That's Fit

As it turns out, it isn't worth a pound of cure, according to the Washington Post.

I was more than a little disheartened to read the cover story in the Health section of yesterday's paper. Apparently, as the story points out with examples, an ounce of prevention is worth a whole lot less than a pound of cure despite political campaign banter claiming otherwise. Not even close, in fact. The scales are actually tipped the other way. It's cheaper to let people get sick. Smoking cessation, colonoscopies for guys in their 60s and childhood vaccinations are among exceptions.

The article mentions at the very end a point that I think is bigger than dollars and cents. Paying for good health is an investment. And a good one. I wonder how any attempt to calculate the cost of prevention and measure it up against cure can be absolutely accurate. The examples in the Post are convincing. Giving a bunch of people cholesterol-reducing drugs in an effort to prevent heart disease that will develop in only a fraction of them clearly requires a heap o' dough for prescriptions. But if life is all about how much things cost and that leads to deciding whether our health -- and by extension our very lives -- are worth the expense, what's the point anyway? Have we really reached a point at which money is more valuable than life?

Wow. I think our society needs a colonoscopy. On second thought, we can save the money. I think we can skip ahead to diagnosing cancer. The good news: I believe this type can be cured. What do you think? What's the cure? Am I wrong? Do you disagree with the diagnosis?

A good friend and I have been trying to get together for weeks. Last night she called and said, "This weekend we're going out....unless Maggie has the chickenpox." She quickly explained how her daughter had gotten sick and now has the telltale spots, and they were off to the doctor today. Maggie's been vaccinated, but according to research published this week, the conventional one shot vaccination at 12 months isn't enough.

What the recent study found was that the longer a child had been vaccinated, the higher their risk was of getting chickenpox. While the cases discovered in the study were mild, probably due to the initial vaccine, researchers aren't sure that that immunity will carry into adulthood. The disease is rarely serious, but can cause permanent scarring and symptoms are often more serious in adults.

The solution, of course, is a booster shot, so children get to look forward to an additional shot at their 4 to 6 year well child visit. In the meantime, my friend and I might have wait a few more weeks for the girl's night out.