Wellness Moonshot
No disrespect to former US Vice President Biden but if we are going to have a “moonshot” in healthcare then why not prevent the preventable? A Wellness Moonshot would focus on preventing infectious and Lifestyle diseases. Not only are these good odds but they cost pennies on the dollar and help people avoid illness in the first place!
“It’s the right idea at the right time,” said pioneering integrative cardiologist Dean Ornish, MD. He was speaking of the “Wellness Moonshot – A World Free of Preventable Disease” launched at the annual meeting of the Global Wellness Institute (GWI). “It is a much needed, organized way to create transformation. It’s the right idea at the right time.”
Ornish was not the only voice associated with the integrative health world cited in GWI’s media release on the initiative. Mehmet Oz, host of The Dr. Oz Show and a surgery professor at Columbia University, urged the crowd of roughly 600 largely business leaders in health and wellness toward a deep commitment: “We have to be brave enough to take on this moonshot – we need to really accelerate (the focus on prevention).”
Susie Ellis, the chair and CEO of the not-for-profit GWI cast the campaign in bold terms: ““The time has come to pool our resources—knowledge, access, funding—and use our collective megaphone on the world stage to work towards achieving a world free of preventable disease. Unlike President Kennedy’s famous moonshot to send a man to the moon, where it was clear when the ‘mission was accomplished’ – this moonshot will require not one, but many incremental steps forward for humankind.”
An Investment in Health… Not Medicine
Clinical factors determine 6-20% of our health yet we spend 90% of our “health care” dollars for clinical expenses (in case you didn’t know read this). There is an epidemic of chronic diseases throughout the US and other Western countries. 80% of those chronic diseases could be prevented with better Lifestyle decisions (in case you didn’t know read this). Medicine is good and necessary but medicine is not the only thing that determines our health. The US relies on clinical treatments that have been widely ineffective in treating Lifestyle diseases. So we just call them “chronic” illnesses and move on instead of investing in their prevention… resources for Lifestyle management, proper food on our tables, even simple awareness and support. As Susie Ellis said, a Wellness Moonshot will take “many incremental steps forward for humankind.” Let’s go!!!
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