The idea of micro-robots is about to make the transition from science fiction to science fact. But before we can take advantage of all that this new technology has to offer we will need to consider the various legal, ethical and societal concerns that this new technology can raise.
The practice of infecting human subjects with disease under controlled circumstances to better understand how the body reacts to a new treatment is as old as medical science itself. The reason why it is not common in India is because of ethical and legal concerns. If we can find our way past that this could be a useful approach.
We tend to think of technology as either “good” nor “bad” based on the outcomes it has. This is futile as in most instances any harms that may be caused by technology is on account of how it is used and by whom.
We have, for most of our existence as a nation, accepted the governance frameworks that have already been implemented elsewhere in the world. With digital public infrastructure India is, perhaps for the first time, making the rules. It is time for us to stop being rule-takers and assume the role of rule-makers.
When healthcare is powered by artificial intelligence and smart devices, we must ensure that all of humanity stands to benefit. We need open, transparent and customisable algorithms in our hardware.
Bacteriophages target specific bacterial cells and destroy them leaving all other cells unharmed. These organisms have been used for phage therapy - a treatment for disease that involves administering the specific bacteriophage corresponding to a given bacterial infection in order to treat it. Now that the continuous use of broad spectrum antibiotics has resulted in superbugs with high levels of antibiotic resistance, phage therapy might be the precision medicine solution that we need. This will require us to overhaul our current thinking about pharmaceuticals and adopt more localised manufacture.
Breakthroughs in science require patient capital that must be provided by the government. Scientists need to be given a long rope and not be held to the standards of accountability to which we typically hold the government. They need to have bipartisan [[political support]] as they operate at time-scales beyond that which politicians normally function within. They need pipelines to market that will allow these ideas to be naturally commercialised.
We need different protocols to deal with the pandemic in rural India. Instead of supplying oxygen we need to provide them with a supply of medicines and basic equipment they need. Since it is not feasible to get RTPCR tests done in a reasonable time frame we need to replace that with syndromic testing using oximeters and thermometers. And we need to leverage our decentralised healthcare networks.
Given the urgency to vaccinate the world there is an urgent need to ramp up production of vaccines. All that is coming in the way of that is the intellectual property rights over vaccine recipes. What is required is a temporary vaccine waiver of intellectual property rights in order to encourage worldwide manufacture.
We must combat vaccine hesitancy and get everyone vaccinated against covid-19. The only strategy to survive in India is to not get infected or to get fully vaccinated. The risk of blood clots is insignificant compared to the risk of getting the disease.
