>
> As I understand it--and I'm by no means an expert--while the
> death rate in childhood has gone way down, so has the
> death rate at a lot of other ages. Diseases like smallpox,
> tuberculosis, and influenza used to kill huge numbers of
> adults, not just children. Large numbers of women used to
> die while, or shortly after, giving birth.
In other words, most causes of death other than the aging diseases are
identifiably external, with effective treatments available. The progress
against aging a.k.a. entropy accumulation diseases [specifically cancer;
several of the cardiovascular diseases appear to be treatable with a
moderately(?) low-fat diet--15%. [cf. Ornish, etc.]] is much less
dramatic. Survival rates for most cancers seem to not be changing that
much, yet. [Competent genetic engineering would help with the cancers,
at least. "Come back in a month. We'll have a shot of Editor ready then."]
I hope the phamaceutical companies find an antibiotic [or something
equivalent] effective against those bacteria which are simply immune to
all known antibiotics [as of 9/1/96]. If the resistance genes were to
spread too fast first [courtesy of natural selection i.e. Elementary
Differential Equations], things could get really interesting....
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>
> Vicki Rosenzweig
> rosenzweig@hq.acm.org
> http://members.tripod.com/~rosvicl
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