Have any major diseases been cured since WWII?

Question

I'm curious, what with all the money donated to research for Cancer, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Parkinson's, Heart Disease, etc., that there only seems to be drug treatment and no total eradicaton. Please prove me wrong.

Answer 1

Smallpox has been totally eradicated. Those of us born before 1957 had what were collectively called "the usual childhood diseases" that are still present but rare in the US except in immigrants. Polio still exists but is no longer the major problem it once was.
Cancer will always be with us, but survival rates are dramatically improved. Likewise, treatments for heart disease have shown dramatic improvements despite the patients' being older and fatter on average than previously.
We do work at cross-purposes in our society, though. The fast pace and high productivity of our economy are not those of a healthy lifestyle, and it's a bit much to ask medicine to solve problems of the greater society. The French, with their leisurely lunches, thirty five hour work weeks, and six weeks' annual vacation, can teach us a few things, but we like our economic advantages more than our health.

Answer 2

MANY diseases have become curable since 1945 when the only antibiotics available were Sulfa drugs and some penicillin.
Tuberculosis was the number one killer 100 years ago in 1907.
Typhoid, Cholera, Dysentery were all top killers a century ago.
Diphtheria killed my uncle when he was 9 years old in 1932.
Ask Lance Armstrong if there is now cure for widespread testicular cancer which was uniformly fatal before the 1970s.
Most cases of Hodgkin's disease and some other lymphomas are curable with chemotherapy now.
The trouble is, we create our own causes of death.
If everyone stopped smoking - BOOM - Lung cancer and heart/vascular disease death rates would decline dramatically within twenty years.
Deaths related to smoking in the U.S. each year ~ 400,000
(more than America lost in World War II over four years)
Deaths related to obesity and poor eating habits ~ 300,000
Deaths related to alcohol ~ 100,000 each year
Deaths related to drugs, firearms, and motor vehicles ~ 100K
One million deaths per year could be saved or "CURED" if people would simply take care of themselves. We all know this, but people still want cures for lung cancer rather than give up the smoking that causes about 90% of it.
Added note - Tougher question = Try to think of ANY disease that was cured by medicine BEFORE 1943.

Answer 3

many types of infection, penicillin only works on certain infections. The dieseases you are referencing are incredibly hard to solve because they are problems in DNA. Since the Human Genome was just recently sequenced, it would be very hard to know exactly what the bad part of the DNA is, find a way to remove it and replace it with a fixed sequence, and how to do this to every single cell in the human body. The problems are astronomical. The research has shown us many ways to avoid these problems, such as showing risk factors for cancer, heart transplants, risk factors for diabetes, and medicines for all of these diseases.

Answer 4

If your referring to the government, they won't get involved because the drug companies are too big a lobby. In other words the drug companies (who also provide most of the research) want to find treatments because the generate more revenue. These profits are used to provide campaign funds to keep politicians out their hair. Another example is the American cancer society and cancer treatment facilities. think about the jobs,taxes,facilities and revenues that would suffer from such a cure. Everything revolves around money in this world, even charities the church, hell I could go on all day.

Answer 5

Polio.

Smallpox.