A question about diseases on earth in the future in Star Trek.

So obviously, by Enterprise's time, things like cancer and heart disease and every other currently known forms of horrible diseases and conditions have been cured.

But do you think that new lethal diseases and conditions came along on earth that couldn't be cured, even in TNG's time with the advanced medicine and technology they had by then? Things that would be known as the "cancer" of the future, even though it wouldn't actually be cancer.

I know that in All Good Things, in that alternate future that never happened, Picard had Irumodic Syndrome and that there was no known cure for it at the time. Was that supposed to be the "cancer" of the 23rd century? Or were there even worse diseases that perhaps had come from space that had afflicted 23rd century humans that couldn't be cured?

 

I don't think we have to believe in any sort of a universal cure. All Trek shows have had their share of diseases, in all sorts of categories. TOS had Synthococcus nova, by its name a bacterial strain, suggesting that even nothing like a catchall antibiotic will exist in the 23rd century yet.

Common cold ("Omega Glory", "Plato's Stepchildren") seems to be conquered by the 24th century ("The Battle"), but that's about it... For all we know, people in Picard's days still die of pneumonia or tetanus.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm very sure pneumonia and tetanus were cured by Picard's day. I mean, they cured cancer way before that (with the help of advanced Vulcan medicine, I'm guessing).

 

I always felt that most common current day diseases have been cured by the time of Trek, but almost as many (if not more) new ones have popped up, especially since Earth joined the larger galactic community. Some of the new diseases may have come from other worlds, but others may be a result of more people being exposed to interstellar and subspace phenomena. For some people, even warp travel could be bad for their health, IMO.

 

We have cured pneumonia today, that is, we have the cure. People still die of it every day.

Just having the cure doesn't mean a disease will go away. Cancer still happens in the 24th century - it just may get cured if the patient is lucky. There's no sign that cancer would not happen, even though it is only mentioned in context of isolated or primitive communities in ENT, and figuratively in TOS and TNG.

How could cancer even theoretically go away? In VOY "Fury", the Doctor speaks of a 21st century scientist named Pyong Ko who "discovered the genetic sequence for inhibiting cancer cells". Did he then ask Colonel Green to kill all of those who lacked the sequence? Or did he ask Arik Soong to genetically manipulate everybody to have that sequence?

Malaria might go away if we committed genocide on mosquitoes. Pneumonia would only go away if we committed genocide on all mammals and birds. Or on the pneumococci themselves, but how could that be done?

Timo Saloniemi

 

You think some of those diseases are incurable on earth?

Well I figured that they are able to just cure cancer with pills or even a hypospray no matter how far along the cancer is. I mean, that woman in Star Trek IV was able to grow a new kidney simply with pills that McCoy gave her, and in First Contact Troi told Zephram Cochrane that war, poverty, and disease would all be gone in the next 50 years.

To answer your question on how cancer could go away, from what I read, everybody in real life has a bunch of cells in their body that can turn cancerous at any time. Basically, the only real way right now to prevent cancer is to just hope and pray that none of those cells will turn cancerous. In the Star Trek future, I can imagine they have found a way to eliminate all potential cancer cells in the human body, like in that one scene in the movie Elysium with Matt Damon.

 

Aging is inevitable and conditions stemming from that are not diseases as such but due to breakdown. Like a car engine after 250,000 miles.

Timo nailed it as well; aging in tandem with cancer may still be incurable. We never saw a cancer patient on the show because of how exciting that isn't in terms of sci-fi and where Trek has already taken audiences. At best, Riker comes in whining about a scratch because he tripped in the holodeck and even that scene is done in less than 30 seconds - which is something even Al Bundy could relate to.

The show does say, at a very high level, cures and treatments exist. It's like Shakespeare saying that in 400 years there would be cures and treatments for things.

And then there's the all-time blunder "Ethics". Worf has more working spare parts than an automotive repair shop but as the lowest plot contrivance to shove a one-dimensional point down audiences' gullible gullets. That's why I refrained from mentioning that until the end.

 

I should also mention that there's that one scene in Star Trek: Into Darkness where that family has a sick daughter who seems to be terminal before she's cured with Khan's blood. I wonder what she had.

 

Good points! And I recall reading the same about cancer as well. with Trek, it's an agreeable mindset to believe cancer can be properly and concretely prevented... which might have to be the case. They're in space and as there's cosmic radiation flowing through everything, albeit at sublight speeds or when geostationary, et al (can a ship at warp go through the radiation faster or are the radiation particles shoved to the side like kites during a tornado - which isn't a great analogy because outer space has no gravity and so on...)

