Sick Sucks!

Ok, I've had this nasty cold for like a week and a half now. I did make it back to work for this week, but GEEZE. I'm am REALLY tired of hacking up multi-colored phlegm globbers.

How is it that we can put a man on The Moon, robots on Mars, probes in orbit of Saturn & Jupiter, stream TV & Podcasts over the Internet and have cars that (mostly) parallel-park themselves but we can't cure the common cold?

Yes, yes, I know that the cold virus mutates rapidly. Yes, yes I know there is a MAJOR financial incentive for cold-remedy companies to KEEP us getting sick. Yes, yes I've heard that there is a government conspiracy in place to keep us down. But I don't buy any of that.

Someone, somewhere can come up with an algorithm that predicts the mutation of the virus right? We DO have supercomputers that can, I'm told rather accurately, predict the outcomes of a multi-megaton nuclear detonation. How can we NOT be using those resources to quash the common cold? BULLPUCKEY!

We have supercomputer-like distributed computing networks working on similar problems (see Folding @ Home). And I don't have any problem with their work on Cancer, Alzheimer's, "Mad Cow", AIDS, Parkinson's or any other disease. But I think It's time to focus people. Certainly, parallel research can help in a multitude of areas. But maybe it is time to prioritize a bit? I propose the following:

1. Create a list (database) of all known viral pathogens.
2. Calculate the impact of each one based on number of unique infections per year, virulence, financial impact of those infections (things like lost productivity, time off work, sanitation, money spent on "remedies," health-care costs, insurance premium impact,...things like that).
3. Consolidate viral research resources including manpower, computing resources, financial resources, etc.
4. Develop an oversight committee to organize and direct the research for each virus so that we don't have lots of duplicate (i.e. WASTED) research going on.
   
5. Assign at least 50% of ALL the consolidated resources to the TOP virus (as calculated in #2 on this list) until it is wiped out. The remaining 50% of resources could be allocated in more subjective or liberal ways similar to what we have now I guess.
6. When the TOP virus is wiped out, the list shifts up and the 2nd TOP virus becomes the TOP virus and we repeat Step #5 on this list.

I think we could make some real progress (as human beings, not just Americans) on ticking items off that list. And, as more and more people become less and less sick, our "ability" to move down that list will speed up. I would IMAGINE that the TOP 5 viruses (if calculated today) could be cured within about 15 years (sure that is just a guess, but a pleasant one don't ya think?).

This, I think, would be a boon for humanity. Much more so than the TINY, incremental progress we make on hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of different viruses each year.

What do you think? I would LOVE to have others' input on this issue. If I hear a good idea, I'll amend the STEPS accordingly.


"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" (at least when it comes to communicable diseases I think)

-Iton