Why are lives worth more in a pandemic? – Newsday

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One of the most striking differences between the coronaviruspandemic and previous mass disease outbreaks in the United States is the degree to which our political leaders are willing to shut down the American economy to save human lives.Even the most draconian economic measures taken against the catastrophic flu of 1918-1919 do not remotely compare to the present-day widespread lockdowns.

In St. Louis, whose response to that earlier pandemic has been widely praised of late, Health Commissioner Max C. Starkloff closed non-essential businesses for four days during 1918.Models proposed by Harvard University economist Robert Barro and colleagues suggests that the so-called Spanish flu slashed U.S. GDP by about 1.5%.That flu killed 675,000 Americans.

In contrast, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen recently predicted a 30% decline in the American economy during the second quarter of 2020 for a7.5% annual decline.However, economic restrictions and social distancing measures are now expected to cut COVID-19 deaths to a magnitude lower than those of 1918-19.Saving lives costs a lot of money.

As a human, I am glad to accept this trade-off.As a physician and bioethicist, it puzzles me.The mystery is not that our society is willing to spend so much to save the lives of our friends and neighbors, and particularly our elderly relatives, during this crisis.It is that we are willing to do so only during a pandemic.

Heart disease and cancer will likely claim the lives of far more Americans this year that COVID-19.Yet while we are willing to close our economic valves to prevent pandemic deaths which is in essence a massive tax increase we are not willing to tax ourselves tothe same extent to develop new treatments or cures for these more common scourges.

According to analysis by Research America, a market research firm, the United States spent $182.3 billion in 2017 on medical research the last year for which comprehensive data is available. Most of that research-and-developmentfunding is from private industry, while 22% comes from Uncle Sam.

Government expenditures on rarer but still frequent conditions are stunningly low.In 2019, for instance, the National Institutes of Health spent $219 million on pancreatic cancer research, $359 million studying brain tumors, and $105 million on ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease).By comparison, the National Retail Federation estimates that Americans spent $490 million in 2019 on Halloween costumes ... for their pets.

Even spending 2% or 3% of GDP on medical research could prove a game changer, one that would save far more lives than the 7.5% of GPD we may ultimately spend to prevent pandemic deaths.

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Of course, devoting more money to medical research does not guarantee the discovery of treatments and cures that will save lives.It just makes such discoveries far more probable.Similarly, the economic restrictions imposed to fight COVID-19 do not guarantee that fewer Americans will perish.They just make such deaths far less likely.Yet the costs that most taxpayers are willing to accept in a pandemic are a harder sell during ordinary times.

Common sense suggests that people value the lives of their loved ones as much when they are threatened by cancer or heart disease as during a pandemic.In fact, surveys suggest that most Americans want more expenditures on medical research. What is lacking in ordinary times is political will.That is why we must act now.

As the government passes massive COVID-driven funding packages to protect workers and the economy, it should ramp up research-and-development expenditures for other diseases exponentially.

My colleagues and I are heartened by the cheers that we receive in New York City at seven oclock each evening as we arrived at the hospital for our shifts.But I also find myself thinking we must harness the moment for the public good.It will not be seven p.m. forever.

Dr. Jacob M. Appel is director of ethics education in psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is the author of "Who Says Youre Dead?,"a collection of ethical conundrums.

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Why are lives worth more in a pandemic? - Newsday