Never mind all the EM radiation that's flowing throughout the ship. Granted, inverse square dropoff helps explain why nobody is glowing after season one or why nobody owning a cell phone has pinky finger cancer after a few years of use. The amount being absorbed is far less, if any, compared to being directly next to the source - think "those cell phone workers who have to work directly on an antenna dish" as they're the ones who are comparatively worst off. At least studies (e.g. relayed in a HuffPost article) proved those things aren't killing the bees. Hmm, it's also said bee venom can treat cancer... do bees even get cancer the way that Frank or Felicia or Fluffy or Fido can?)

Or why we can have dozens or more x-rays throughout our lives and be OK - the amount of time to cumulatively absorb enough radiation to say "toodlesville" takes far longer, even in tandem with everything else...

 

Rabies!


But seriously, as laughable as that scene seemed at the time (it was throwaway faff as a lame setup to revive in a lame way Nu-Kirk after being killed in a lame way, which didn't need to be there since the double double cross subplot was very respectable and well-handled), taking it in another direction now, another part of me would wonder just how genetically modified blood could overtake other blood... it also raises questions about new sorts of biological weapons as well... as well as loosely hinting at growing replacement ears, organ transplants without the need of anti-rejection medications that - because they are antidepressants - open up the body to far more infections (some lethal, others extremely irritating that can lead to other cascade reactions), and so on...

 

In time, probably all of those diseases will be conquered, but Trek has shown us that there will always be new ones to take their place. There will never be a time when there will be no disease, because disease is a part of life the same way death is. The day that disease is totally conquered is the day death is, unfortunately. Medicine is about preventing premature death or improving the quality of life when it has been ruined, but even with Trek's advanced technology, it's still isn't entirely omnipotent. Unless you're Q, the war against disease is a never-ending battle or series of conquests, IMO.

 

Any number of TOS episodes have the Enterprise rushing vitally-needed medical supplies to some planet that's suffering from a plague or blight or whatever. And you even had a deadly disease outbreak aboard the ship in "Requiem for Methuselah," while we're told that Kirk once survived a nasty bout of another disease in "Mark of Gideon." And McCoy came down with some sort of terminal disease in "For the World is Hollow . . . "

You've always going to have diseases in STAR TREK, even if it's more likely to be "Rigellian fever" than plain old cancer or pneumonia.

 

Unlike today, treatment seems to be accessible and free. Living on Earth, you probably get scanned twenty times a week. Take a day trip to the moon, to visit family, and the petty officer at the transporter station mentions that you have a tumor growing on your left lung. So you whip on by the nearest lunar clinic, and get it removed by some Lebanese prince before continuing your errands.

You start getting deja vu or forgetting stuff, so you stop by your old country doctor who confirms irregularities and gives you a pill to swallow.

Hypochondriacs will just scan themselves daily and compare and contrast, getting a very good view of their aging process. And the computer can determine if there's any cause for alarm.

People on smaller colony worlds probably die from preventable diseases all the time. That's what you get for wanting to live on the frontier. Bashir loved the idea of working on a frontier station, because he might actually get a chance to practice real medicine.

 

A Finn would feel right at home, then.

I wonder... Diseases generally take even our Starfleet heroes by surprise. Those belt buckle things from ST:TMP being medical scanners never rang true for me, as nothing hinted at the heroes getting scanned. And conversely, monitoring Robau's vitals did not involve him donning a special doodad.

We certainly lack any references to patients having to wait to be treated. Unless it's for a treatment they are forbidden from having.

In this respect, it's rather odd that Pulaski's very own flying clinic, which will later allow Crusher and Russell to perform cutting-edge replicator/transporter surgery, is deemed incapable of doing routine maintenance on Picard's heart. If such matters call for starbase-level services, perhaps the assorted Detmers and LaForges do have to book for months or years in advance after all?

Which sorta ties into "Good Shepherd" where the hypochondriac wasn't supposed to have access to a medical tricorder. Would civilians enjoy such access, or are those scanners contraband in any setting?

A very good point.

Timo Saloniemi

 

We need to remember that what we call "cancer" is something like 250+ different diseases we choose to lump under one label, and it's extremely unlikely that there will ever be a singular "cure" for them. It's almost like saying "we cured death."

Hell, we have vaccines that will prevent certain kinds of cancer... and we also have nutballs that protest against them. Which is also a big reason why we haven't "cured" (as in eradicated) such diseases as polio and measles and have recently seen resurgences in them..

Also, viruses are always doing crazy things like mutating, and jumping species, bacteria become resistant if antibiotics are misused, and so on.

 

Lol, rabies.

Can't we 3D print outside body parts already (like ears)?

 

Chromovirus, according to concept art for the scene. It's originally from the Voyager episode "Critical Care"

 

Even in this day and age, if someone tells you "hey that looks weird, you should get that checked out" people tend to listen. That's all that happens in my hypothetical presumption. Just bringing up that transporters are one of the many ways in which people are scanned head-to-toe.