Holland & Hart Healthcare Law Blog

THE END OF MEDICINE: How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor by Andy Kessler, Collins 2007.

    Andy Kessler is an irreverent, flip and highly readable writer who poses an interesting single question and than doggedly pursues an answer, with a lot of biting asides to entertain the reader. The question is, given the exponential decline in cost of technology in Silicon Valley and its exponential increase in power and effectiveness, why hasn’t medical technology turned over the same returns to deliver more effective health care at a cheaper cost. There are a number of reasons including the inherent slowness of the treatment and study process, the FDA, entrenched economic interests and the focus on treatment rather than prevention.

    

THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR: When Humans Transcend Biology. by Ray Kurzweil, Viking Press, 2005.

    Recent developments in brain scanning through technological refinements of SPECT, fMRI and PET scans that monitor water, blood and/or glucose movement in the human brain to observe actual brain functioning as opposed to structure are providing a wealth of new information concerning its organization, complexity and integration.  Ray Kurzweil believes that exponential improvements in the temporal, spatial resolution and bandwidth of the human brain which is doubling each year, will successfully enable us to reverse engineer the human brains principals of operation  in the first half of this century.  This will result in that he calls the “Singularity” where machine based intelligence surpasses that of all humans combined, creating a disruptive transformation in human capability.  This capability he believes will be a billion times more powerful that all of human intelligence today.

Within several decades information based technologies will encompass all human knowledge and proficiency, ultimately including the pattern recognition powers, problem solving skills, and emotional and moral intelligence of the brain itself.

MARKET DRIVEN HEALTH CARE IN 2057: The Movie

How about a popular movie on market based health care reform?  There is actually one out there although it hasn’t yet penetrated the cloud over the current health care debate, and surprisingly didn’t score well in the box office count over the weekend.  On the first day after the House passage of the Obama Administration’e Health Care Reform Bill as approved by the Senate and following passage by the house of a bill to amend it, it might be interesting to review a future that is at least equally as bleak as the “Tea Party”  people and their surrogates have been painting the likely affects of health care reform.  The movie presents a society in which high pressure sales people use guilt, guile and outright fraud to coerce people to purchase very very expensive electronic organ replacement devices such as hearts, kidneys. livers, eyes, knees,, etc. (called “artiforgs” ) The artiforgs can provide an electronic read out to various patrolling repossession gleaners, the status of their credit accounts.

DSM –V: THE NEXT FRONTIER OF MENTAL ILLNESS (IF IT IS ILLNESS).

There is much anticipation over the soon to be released new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders  (DSM –V) by the American Psychiatric Association (“APA.)  It is due in 2012. There are many interests involved in the development and recognition of categories of mental disorders. (There is still controversy over whether there is mental “illness,” but there is more congruence over the existence of “disorders.”  The late poet, Theodore Roethke, once wrote, “What is mental illness, but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?”  The APA, the psychiatric profession, the pharmaceutical industry and other groups have a much bigger and more complex investment in the definition of categories of mental illness.

HEALTH CARE REFORM PART II: MAURAUDING SENIORS INVADE TOWN HALL.

Many of the seniors showing up at congressional town hall meetings on health care reform – at least those drawing the media’s attention seemed to be in serious need of adult supervision. The antics before the cameras seemed bent on disruption and venting of anger almost as much as the display of ignorance that seemed to pervade these events. Sure, the Seniors seemed to be angry at a lot of things in addition to health care.  They also seemed to be spurred on by irresponsible seniors-caring tactics by those commentators that have no ethical compunction against the intentional “misreading” of the text of the proposed house and inflammatory media ads by radical fringe groups 60plus.org.  to further political ends.

BOOK REVIEW – CRITICAL: WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT THE HEALTH-CARE CRISIS. Sen. Tom Daschle with Scott S. Greenberger and Jeanne M. Lambrew. Thomas Dunn Books, St. Martin’s Press (2008).

 This small, readable book should be essential reading for all interested in the Health Care reform debate. It is probably more important for its influence than its content, because it was written by President Obama’s first choice as Secretary of HHS and lead player in the President’s efforts to accomplish health care reform until derailed by his failures in tax planning and by the current Deputy White House Health Care Reform guru, Jeanne M. Lambrew.

 

BOOK REVIEW: Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D., FANTASTIC VOYAGE: LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO LIVE FOREVER, Rodale 2004.

Aubrey de Grey, the British biomedical gerontologist who recently appeared on 60 Minutes and gave a lecture on “Why We Age and How We Can Avoid It” on TED is convinced that we now have the resources to repair metabolically damaged tissue so as to be able to live for 1000 years.  He believes that it is possible for a 50 year old to “pull out of the dive” of aging based on current and immediately anticipated technology.

Book Review: Public Health law: Power, Duty Restraint, Lawrence O. Gostin; University of California Press (Revised and expanded Second edition (2008).

The title, Public Health Law smacks of the kind of mind numbing subject of old textbooks one runs across occasionally in used book sales at public libraries or the free book box outside of used book stores. This book is far different. It is an intelligently imagined overview of the public health system of the United States from a legal perspective that focuses on the inherent legal tensions and conflicts between collective action and individual liberty that pervade every major social issue affecting citizens. There are very few social- political issues extant in our country that fail to fall within the rubric of some aspect of public health. This book is in the nature of a survey course on the subject hitting mostly the top of waves. It provides a comprehensive overview of the legal cases affecting all aspects of public health law and represents an excellent primer for student, professionals and general readers alike.