Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and governmentSome research supports this viewpoint. Fuchs (1972, 1974, 1979)and Newhouse, Phelps, and Schwartz (1974) concur that therapeuticcare appears to be only a minor factor in producing national health.Multiple regression studies on general health inputs and outcomes furthersupport this conclusion. These studies include those by Letourmy(1975). Fuchs (1979) summarizes the results of these studies: “Thebasic finding is: when the state of medical science and other healthdeterminingvariables are held constant, the marginal contribution ofmedical care to health is very small in modern nations” (p. 155).Evidence for the ineffectiveness of almost total reliance on therapeuticmedicine (at present, 98%–99% of health sector spending has beendevoted to treatment and 1%–2% for prevention) in producing healthis the virtual leveling off of the adult mortality rate in the U.S. from1955 to the present. Since the end of World War II, the GNP devotedto medical spending has grown from less than 5% to an estimated 14%of GNP in 1993. Yet there have been no corresponding improvementsin mortality and other health measures.C.T. Stewart, Jr. (1971), empirically evaluated the contributions oftreatment, prevention, information, and research in improving healthas measured by life expectancy for all the nations in the WesternHemisphere. With regard to the comparison between treatment andprevention, Stewart (1971) concluded:Readily available empirical data suggest that until recent decades inthe United States, and even today in nearly all underdeveloped nations,health improvement as measured by increased life expectancy has beenalmost entirely the result of improvements in prevention. (p. 111)The therapeutic strategy has apparently reached the point of diminishingmarginal utility in most nations, including the United States.This suggests that our continued massive investment in this expensiveapproach is unwarranted. Further spending might help a relativelysmall number of people in the short term, but the general populationdoes not appear to benefit significantly in terms of increased life expectancyor reduced morbidity in the long term.The therapeutic strategy is exhibiting the symptoms of an obsoletetechnology, namely, level to decreasing marginal returns. It may now betime to consider alternative strategies.364