hi there! If we were all immune to every illness or disease, would that be good or bad? I mean, on the plus side no one

Question: hi there! If we were all immune to every illness or disease, would that be good or bad? I mean, on the plus side no one will die of disease and the world will be cleaner, but also the population would be so high, most of the rainforests will be chopped down, and there would be many problems leading to more dangerous Global Warming! So what do you think? Good? Or bad?

Asked by kehhkgch to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
- Andrew Maynard answered on 18 Jun 2010:
  
  Hi kehhkgch,
  
  Illness and disease are part and parcel of life on earth and the process of evolution – in the grand scheme of things they play an important role. But from a personal perspective they are not nice – which is why we try so hard to combat them.
  
  I’m not sure we will ever be able to prevent all disease and illness, but if we did we would have to work out how to deal with the consequences – which as you say could be serious.
  
  This is actually a pretty good questions as it raises issues that we have to face with lots of science and technology advances – how do we use them responsibly? And I think the answer is that we don’t stop progress, but we think long and hard about how we ensure that that progress leads to good and not bad.
  
  In the case of eliminating disease, we would have to work out how on earth society around the world would cope with significantly increasing pressure on global resources.
  
  Of course, the chances are that, as soon as we’d eliminated disease, something even more harmful would evolve that we had to deal with – nature’s response to our arrogance!
- anon answered on 18 Jun 2010:
  
  kehhkgch (your name actually sounds like evil laughter when pronounced phonetically)
  
  Ouch! We’ve sort of covered this with a question about the population doubling in the next 50 years which I’ll link at at the end of this. The immunity thing is interesting because the gut reaction is that you can only be immune to microbial disease but the reality is that you do mount an immune response to cancer and inflammation is associated with most disease processes. There are actually vaccines in development for cancer (and not just the cancers caused by bugs). So I think it is fair to accept your proposal that we have become immune to all disease in this theoretical situation.
  
  I think the food and water problem would kick in before the global warming issue and whole populations would be devastated by famine and drought. This is assuming that our highly advanced super-immune population can’t think of technological advances to circumvent this problem.
  
  I think if we have the capacity to develop immune based therapies to fight all disease and the social infrastructure and global cooperation to deliver these vaccines to the world then we should be able to find our way out of this hole.
  
  So i’m going to go with Good. Bet you wish i’d just said that at the start!
  
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- Marianne Baker answered on 20 Jun 2010:
  
  Hey kehhkgch,
  
  We’ve had a similar question and I believe it is a good one. I tried to find the link but can’t remember the wording of the question!
  
  So if we were all immune to diseases; as you say, it would be great for no one to get sick. Disease, illness – they’re things that affect everyone and sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to deal with. We’d all love to see an end to people losing loved ones because of illnesses – even those of us who make our livings from working on them – I’d much rather find a new job, than for people to keep getting cancer!! It really annoys me when people suggest otherwise.
  
  Maybe the population would get too high, and maybe it wouldn’t.
  
  Sometimes, the populations that have the highest birth rates only have that because child mortality is so high; they expect many children and young people to die, and for people generally to die quite early, so they have a lot of kids to make sure there are people to work, look after them and so on.
  
  So perhaps with less disease, the birth rate would move down to a more sustainable level.
  
  I think we’d have to be stricter on ourselves.
  A lot of the damage that’s done to the planet is because people want to make easy money. If we could only find a way around this (and I’ve no idea what that would be!!) then I think we would find it a lot easier to limit the damage people are doing to the environment.
- Emma Pilgrim answered on 21 Jun 2010:
  
  Hello
  
  A very good philosophical question. However the global population is a very sensitive problem and one that is surrounded by ethical dilemmas. Whilst the population might need controlling, letting people die from preventable diseases is not the answer in my opinion. I will let yuo think about what would be a better alternative!
- anon answered on 21 Jun 2010:
  
  Hi kehhkgch again! Fascinating question! You have tried to put so many points across that you have sort of answered your own question! A shift in population would have a positive moral effect that people were no longer dying of disease but there would be negative effect on this planet in that, as you quite rightly said, there would be greater demands on the “resources” of this planet.
  
  Mmmmm, without sounding crass, we have to ultimately accept that death is sadly a natural process on this planet that contributes to the “ecological cycle” of the planet. Without it, the cycle will be broken and that in turn could cause turmoil. This still does not stop us from trying to wipe out or minimise the impact of certain diseases where they can be easily prevented or vaccine’s developed. But as always, we have to try and find the balance between increasing population and using our natural resources – a term called Sustainable Development”.:)