Life Without Disease: The Pursuit of Medical Utopia

When I first happened upon this book a little over three years ago, I thought I was just going to have a short, interesting read. Little did I know that this book would change how I looked at medicine and bring me back to something I had detached myself from since I started University. I had always been interested in medicine since I was quite young, however for quite a number of reasons I just did not see myself in this role. I also assumed that medicine was not as interdisciplinary as I had hoped, but this book quickly changed my inaccurate assumptions. Dr. Schwartz boldly introduces his work by making the claim that in the next fifty years, genetic intervention will shift the present focus of medicine (in the United States) from repairing and maintenance therapies to preventing the onset of disease. Dr. Schwartz is hopeful that medical care in 50 years will be more effective, less expensive and will rely less on resource-intensive procedures. While I remain skeptical about such a utopian prospect, I can quickly see why he has such enthusiasm regarding the massive changes which is currently uprooting traditional medicine. Dr. Schwartz is not only a physician; he also is a professor, a former chair of the department of medicine at Tufts University, President of the American Society of Nephrology and Principal advisor to the health Sciences Program at the Rand Corporation. He is both is a practitioner of medicine as well as an administrator and policy maker, who views the onset of this utopia from two unique perspectives; as a Doctor where the practice of medicine will change from merely treating symptoms, as well as maintaining clients' levels of health, to that of an administrator who views the this new paradigm as one which will eliminate the sky rocking cost of care in patients which is only increasing. While I find Dr. Schwartz a little over-enthused about this new revolution in medicine, other parts of his work are really interesting, even if only from a historical as well as political viewpoint. Dr. Schwartz starts his examination with the birth as well growth of big medicine. Following World War II, scientists and government leaders became increasingly supportive of medical research which could yield dramatic results, such as the Manhattan Project had years earlier. It was out of this examination that they believed that the "American people were ready to harness some of the nation's growing economic muscle in the fight against disease". One of the main supporters of this program was actually a wealthy and successful woman named Mary Lasker, who along with her husband helped establish a coalition of public and private leaders who placed medical research funding on the national political agenda. Mary Lasker was also the individual who was responsible for the transformation of the American Cancer Society from a relatively insignificant support organization into a bulging source of money for medical research. I emphasize this aspect of t