Long live our latest revolution
Apr 24 2003 By Peter Jackson, The Journal
I wrote last week about the amazing variety of consumer goods modern capitalism has provided in the past 50 years.
There is, however, one sector which seems to me to have s failed to deliver, certainly when measured against the glittering promises made on its behalf. I refer to medicine.
Of course, there has been a steady advance in treatment and a patient's chances of recovery from almost any illness are greater than they were a couple of generations ago.
Having said that, I can't think of any great single breakthrough since the wide use of polio vaccine in the 1950s.
Much of any improvement in the population's general health can be put down to better diet, hygiene, working conditions and living standards.
It may not be too pessimistic to say that the rate of arrival of new diseases exceeds that of the discovery of cures for old ones.
However, there are signs this may be about to change. With the mapping of the human genome and advances in gene therapy we could be standing on the edge of a medical revolution.
On Sunday, it was reported researchers in the US had cured diabetes in mice. If that treatment can be extended to humans, a terrible shadow could be lifted from millions, with further hope of treatments for such old enemies as cancer and heart disease. At last the medical industry can live up to its promises.
HAVING just gone through the Easter weekend, it is worth asking ourselves what is the point of bank holidays?
I have no problem with the Government providing statutory holidays, but who says they have to be taken at the same time?
Why not say all workers must be given eight days' extra holiday to be taken at times mutually convenient for employer and employee? At least we would not all have to sit in the same traffic jams.
The subject of holidays brings me neatly to the subject of holiday attractions. In the North we pride ourselves on some great crowd-pullers - Durham Cathedral, Beamish, Hadrian's Wall, to name but three.
But I wonder whether people actually need something to go to see.
Haworth, near Keighley in Yorkshire, is the home of the Bronte sisters and every bank holiday it is packed with crowds jostling grumpily in its cobbled streets.
Last time I was there I was struck by the nature of many visitors - bullet-headed, bull-necked, tattooed, and that was only the women, Boom! Boom!
I find it hard to believe they were making a literary pilgrimage. No, they were just there for a day out. All that's needed is ice creams and souvenirs and people will go.
That's what they should have put in the Millennium Dome.
