human health
by Nicolas Bouzou.
XO Editions, 300 p., 19,90 €.
The note of L’Express: 4/5
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Nicolas Bouzou achieves a real tour de force. His angle of attack, first of all, is fruitful: it is less a question here of medicine, diseases and epidemics than of the much broader notion of “health” and of the close link that man has always maintained with she. A very special link: if many species are cured, especially with plants, the human being is the only one to intervene on the bodies of others not only to heal it but also to give it back its most essential freedom: to choose and build his life.
For his part jack-of-all-trades and his lack of medical skills, which could weaken his demonstration, Nicolas Bouzou is on the contrary an asset.
Repel death
When it retraces, for example, our eternal quest for greater longevity. If life expectancy has fluctuated with advances in food, medicine or epidemics, humans have always wanted to postpone death. Nicolas Bouzou takes us sometimes in the footsteps of philosophers, sometimes in those of doctors, economists, peasants, in the laboratories of inventors, to show to what extent the improvement of health has changed decisively, on several occasions in History, people’s lives, their beliefs, the organization of societies.
And the major challenges to be taken up are clearly identified: today, gene medicine and the ethical puzzles that it poses; tomorrow, the exploration of the brain and the fight against neurodegenerative diseases, the urgent need to tackle the ravages of psychiatric diseases, which cause suffering as much if not more than physical pathologies; transhumanism, the day after tomorrow.
A financial cost to be borne
But it is obviously with his economist cap that we are expecting the author. Because this health will have to be financed, especially as it will cost us more and more, especially for demographic and technological reasons. The solution ? Get out of the fantasy maintained by the public authorities of the possible control of health spending. Wanting to increase or decrease them is an interventionist illusion. On the contrary, they must be both freed up and regulated so that the costs are as competitive as possible. Health will then be able to meet everyone’s needs and play a very insufficient role in our future economic growth. Simplicity and clairvoyance: Nicolas Bouzou as we like it!
Opinions
It iseconomy
Ldrunk
Ndigital
Ldiplomacy in all its forms
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