Modern industrialized societies enjoy the longest life expectancies ever. Some of this is due to hygienic measures, potable water being one of them, vaccines being another.

The capitalist pharmacologic establishment is the third cause of this expanded lifespan.

Looking at some data, 1000 years BC the life expectancy was 18 years. By the time of the Roman Republic, it had risen to 25, probably due to a better food distribution system, and regulations on water supply that are still in force now, almost essentially unchanged.

By the 1900s, in the US, the life expectancy had reached 49. In the year 2000 it has reached 79 years for women and 72.9 for men.

The availability of modern medicines, produced generally by capitalist driven pharmaceutical companies is behind this expanded lifetime.

Of course most new drugs treat chronic conditions. Acute illnesses are usually infectious, and, either self limited (i.e. the common cold), easily cured with antibiotics (i.e. pneumonia) or preventable by vaccinations (i.e. measles, Hepatitis or Yellow fever)

Some of the common diseases that remain are lifestyle issues, like adult onset diabetes, related to diet and obesity, or chronic degenerative diseases, which are the unavoidable result of living for 80 years when the body was designed for say no more than 40.

For about fifty years in the last century we conducted an interesting experiment about non capitalist development of drugs. To my knowledge the only drug that was discovered in a non-capitalist country was Bromocryptine, discovered in the former Soviet Union. The pharmaceutical industry in the non-capitalist countries limited itself to copy the western drugs, often without paying any royalties.

To this day, all the new drugs that have affected the outcomes of diseases like HIV have been discovered in the west, by profit oriented companies.

By all means, if you hate capitalist pharmaceutical companies so much, reject their products, and treat yourself with mint tea, and snake oil. Maybe they will work better.

Learn more about this author, Pedro Miranda.
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