, as Ken mentioned, I'm not sure what good it does to spend time and money looking for genetic factors in diseases that are clearly the result of socio-political and economic factors. We know of quite a few diseases that are genetic, maybe our genetics-based efforts should spend more time working on alleviating them. <br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05068601494828074316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-40756161274219782902013-01-28T18:32:04.887-05:002013-01-28T18:32:04.887-05:00I personally would say that we should first elimin...I personally would say that we should first eliminate those causes of misery and shortened or worsened life, before we spend so much resources in the way we're doing.<br /><br />Or, another way to put it, is that we know very well a number of diseases that truly are genetic. Let's put the resources into showing that we can use genetic knowledge to alleviate that suffering, instead of pouring resources into trying to turn primarily environmental problems into genetic ones.<br /><br />Not all of the former are due to poverty. Many common diseases of aging are due to dysbehavior by the privileged, not just the poor.<br /><br />But both poverty and indulgent, lazy lifestyles obscure what are really genetic disorders. Of course, as far as the serious challenge of eliminating poverty or changing indulgent life-styles goes, lotsa luck!Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-10568939589491784422013-01-26T14:26:39.406-05:002013-01-26T14:26:39.406-05:00It makes me wonder that if we really wanted to imp...It makes me wonder that if we really wanted to improve health in this country, rather than large scale sequencing projects, we should do more to eliminate poverty. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com