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“There are two things civilized Man should never see being made: Sausages and Laws.”
Otto von Bismarck
I’ve decided there is a third item to be added to this quote. Modern medical innovation.
As I continue wandering through the maze of news stories on COVID-19, this one caught my attention, “COVID Has Killed 5 Million People, But Only Hundreds Have Been Autopsied.” Once again let me declare I’m not a pathologist, scientist, physician or associated with any other clinical profession. In fact, I ran across the aforementioned article on the Bloomberg Businessweek website. Frankly, the headline was shocking to me based upon my limited understanding of how advancements in medical care have been made over history.
My first journey into this murky world occurred many years ago when I was doing research on a speech about hospital acquired infections and policies about clinicians hand washing. It’s ironic how relevant that story is to the current environment but that will have to wait for another day.
For most lay people, our medical knowledge has been gained through prime time television.
Hollywood has done a masterful job taking us from City Hospital (1952-53) to Dr. Kildare (1961-1966) to Medical Center (1969-1976) to ER (1994-2009) to Grey’s Anatomy (2005-Present) and too many more to list. Medical discovery and innovation for centuries have been united/conflicted by complex interrelationships of science, art and politics. Oftentimes these relationships have been reflected on our television screens. For example, I’m a fan of NCIS and have become accustomed to the marvels of medical science, performed in the context of autopsies, to provide the clues to seemingly unsolvable murder mysteries. This is why the aforementioned headline struck me as unbelievable.
So let me summarize (and translate) the article (if you want more accurate details, find it on the internet) for you. Once upon a time, autopsies were how medical professionals figured out why/how people died-this was the application of scientific discovery in medicine. More recently “sophisticated diagnostic tools and health-system budget cuts have made them (autopsies) a dying practice.” (Pardon the pun that’s a quote from the article.) The numbers currently are over 5 million deaths world-wide and somewhere in the hundreds of documented autopsies. According to the head of a forensic lab in Australia, the cost of an Autopsy is between $2,000 and $4,000. My calculation shows if we’d autopsy approximately half of the deaths (2,500,000) at the full retail price of $4K the price tag would be $10 trillion world wide. While this sounds astronomical, let’s compare this to the economic cost of COVID world-wide (for we don’t know how much longer) and add whatever value you’d like on the loss of life. Then one must figure long before we get to the 2.5 millionth autopsy someone figures out how to “cure” the virus. I don’t have much hope under the current scenario we’re going to get to this solution anytime very soon.
This brings me to a much more serious concern. Who the hell is in charge? Why isn’t the CDC or some other agency mandating autopsies on a certain number of people each month. Where the hell is the data? We continually hear “follow the science”! Well, science is facts and data! I continually hear on local news media outlets worthless counts of infection rates, deaths and hospital occupancy related to COVID cases. Who cares? Shouldn’t we know which hospitals have developed best practices and have reduced mortality rates? Who has the best outcomes? Where are the best COVID hospitals? If I need cancer care, I can find the best cancer hospital, if I want breast implants I can find the best plastic surgeon. If I have COVID, how do I know where the BEST Hospital is? There could be all sorts of criteria established to find answers to these and hundreds of other questions people have. The current approach seems random at best and dysfunctional at worst.
There is a growing divide in this country about vaccines. As I’ve reported before-I’m vaccinated and have had COVID post vaccine. At the time, given my age and current underlying medical conditions, I thought the vaccine was the right approach. Having acquired the virus hasn’t made me regret my decision. I’m even considering getting the booster. Here’s the But! I’m becoming more willing to listen to those opposed to being vaccinated because I’m becoming more and more alarmed at what isn’t being done regarding how we’re addressing the virus. The lack of autopsies is just the first of these discoveries. I’m willing to listen because I’m now more and more curious about hearing the “whole” story. Let’s not forget the same medical, industrial complex that gave us Opioids is giving us the COVID vaccine. They are also the ones spending millions on lobbyists in Washington and making billions are providing the vaccine.
Stay tuned…next up COVID data gathering or the lack thereof…!
