Commentary on Old Age in the International Classification of Diseases

The world of medicine and medical research is regulated to the point of extreme dysfunction. Regulation determines the flows of funding in the clinic, which in turn determines priorities for research and development. To swim against the tide is significantly harder than to go along with it, and this has a material effect on the speed with which the scientific community and biotech and pharmaceutical industries can create and deploy therapies to treat aging. Even the prospect of treating aging as a medical condition at all is shadowed by the way in which regulation distorts the playing field. Yes, a working, proven rejuvenation therapy will ensure its own success, and all positions will rapidly adjust to the new reality, but getting to the point of making such a therapy, and getting to the point of proving it sufficiently well to convince the world, is made significantly harder by the perverse incentives of medical regulation. Today, I'll point out a little of the ongoing commentary surrounding one of the most bureaucratic, slowest aspects of medical regulation, the periodically updated International Classification of Diseases (ICD), now up to version ICD11. The ICD is relevant because much of the developed world bases their medical regulation on the classifications in the ICD. If a condition is not included in the ICD in a usefully explicit way, then the barriers to gaining approval for a therapy are very high indeed. That in turn shapes all of the research and develo...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs