why medical research is so important
The positive effects of medical research
There is really little doubt that medical research has had a positive effect on society, nevertheless there are still people who oppose it. They do this for a variety of reasons, mostly religious. Nevertheless the positive effects of medical research are many which is why most people fully support it.
The most obvious benefit of medical research is that people are living for a lot longer than they did in the past. In large part this is because of the huge strides that have been made in the field of preventive medicine. Diseases that used to kill millions of people no longer exist. As a result the life expectancy of the average person is now significantly longer. If you do get sick medical research has also provided cures for the illness as well which means that you should be able to recover.
The other big benefit of medical research is that it helps to improve the quality of life for most people. In the past many diseases were debilitating, even if you survived you will still be affected for the rest of your life. This is far less common these days as most people who suffer from an illness are able to return to full health. For the people who are not able to return to full health medical research has made it possible for them to regain most of the functionality that they had before through the use of devices such as prosthetics.
Medical research has also been able to remove a great deal of the pain and suffering that people feel. In the past most people would find themselves suffering from some sort of pain that they just had to endure. This is not the case anymore; there is a whole field of research these days that is dedicated to helping people manage the pain from an illness or injury. In most cases the pain will go away when the illness is cured but in some cases it will be necessary to manage it, either way living in pain is far less common than it used to be.
There are areas of medical research which clearly have benefits but which are also controversial. An example of this would be the ability to control our genes. There are some clear benefits to this like the ability to cure genetic diseases but there are also some uses that not everybody is happy about. For example you can now alter the genetic traits of your baby during pregnancy and in effect have a designer child. This has its uses again in preventing genetic diseases but it also concerns some people. Whether you agree that being able to do this is a good idea or not the fact is that medical research has had many benefits on society.
