The economic ramifications in the medical world, where family medicine and pediatric doctors have watched their practices dwindle to almost nothing, are staggering. They are being hammered by non-paying patients who simply want to find a path to vaccination, where even those physicians cannot secure access.
Hospital funding and research dollars are being reallocated to address the calamity we call the “pandemic.” Hospital doctors in some practices completely unrelated to infectious diseases are being reassigned to COVID wards. Even research doctors working on critical solutions to diseases and medical anomalies that have defined their lifetime careers are finding their funding cut as they are “invited” to take over some of the COVID treatment responsibilities of overwhelmed hospitals and their dedicated doctors and nurses.
Universities, dependent on tuition from active teaching as well as grants from government and charitable donation, are watching their cash flow erode. Research budgets are being cut. Unless they are more related to epidemiology, specifically research studies are being suspended or even cancelled. Psychologists and psychiatrists are being pulled off their routines to handle the PTSD-like mental symptoms of those grappling with the novel coronavirus.
For others, early in their medical or biological careers, perhaps out of a most altruist drive, are offering to work in this field… but they lack the training that the existing overworked researchers are unable to provide. Even those who have been medical researchers for years in other areas are ready to saddle up. Julie K Pfeiffer, Professor of Microbiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center and Terence S Dermody. Professor and Chair of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh, writing for the January 29th TheConversation.com, explain the problem:
“For many researchers, the choice to spend decades working in a lab or in the field comes from a desire to help – to expand understanding of how life works or to improve human health. So when COVID-19 emerged, many scientists dropped what they were doing and switched their focus to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the pandemic.
“Suddenly, the ranks of scientists who had been studying coronaviruses were flooded with newcomers seeking to contribute in some way, many with little prior experience in infectious diseases. Some wanted to join in on the biggest problem facing the world. For others, it was the only way to open labs. Others saw funding opportunities.
“We, a virologist and virologist-physician, saw this pivot in our own fields. Many of our colleagues began working on SARS-CoV-2. As an editor/adviser at the Journal of Virology and Science, one of us handled hundreds of papers in 2020, nearly half focused on COVID-19. Curious about the trend and implications, we analyzed published papers about SARS viruses found in PubMed and found the number had increased 20-fold relative to the early 2000s, when the first SARS coronavirus appeared. Our analysis has not yet been published.
“Another recent analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that the proportion of biomedical research papers focused on coronaviruses rose from 0.07% to 5.3% from 2019 to 2020. Many of these papers came from fields that hadn’t considered coronaviruses before, such as psychiatry, cardiovascular research and oncology…
“In biomedicine, academic labs study a specific topic and are led by experienced scientists who direct trainees. Over several years of training, a select number of trainees have the desire and gain sufficient expertise to open their own labs and begin mentoring the next generation of scientists in their field. This is how we keep science going.
“Normally, trainees work in a lab investigating a particular field of biology or medicine, such as cancer or neurodegeneration. Each trainee studies a single, specific topic and publishes his or her research as scientific papers. The rapid pivot to COVID research means many labs – and trainees – that were once studying other topics are now focused on SARS-CoV-2, which means fewer young scientists are now being trained to tackle other health threats. This loss of knowledge and expertise could leave us less prepared for the next health crisis or outbreak.”
All those other medical issues are not disappearing. The loss of experts in those fields could have a long-term negative rippling effect in every other segment of medical research. Or as Pfeiffer and Dermody put it: “In the war against the COVID-19 pandemic, facing SARS-CoV-2 will not be the only battle we fight. The attraction of working on the pandemic virus can divert scientists from other pressing health concerns that can be just as deadly.” What we are witnessing is the kind of overwhelming, system destroying, medical calamity that defies the current practice of medicine and medical research in this country.
In the end, the only force capable of realigning our crippled medical reality is the federal government. It will involve universal healthcare (just like in every other developed nation) and a massive new commitment to science and research, across the board. We just know that so many of those rich folks who can always buy high level medical care will fight like hell, continue to misuse the words “creeping socialism,” just to keep their taxes low. Or we can continue to pay double for health care than the average cost in all the other developed nations as we watch infant mortality rising and life expectancy falling – the metrics of healthcare success – as a sign of profoundly unequal access to medical care. The rich get richer… and so what if a few million more Americans die every year?
I’m Peter Dekom, and the pervasive acceptance of callous indifference in support a love of money seems to have redefined the values of a huge segment of the American population.
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