Cancer to remain incurable even in 100 years

The World Health Organization published the forecast of most common reasons of mortality in 2030. The picture of the possible future was based on the data of present-date causes of death supplemented with certain expectations. There are three most common reasons of mortality nowadays in the world: oncological diseases, ischemic heart disease and stroke.

Photo: Cancer to remain incurable even in 100 years

The WHO believes that the three most common killers will keep and even improve their leading positions during the next coming decades. Strangely enough, cancer will be killing more people despite the development of modern medicine: the people, who would die of other diseases before, would live up to cancerous diseases. Heart attacks and strokes will cause many deaths among elderly people due to scientific achievements in medicine too.

The number of deaths in car accidents will be growing in the future. The technical development of the human civilization has always been ahead of the evolution of culture.

The global death rate may also increase in the event people decide to refuse from vaccinations. There were such outbursts before, for example in 1873-1874 in Stockholm, when many declined vaccination for religious reasons and fell victims to smallpox. The epidemic of smallpox in the Swedish capital ended only as a result of massive vaccination. Outbursts of whooping cough in Britain during the 1970s, measles in Holland, Ireland, Nigeria and the USA during the 2000s occurred for the same reason.

Acute respiratory infections, TB, malaria and child labor death rates will decrease. The forecast of the World Health Organization includes the countries of the golden billion and the third world states, where the above-mentioned death rate is especially high. The decrease of the overall death rate in Africa and South-East Asia will depend on the state of the world economy. If mankind goes through a decade of the economic recession, similar to the Great Depression of 1929-1940, the humanitarian missions in developing states will not be able to expand their activities.

AIDS as a cause of death will be getting more frequent before 2015. The AIDS-related death rate will start to decrease afterwards. Specialists probably pin their hopes on the invention of the anti-AIDS vaccine. No one knows if the vaccine is ever going to become possible due to frequent mutations and changes of the nature of the virus. However, the death rate is possible to decline. Even modern therapy guarantees a considerable level of survival for HIV-positive individuals.

Some other scientists, for example, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, wrote in his book, “Adam’s Curse”, that men would disappear in the course of the human evolution. The scientist believes that the Y-chromosome, which is responsible for the male sex, will eventually disappear due to numerous defects. Men may become extinct in about 125,000 years, Sykes believes.

Medportal