Cancer or Cardiovascular diesease?

 Cardiovascular diseases were the most common cause of death among low-income countries (death from cardiovascular was 3X times that from Cancer) that I hail from. It was found to be common even in middle-income countries. However, in high-income countries, Cancer was the winner. It was in fact twice that of people dying from cardiovascular diseases.

Given that cardiovascular diseases are preventable gives us the hope that if only we are intelligent, then it should not be a problem. Knowing a problem is about getting to a 90% solution. 

The stuff that can and should be controlled are:

High blood pressure

Tobacco-related indiscipline

Lack of educational resources

Pollution

It goes without saying that handling all of this is a reasonable way to save lots of lives. If we value science, value data and statistics should we not be proactive?

Cancer is yet another story. Do we need to boost our immunity, hook, or crook? It has been the cause of death in high-income societies (Lata Palaniappan - Stanford University Medical Center). While few of the controllable items were listed for cardiovascular diseases, a similar list for cancer control perhaps does not exist and even if it does it will be extensive and long.

That brings me back to my motivation in writing this. My friend Mr. Narasimhan who lives in the UK wrote to me that he will walk his walk to raise funds for research. This is extremely laudable except that I won't be able to participate as I was getting treated for tendonitis of the foot yesterday.

I wish my friend Narasimhan a happy walk for this cause. 

He is brave doing this in his senior years (80 and 2 summers). We have not met in 50 odd years, but we correspond regularly.

This is an old reference and I bet you can find a recent one in Lancet.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/03/health/leading-cause-of-death-cancer-heart-disease-study/index.html

Fusion energy is not in the near future

 It is so unfortunate that the scientists could not pull off this one. Many brilliant minds from all over the world have to concede after many, many years, that this is only for the future.

Many of us who dreamt that this may come true in our lifetime feel disappointed and dejected. However, it is not a totally hopeless situation.

After all the spending in various countries, you just feel that this was after all elusive. 

Living near Princeton's Plasma Physics Laboratory with many friends working there and with my company interacting with the laboratory, it was but natural to feel a certain positivity about Nuclear Fusion. I was not involved but many of my colleagues worked not on the experiments but on simulations (the next best thing). 

However, we have the next best thing. We can produce energy by burning hydrogen that can be created using Sunlight, light that is produced by the celestial fusion reactor. Let us be humble and hope we see better times for Nuclear Fusion.

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/09/breaking-news-fusion-recedes-into-far-future-for-the-57th-time/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

Another fusion concept in Germany pursued from 1980s

https://www.ipp.mpg.de/4555488/op_1_2

Picture from Max Planck Institute site

Vaccination before and during the Colonial rule in India

People refusing to get vaccinated is not new and in fact, it is widespread. There are cultural reasons some based on religion and some based on superstitions and beliefs. Often accidental curatives are attributed to divine intervention. However, there indeed was the concept of curing Small Pox using a weakened version of the same.

Small Pox was responsible for many political changes during the Colonial Rule in India. At least one royal family lost their base when the ruling kind died of smallpox. Naturally, his widow took upon herself to change the heart of those who refused by getting herself inoculated. 

Read this fascinating account here:

https://www.theheritagelab.in/portrait-of-three-princesses-mysore/

"In his book ‘An Account of the manner of inoculating for smallpox in the East Indies‘ written in 1767, Dr. J.Z Holwell claimed that smallpox inoculation was practiced in India by Brahmins (variolation)."  It is not clear from the above whether they had an indigenous source of vaccination.

However, it appears there was indeed an Ayurvedic system-based Smallpox vaccination in India during those times.

More here: https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/vedic_science/how-ayurveda-pioneered-smallpox-inoculation/

Here is an illuminating piece depicting the vaccination procedure:

"They inoculate indifferently on any part, but if left to their choice, they prefer the outside of the arm midway between the wrist and the elbow, for the males; and the same between the elbow and the shoulder for the females. Previous to the operation the Operator takes a piece of cloth in his hand, (which becomes his prerequisite if the family is opulent) and with it gives dry friction upon the part intended for inoculation, for the space of eight or ten minutes, then with a small instrument he wounds, by many slight touches, about the compass of a silver groat, just making the smallest appearance of blood, then opening a linen double rag (which he always keeps in a cloth around his waist) takes from thence a small pledget of cotton charged with the variolous [smallpox] matter, which he moistens with two or three drops of the Ganges water, and applies it on the wound, fixing it on with a slight bandage, and ordering it to remain on for six hours without being moves, then the bandage to be taken off, and the pledget to remain until it falls off itself…The cotton which he preserves in a double calico rag is saturated with matter from the inoculated pustules of the preceding year, for they never inoculate with fresh matter, nor with matter from the disease caught in the natural way, however distinct and mild the species."

It is unfortunate that Colonial rulers took it upon themselves to encourage Allopathy and did great harm to the indigenous medicine in India. The Siddha system of medicine said to have been handed down from the sages did have a significant amount of information on the maladies that humans undergo. We hardly hear about the system.