Medical and health things we'll be horrified by in the future

[Leavesofautumn]

This is inspired by a recent thread about sunbeds.

What things happen now, that in fifty years time we'll be horrified by in the same way that we're horrified by certain things from Victorian times now, or even things from the 1960s? I'm talking about both medical treatments, and products that are harmful to health. In fact asbestos is still a problem now if certain buildings are being demolished.

Smoking indoors is an obvious one - even now I'm amazed we ever went into a restaurant and specifically had to ask for a non-smoking table.

Sunbeds are already banned in Australia and Brazil.

Prednisolone is a nasty drug and I'd like to see it eventually fall out of use once something better has been invented.

In some ideal future, people will look back at the power pharmaceutical companies have over modern medicine and shudder.

Pharmaceutical companies are legally bound to give their shareholders the best return on their investment over and above every other consideration and high levels of chronic disease is absolutely perfect for that end.

The impact of vehicle emissions on health. The air we live with in our cities is horrific and we know all about it, and have since victorian times. Yet there is so much resistance to doing anything about it.

To everyone talking about CBT, I've had CBT myself and found it very unhelpful and almost a bit silly. I think part of the problem is NHS funding though. It's sort of used as a cheaper, quick fix solution. Years ago I was sent to an IAPT place and I didn't know anything about different types of counselling, so I was given CBT and I had no idea what else was available. Later on I researched it for myself and ended up in private counselling for a few years, I can't remember the exact name of the style of counselling but it was far more like how I'd imagined counselling to be. But clearly the NHS can't afford to be paying for that, so I think that's why CBT has been so widely publicised and provided.

Obesity . Tooth decay.

Smear tests will be replaced by something less intrusive eg peeing in a stick, like a pregnancy test

I'd hope that in 50 years we'd have got past the antivaxxer nonsense as well. Earlier generations would have given anything to have had a safe straightforward way to keep their children from getting the really nasty viral illnesses like polio, tetanus, measles, mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, meningitis, flu and rubella. Here we are with exactly that at our disposal and many children lose out on that protection because of fearmongering.

CBT is a crosshead screwdriver. For specific situations it's just the right tool for the job, though sometimes you need a skilled practitioner who knows what to do once the cover's off. But if what you've got doesn't have crosshead screws, all you're gonna do is waste your time or cause damage.

Me personally, I think I'm put together with Torx 😖

Eating meat everyday. Bad for us bad for the planet

This is not necessarily true.

Depending on the type and source of the meat versus non-meat protein, the nutritional needs of the person, and the rest of their diet, and their prevailing circumstances, sometimes it is at least as good for them to eat meat every day than the alternatives. And potentially better for the planet too depending on those sources. It is much more complicated than your statement suggests and understanding this helps humans and planet to be more healthy in the long run.

Facts matter.

Ultra high processed food.

The way that the medical model works. Treating each complaint as a separate issue.
I think that in the future holistic medicine will take over.

No, to be fair, I've found CBT useful for specific anxiety symptoms that are amenable to graduated exposure approaches (one of the behavioural parts of cognitive behavioural therapy) — certain aspects of social phobia, or a fear of public transport.

It's the cognitive parts of CBT — trying to argue myself into not believing depressive thoughts, for example — that really doesn't work for me. All it does is cause me to focus on the depressive thoughts, and come up with stronger justifications for them. And the whole thing is bloody impossible when you're depressed anyway.

Sugar

Throwing CBT and antidepressants at distressed people
People living miserable lives with dementia for decades
Inequality of diagnosis and treatment between men and women (women who have heart attacks are often misdiagnosed with indigestion and the like)
Speculums. Much more comfortable versions have been designed but the medical profession isn’t interested in changing
Failure to diagnose women’s disorders such as endometriosis, leading to years of pain
Refusal to give women hysterectomy or sterilisation because medics decide they might want kids / more kids in the future. The woman isn’t allowed to decide
Hysteroscopy without anaesthetic or pain relief. Barbaric
Puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery given to very young teenagers, who don’t understand how they might feel about being sterile / not having a normal sex life and never being able to orgasm
GP appointments being extremely difficult or impossible to get, while the NHS keeps telling us “see your doctor if you’re worried about……”

This

pe (or the lack of it) in schools.

individual car use.

The problem with school PE is stupid and prescriptive uniforms that are uncomfortable!

My school made us wear shorts. They had to end a certain measurement above the knee. As a fat kid they left me feeling very exposed and uncomfortable! Polo shirts too - I'd have been much happier and likely to take part if I could have worn leggings (or trousers) and a longer length top.

ds has just changed to comfortable tracksuits and legging options for girls. Much more practical than the stupid pe . Skirts. Some progress is happening.

writing off any and all womens symptoms that don’t fit a nice box as anxiety. It’s the modern hysteria label.

Prednisolone is not nice but it helped me keep my bowel for 12 extra years. Sadly it stopped "working" last year and I now have an ileostomy. But the side effects are definitely not the best ....

That, for a while (maybe things are already changing) to want to take responsibility for your own health and expecting others to take responsibility for their health is seen as 'alternative' and having more choices when dealing with serious diseases, like others have mentioned, such as chemotherapy.

I agree. I'm appalled it's like this now. I know so many women who have horrific periods and it's just seen as one of those things.

Oh, definitely all sorts of things to do with childbirth. In the future when we have efficient, accurate handheld scanning that can do all sorts of things like track the baby’s size and position, measure the mother’s pelvic opening properly and check cervical dilation without all those horrendous internals, we’ll be equally horrified at unnecessary surgical intervention on the one extreme and the ‘breathe properly and think positive thoughts’ neglect on the other.

@Frith2013

My exh swears by cbt

Just because people will be horrified in future doesn't make it wrong now. Maybe future society will be wrong about what's best !! Future is not always improvement. In any domain.

Yes, this. People 50 years ago would have been horrified at the very suggestion that healthy body parts should be cut off and natural hormones suppressed/replaced with unnatural (for your sex) hormones - with the resulting removal/damaging of a healthy person's fertility - from children.

People who cross-dressed would have been thought of as a bit odd, but if that's what they wanted, would have been left to it by most people - no need whatsoever to involve a doctor.

Nowadays, 50 years on, we don't universally see this in the same way. Maybe either they or we have/had the more sensible idea....

I also wholeheartedly agree with PP about artificial sweeteners. It wouldn't in any way surprise me if a link is found between them and type 1 diabetes - considering that the whole purpose of them is to trick your body into thinking that it's consuming sugar when it isn't.

Who knows, if that were the case, Donald Rumsfeld could end up in future editions of 'History's Most Wicked People' - assuming, of course, that people with vested interests in the information being covered up/officially derided don't have any say in it....