The Aspen Health Forum just gathered an impressive group of
around 250 people to discuss the most pressing issues in
Health and Medical Science.
1- Global health problems require the attention of the
scientific community. Richard Klausner encouraged the
scientific community to focus on Global Problems: maternal
mortality rates, HIV/ AIDS, clean water, cancer...
2- "Let's get real...Ideology kills". Mary Robinson, former
President of Ireland, on what it takes to stop HIV/ AIDS:
"I am from Ireland, a Catholic country. And I am Catholic.
But I can see how ideology kills..we need more empathy with
reality, and to work with local women in those countries."
This session included a fascinating exchange where Bill
Frist rose from the audience to defend the role of US aid,
explaining how 60% of retroviral drugs in African countries
have been funded by the American taxpayer. Which made Nobel
Prize Laureate Peter Agre, also in the audience, stand up
and encourage the US to really step up to the plate and
devote 1% of the GDP to aid, as a number of European
countries do, instead of 0.1%.
3- Where is the new "Sputnik"?: Many of the speakers had
been inspired by the Sputnik and the Apollo missions to
become scientists. Two Nobel Prize Laureates talked about
their lives and careers trying to demystify what it takes
to be a scientist and to win a Nobel Prize. Both are
grateful to the taxpayers dollars that funded their
research, and insist we must do a better job at explaining
the scientific process to society at large. Both are proud
of having attended small liberal arts colleges, and having
evolved from there, fueled by their great curiosity and
unpredictable, serendipitous paths, into launching new
scientific and medical fields.
4- We need a true Health Care Culture: Mark Ganz summarized
it best by explaining how his health provider group
improved care when they redefined themselves from "we are
7,000 employees" to "we are a 3 million strong community",
moving from being a cost controller with a paternalistic
attitude to a health facilitator, looking underneath
symptoms to identify and deal with underlying patterns.
5- You can't manage what you can't measure. We heard many
times how defining and measuring outcomes, so common in the
private sector, is critical to ensuring a good allocation
of resources in the health and scientific fields, that use
so much taxpayer money. For example. NIH funding grew from
$9B in 1994 to $29B in 2007, yet the results are not clear.
The same happened with health care as a whole, a sector
that now consumes 16% of the US GDP with health outcomes
(infant mortality, patient deaths in hospitals) worse than
other countries that invest far less.
6- The rising role of public-private partnerships: There
are multiple initiatives launched to bridge the increasing
gap between academia and industry. The Foundation for the
NIH has facilitated key conversation between the FDA and
pharma companies. The Gates and Clinton Foundations have
launched innovative partnership models to tackle global
health problems.
7- From Lifespan to Health-span. Population distribution in
developed countries is shifting from a "population pyramid"
to a "population rectangle". The point of much ongoing
research is not "how to spend more time on the nursing
home" but how to slow down the process of aging, so we can
live healthier longer.
8- Patient-advocacy groups are having an impact. We heard
many examples on how small groups of motivated individuals
have built large patient advocate movements that influence
public policy. Michael Milken talked about the Cancer
March, that helped increase NIH funding from $1.5B to 5$B.
Hala Moddelmog, from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure,
explained how they have 1 million people engaged in
promoting cancer research and prevention. Robert Klein, key
advocate of the California Proposition 71 (that will
provide $6B for stem cell research through long-term bonds)
explained how the proposition was passed, including
engaging over 80 patient-advocacy groups.
9- There's a new emphasis on understanding "how systems
work" instead of "how isolated genes make things happen on
their own": Genomics is starting to help predict
susceptibility to disease and to therapies. Now, we must
keep in mind the role of our experience and environment in
turning some genes on or off.
10- The importance of our Lifestyle-Each of us owns our own
health. 70% of heathcare costs derive from
lifestyle-related diseases (such as smoking-induced
cancer). We heard several calls to action for insurance
companies to incentivize behavior modification to promote
good lifestyle habits that improve quality of life and can
delay disease symptoms, resulting in billions of dollars of
cost savings.
In short, a very stimulating inaugural 3-day conference. I
hope the one next year is even better.
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Alvaro Fernandez is the CEO and Co-Founder of
SharpBrains.com, which provides the latest science-based
information for Scientific Brain Training and Brain
Exercise, and has been recognized by Scientific American
Mind, MarketWatch, CBS, Forbes, and more. Alvaro holds MA
in Education and MBA from Stanford University, and teaches
The Science of Brain Health at UC-Berkeley Lifelong
Learning Institute. You can learn more at
http://www.sharpbrains.com/
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