Musings on a Monday morning.
This may not be a purely hypothetical question. Humanity has made enormous progress, especially from the mid-to-late 19th century on, in reducing, even eliminating in some cases, the impact of disease. Perhaps the crown jewel of this effort, so far, has been the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s.
And one might consider also the
virtual eradication, at least in those countries with advanced health and sanitary measures, of a number of serious illnesses. Illnesses which, common in earlier decades, are far less threatening today, and now almost unknown in many places.
For example (and a number of these illnesses were still common as recently as the 1950s -- and lots of us may even have
had them!) :
https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/vaccines/14-diseases-nearly-eliminated-by-vaccines And I might add, BTW, that this discussion is not all that OT, since by positing a disease-free world, that would automatically mean a
cancer-free one as well!
Interestingly, I did find in researching the topic of a disease-free world, that there are a good number of articles about
it, and, perhaps even more interesting, that they tended to "specialize," by treating different aspects of it.
Some dealt with what would be the technical, medical aspects of it, such as the resulting reduced need for medical services, or changes in medical training. Others addressed the economic impact on pharmaceuticals and insurance matters.
But here's an article, short but informative, that comments more on the "big picture" aspect of it:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-no-illness.htmand which makes observations such as
"If we never got sick, would we still die? Yep. We'd meet our maker thanks to murders and suicides. We'd fatally overdose on drugs. We'd be hit by cars and killed in other accidents. We'd die in natural disasters and man-made ones, too, such as war. Without food, we'd starve to death."
"We also could probably die of old age, even if there were no disease. Death from falls is a good example. Aging causes changes that aren't diseases but nonetheless lead to falls."
"Without illness, the death rate would drop. Would the population boom so fast that we'd have housing shortages and wars?" (The author argues against this)
"Would doctors, nurses, pharmacists and mental health workers lose their jobs? Again, no. We'd still need these workers, plus hospitals, for accident victims and elective surgeries, as well as births and abortions. The pharmaceutical industry probably would also get by, at the very least, by selling anesthetic for painless childbirth and cosmetic surgeries and repairing wrecked bodies after accidents. It might even market drugs for enhancing life beyond healthy."But, again interestingly, there are some who advise proceeding cautiously in the matter of eliminating most, or even all, disease, if that ever even becomes possible. They suggest that intervening in the natural process of disease occurrence, even if it results in significant decreases in death rate and suffering, may somehow lead to unforeseen and potentially even worse consequences than the diseases themselves. Because we would be interfering in natural evolutionary processes.
For example, there is the claim from one website:
"Does regularly getting the cold or the flu when we're young help us later? These viruses might somehow aid in the growth and development of our metabolisms, or even our organs. Scientists aren't sure, because they haven't had the chance to study a virus-free human population."Another issue raised in some articles, and one with very serious ethical consequences, is the "culling" aspect of fatal diseases. That is, they strengthen the survivability potential of humankind as a whole by killing off those of us who are weak, and who would otherwise degrade such survivability should they survive and reproduce.
Aside from the moral repugnance of such a cold, unfeeling view of the matter, a good response to this position that I found is that for centuries humans have
already been saving the weak in various ways, and doing so to our moral credit. An example given was that over millenia we came to live in warm houses as opposed to freezing caves, with the resulting survival benefit to all of us, both strong and weak.
But of course the obvious and ready answer to these objections is that prevention of death and suffering from any disease is worth the risk (and there may be none) of some kind of unforeseen consequences occurring after universal (or close to it) elimination of all disease.
Or maybe the better approach might be the gradual elimination of disease in a slower, controlled manner, one disease at a time, rather than eliminating them all at once, through some kind of Universal Disease Cure, if that were to become even possible. Sort of easing into the new disease-free world slowly. Less disruptive to evolution that way, perhaps.
But on the general issue of eliminating disease, of course we will do that whenever circumstances make it possible.
And specifically, shall we stop searching for a cure for cancer out of some kind of fear that some unexpected, harmful, and anti-evolutionary consequence may follow if we do cure it? Of course not.
The course of death and suffering caused by dangerous diseases is too well known to do otherwise than to eliminate them whenever possible.
Sometimes this message hits close to home. In September 1888 an outbreak of yellow fever struck right here in my own home city of Gainesville, causing for several months a major disruption in life, and mortality from the disease.
Here's a 2009 account of that frightening time from the local Gainesville Sun newspaper:
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2009/10/24/yellow-peril-of-1888/31726876007/which notes:
"Two-thirds of Gainesville's population fled as an epidemic of Yellow Fever ravaged the city."
"Headaches, vomiting, high temperature, and aching bones might lead to death in two days, or the fever might run its course and the patient recover."
"The cause of the pestilence was a mystery ... Some of the measures taken by health departments at the time included isolating fever victims, burning their clothing and bedding, posting yellow flags on infected houses, evacuating cities and closing borders, fumigating mail, shooting off guns, and disinfecting city streets with clouds of sulfur."
"The epidemic consisted of 116 confirmed cases of yellow fever and 16 deaths in Gainesville. The fever siege was to be a long one that cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct costs and even more due to the loss of business and wages during the autumn of 1888."No serious health issue even remotely similar in its scope has ever happened here in Gainesville since then.
The elimination of disease is a noble undertaking. And even if there is some kind of evolutionary cost in doing so, it is one well worth paying.