New Paper Accepted for Publication (JME)

My paper titled "Imagination and Idealism in the Medical Sciences of an Aging World" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Medical Ethics.  Here is the abstract:

Imagination and idealism are particularly important creative epistemic virtues for the medical sciences if we hope to improve the health of the world’s aging population.  To date, imagination and idealism within the medical sciences has been dominated by a paradigm of disease control, a paradigm which has realized significant, but also limited, success.  Disease control proved particularly successful in mitigating the early-life mortality risks from infectious diseases, but it has proved less successful when applied to the chronic diseases of late life (like cancer).  The time is ripe for the emergence and prominence of a supplementary medical research paradigm, the paradigm of “healthy aging” which prioritizes the goal of rate (of aging) control rather than disease control. This is the difference between extending the human healthspan vs extending survival by managing (or trying to eliminate) the multi-morbidities, frailty and disability currently prevalent in late life.  The idealism of the disease control paradigm is myopic because it ignores the health constraints imposed by the inborn aging process itself, a biological reality which is already inflicting significant economic and disease burdens on the world’s aging populations.  Unless the medical sciences retard the rate of biological aging, these problems will continue to be amplified as larger numbers of persons survive into late life.  

Cheers 

Colin