Shouldn't we expect that at this juncture in history, when science claims to know so much......that we would have a cure for cancer and heart disease
No. The problems medicine faces that can be solved will be solved when the necessary progress has been made. It is a slow process as is all of scientific discovery.
Where does science claim to "know so much"? Science claims that the force of gravity falls off with distance according to the inverse square law, that life evolved over deep time naturalistically, and the like. It's credentials are its stunning success. You seem to resent that.
Is there a reason why treatments for cancer particularly, (which are largely unsuccessful,) leave a terminally ill person to die the most horrific of all deaths, is still virtually the same for the last decade or more?
You are wrong again. Treatment for cancers continued to progress through the last decade, which is about as long as I've been retired from medicine. I recently described the case of a man who died this year who was diagnosed with widely disseminated metastatic prostate carcinoma, the prognosis for which in my day was counted in months, but has been extended to years now - the years I knew him. Those extra years were a gift of modern medicine, a field you also disdain and dismiss.
Can you see nothing good about the world or mankind? Do you miss all progress and achievements?
Incidentally, with hospice and palliative care, terminally ill patients do not need to die horrific deaths. Of course, they or someone making decisions for them must seek this help, which would be unlikely for somebody taught the things that you have been taught. More is the pity if they suffer needlessly because of such misinformation.
Stem cell therapy is also on the verge of exploding! Imagine a therapy that is painless and cheap, replacing endless pain killing opioid drugs and expensive surgeries?
Yeah, it's called medical therapy, and that knowledge comes from medical researchers, not holy books or religious denominations.
And despite all those "therapies"....how many of us enjoy good health today without the "need" for drugs?
I don't know. How many have good health because of pharmaceuticals?
Is mitigation all that can be hoped for? Why not cures?
Many medical conditions have no cure,that is, they cannot be removed from the body. They may arise from the DNA, for example, which cannot be removed or modified. The best one can do in such cases is to neutralize the effect of the condition - perhaps return the blood pressure, blood glucose, or cholesterol to normal levels with continuous pharmacotherapy.
Why just make treating symptoms the whole box and dice?
You've already been told that this is a wrong idea that you hold. Medicine treats more than symptoms.
Auto-immune disorders (like rheumatoid arthritis) of many different sorts are surfacing today with the medical profession scratching their heads about what causes them and with no idea how to treat them....except with drugs.
Those drugs have been game changing in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, and represent an impressive advance. You disdaining something that is a great achievement because of your faith-based belief that medicine is corrupt, ineffective, and more dangerous than the conditions it treats.
These often cause more problems than they solve, introducing synthetic chemicals into an already struggling body.
They more often help more problems than they create. Such chemicals help the body in its struggle. Antibiotics are a good example. Many infections that were uniformly lethal in the past can be resolved with the proper synthetic chemicals assisting a struggling body.
It's remarkable how your faith-based confirmation biases determine what you can and cannot see. You're missing so much.
May I ask what field you retired from?
Medicine. More specifically, I am board certified in both internal medicine and hospice / palliative care
Doctors and nurses get their information from the wrong sources I believe
I believe the opposite. Nobody is having more success treating illness than the medical profession - not chiropractors, naturopaths, faith healers, homeopaths, or any other alternative to scientific medicine. Which of these if any would you see if you developed a high fever, a bloody productive cough, chest pain, and shortness of breath due to pneumonia? If it's not the physician, then it is you that is getting information from bad sources.
Calling it "Type 2 Diabetes" somehow makes it sound like you have a disease that you can't help
What part of that name makes the condition seem untreatable to your lay perspective? Is it the "Type 2" part, or the word "diabetes"? And why does it mean that to you?
