Cultured Meats Control Health Costs

P.D. EDELMAN, M.Sc., D.C. MCFARLAND, Ph.D.,.A. MIRONOV, Ph.D., M.D. and J.G. MATHENY, M.P.H. “In Vitro-Cultured Meat Production." 2005. http://www.hedweb.com/animimag/invitro-culturedmeat.pdf

This is in response to a University of Maryland study concerning the health benefits of cultured meat.

In my last post, I wrote about the possibility that governments and international organizations could enhance the future of cultured meats. This possibility is due to the prospect that Cultured Meats could slow Global Warming amidst international concerns about Climate Change.

This University of Maryland study shows another prospect for a close relationship between Governments and Cultured meats: health. In the United States, the health care debate in Congress is one of the most popular news stories of the year. With rising health care costs and the likelihood that the U.S. government will provide and/or subsidize health care for millions of Americans, health care costs, which have been rising steadily for years, are going to be a major concern.

One of the most popular proposals for controlling health care costs is allocating more resources towards preventative medicine. The idea being, that it costs less to prevent a disease than it costs to cure it. Preventative medicine could prove extremely effective in terms of cardiovascular diseases.

We learned in lecture that in the U.S., more than 1 in 3 adults live with at least 1 type of cardiovascular disease; that more than 72 million doctor visits are for treatment and management of these diseases and that almost 1 million heart attacks occur each year.

This study concludes that production of cultured meat would be able to control the ratio of saturated to polyunsaturated fats. While many cardiovascular diseases can be attributed to genetics, they also have a very strong link to dietary choices. If cultured meats became the primary source of meat in the United States, they could essentially serve the same purpose as preventative medicine. Without making any conscious changes in their diet, Americans would lower their intake of saturated fats considerably. While this would have no effect on health care costs in the short run, it could save billions of dollars over 50 years or so.

Of course, this is completely dependent upon cultured meats gaining extreme popularity in the United States. Given all that we have written about so far, concerning the ethical, environmental and now the health benefits of cultured meat, there is a decent possibility that cultured meat could gain this popularity. If it does gain this popularity, its health benefits and prospects for saving money in the health care sector could bring upon a much stronger relationship with government, a relationship that could enhance and perpetuate its success for generations to come.