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Futurist predicts leaps in medicine By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune If you think health care changed dramatically during the past 20 years, you won't believe what's coming down the pike in the next two decades. How about vaccines for asthma and other diseases? Or growing your own replacement organs? Or computers that will tell doctors where to find the latest research about what ails you? It's all coming soon, said Jeff Goldsmith, a Virginia-based "health futurist" who spoke Monday to the Medford/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce. Vastly improved computers and genetic research will provide the foundation for technological developments that will make today's most sophisticated equipment "pale by comparison," Goldsmith said. He noted that today's medical-imaging equipment was built for computers that had only about 100,000 transistors on a chip. Future innovations will take advantage of chips that contain 40 million transistors. "It's absolutely stunning how rapidly information technology is changing the health care industry," said Goldsmith, an Oregon native who went to work in health care planning after earning a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. As president of Health Futures Inc., he consults with hospitals and health-care agencies about the future of health care. He came to Southern Oregon on an invitation from Scott Kelly, Asante Health System's vice president for planning, marketing and business development. Goldsmith said the full benefits of mapping human genes may take 100 years to realize, "but we won't have to wait 100 years for our better understanding of genes to affect our health." For example, scientists may soon create vaccines for a range of non-infectious diseases such as asthma and type-1 diabetes, and administer those vaccines to people whose genes suggest they might be vulnerable to those diseases. Genetic research may also help to extend human life span and improve the quality of life in those extra years. Goldsmith said there were about 45,000 centenarians in the United States in 1990, but there could be well over 1 million by 2050, "and they may be healthier than today's 80-year-olds." The key to extending life and improving quality of life will be found as scientists figure out the "software" in human stem cells, the cells that manufacture all the other kinds of cells in the body. "What's really at stake," he said, "is the ability to generate from your own stem cells organs that can be transplanted back into you." As physicians understand the molecular basis for disease, the entire concept of medical care will change, he said. Much of what doctors now do involves salvaging people from the late stages of chronic diseases. Soon they will study blood chemistry and genetic information to extinguish diseases before they become life-threatening. That approach could generate a 20-fold increase in patients seeking treatment, Goldsmith said. "Five percent of the people are sick, but 100 percent have some kind of inherent health risk." Goldsmith acknowledged some potential cyclones in the blue sky he portrayed. Society will have to find a way to pay for all the new care options, and determine who qualifies for which treatments. Medical spending in the United States already exceeds the value of the entire economy of any country in the world except Japan and Germany. He said it's impossible to predict how all the information and technology will change our lives "because we don't know how the tools will change our perceptions about the world." Whether we can use the information wisely remains to be seen, he said. "I worry about our society's ability to use these tools." On the Net: www.healthfutures.net. Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.