R we getting dumber as the years go by? ailment?

why is there no cures for common ailments, such as diabities, aids, cancer, colds to name a few. when a 100 or so years ago they were cureing all sorts of ailments, did we get dumb or are we trying hard enough

Dawn,

It would take a lot more research than that which I've shown below to find a true answer to your question. However, using the #3 & #6 leading causes of US deaths the findings would indicate that the answer to your question would be we are not getting either dumber or lazier in the pursuit of research and treatment but rather a combination of population increase and individual choices of lifestyle.

While early detection and intervention, along with an overall decrease in smoking, have greatly slowed the rate of increase in mortality due to all cancers you can see that the increase in diagnosed cases of Diabetes has grown significantly and the mortality rate has been almost the same at 61% (*){see article at link below}.

Certainly there is room for improvement in medical science with respect to research, diagnosis and treatment of many of the leading diseases today such as HIV-AIDS, Cancers and Diabetes there is also much more room for improvement in individual choice of lifestyle. In presenting this I choose the issue of Diabetes since this disease is attributable to a broad number of other fatal and/or debilitating factors such as heart attack, kidney failure, blindness and amputation. While Diabetes is a very preventable and/or treatable disease the increased rates of diagnosis and death can be directly attributable to individual choice in lifestyle with respect to diet and physical exercise. When taking the national obesity problem into account it becomes easy to understand correlation to increased Diabetic related deaths.


Diabetes: 60% Est. Increase in diagnosed cases from 1980 to 2004

http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/p...


"Type 2 diabetes, formerly considered 鈥渁dult onset鈥?diabetes, is now being diagnosed more frequently among children and adolescents. This type of diabetes is linked to two modifiable risk factors: obesity and physical inactivity."

(*) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicaln...



Population: 19.5% Est. Increase in population from 1980 to 2000

1980 Population Census: 226,542,199
http://www.census.gov/population/censusd...


2000 Population Census: 281,421,906
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTT...



Cancers (all): 2% Est. Increase in mortality cases from 1997 to 2005

1997 Est. US Cancer Deaths: 560,000 ( American Cancer Society & National Cancer Institute)
http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/F&F9...


2005 Est. US Cancer Deaths: 570,280 ( American Cancer Society & National Cancer Institute)
http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/CAFF...


While you're thinking this may seem like a lot of effort put forth to answer one question here in Yahoo! Answers, I felt your question was well worth the short amount of time required to state these facts. In summary, my answer to your question is simply that before we as citizens can fairly admonish the US medical system we must first be accountable for ourselves as individuals. If diet and exercise are becoming less and less important to the overall population, which the increase in obesity would indicate, then we hardly have any justification for criticizing those who work hard to treat and prevent leading causes of death in this country.

were just dumber

we are evoluating !!! Not getting dumber !!

we are not getting dumber, just greedier! drug companies only want to find cures for things that will bring in loads of money, like aids, and cancer. They really don't care if there is ever a cure for things they can produce medicines for because then they won't make any money off the disease.

i guess we are focusing on more concerned diseases then those. idk but just give some time and then they will make a breakthough and find all sort of cures for the diseases u listed and maybe more

No we're curing ailments its just that we are detecting more and more smart bacterias and viruses.