Health

Health care
systems have been wholly privatized and prices are exorbitant. This is a solid
way for the Captains of Industry to draw money from the Employed, who are the
only people that can afford medical care. For the Dependents, it is a way of
keeping them subservient and loyal, in a kind of neo-feudal patronage; the
corporations extend a (limited, basic) medical protection to those who cannot
afford it, as long as they behave, vote properly and do whatever Volunteering
the corporation demands. Much of this ‘free’ healthcare is ameliorative, but as
much is preventative – in both cases mainly aimed at lessening the effect of
endemic diseases and pollution.

For the
Employed and the Captains of Industry, the limit is what you can afford - genetic
editing for children, epigenetic therapies, retroviral therapies and
technological augmentation. The exception to this is drugging; antidepressants
are mass produced and handed out to everyone on UBI and often even those of
Good Standing. Medication is heavy and liberal and often seen by many people –
who do not have diagnosable mental health conditions – as the only way they can
bear their days. By any road, depression is now the single most diagnosed and
treated disease on the planet.

An
increasingly interconnected world with poor health care systems is an explosive
combination for pandemics. In the areas that are not too arid, new kinds of
disease have spread, in part the result of early and incautious forays into
genetic editing using CAS9-Crispr and its successors. The Charybdis Toxicae
mould takes over forests dying from heat stress and turns them into a toxic
jungle; it can spread anywhere where there is organic matter, including to
animals. An engineered fungus, Lichenas Cyanosa, feeds on the polluted smog in
cities and has hallucinogenic qualities when consumed. Another altered fungus,
Sacculina Hominis, sees humans parasitized and controlled by invasive fungal
threads. Human botfly, liver worm and neural amoeba infestations of human hosts
are commonplace.

Then there
are the diseases either woken from icy slumber or given new lease by collapsing
social order and failing health care systems – Smallpox, Cholera, Ebola, Dengue
Fever, West Nile Virus, Ulcerative Pertussis, Green’s Necrosis, the dreaded
Pitt’s Virus and Influenza of a dozen strains – most notably Korean Influenza,
which killed 300 million people in the 2060s. The long-predicted apocalypse of
antimicrobial resistance arrived in the middle of the century, with antibiotic
resistant strains of Staphylococcus Aureus, Yersinia Novapestis, Clostridium
Difficile and Mycobacterium Tuberculosis present on every continent.
Bacteriophage technology and synthetic viruses have been successfully deployed
to destroy them when found, and they are curable – for a high price.

Pervasive
pollutants and low-level radiation have their effects. Sterility is common,
though the government and corporations are generally fine with this as it
reduces the mouths to feed. Asthma and breathing difficulties have skyrocketed.
Immune system defects – both allergies and lymphocyte system failures – are
common.

Cancer,
heart diseases and diabetes have all been effectively cured. Replacement organs
can be printed. Bodies can be rejuvenated. Your genetics can be optimized in
vitro. If you can afford it.