Is this not just because Covid killed off many of the weakest individuals? I suspect we just traded deaths in 2021 for deaths in 2025, making this latest data look better, without fundamental improvement. Not to say with confidence that _no_ improvement has been made, but that I think the stats for _this one year_ are probably not very meaningful. Maybe I misunderstood something though?
> It's the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemicopens in a new tab or window, but also waning death rates from all the nation's top killers, including heart disease, cancer, and drug overdoses.
I think it would depend on how the “weakest groups” are decided. If the weakest 10% of 2021 all died, then the weakest 10% of 2022 will be people who were stronger than 2021’s weakest 10%. All the groups would propagate up to be stronger than in previous years. Now i don’t know how these groups are drawn, percentiles is just what makes intuitive sense to me.
The linked quotes don’t seem to support your argument, unless I misunderstand? If the weakest people die, then the remaining people are expected to be more resilient to heart disease and cancer.
I think decreases in drug overdose and suicide are probably the most isolated from this effect, so I have higher confidence that those decreases are “real”. But I can imagine ways that even they might interact.
Obesity drugs are in the top 25 for 2025, but don't make up the largest plurality. That goes to oncology drugs at ~1/3rd. Obesity drugs are at ~14%.
I want to mention here that these oncology drugs are mostly antibody methods. Which, what the hell? We're making antibody drugs at scale now?! And that's like some of the highest selling drugs out there?
For comparison, though not in the linked article here, Acetaminophen (Tylenol) only comes in at ~$4.3B, which would put it way down in 13th place, out of the top 10.
Granted, this is sales numbers, and in the US, that's practically taking the savings of very sick people and turning it into stocks. Something that elicits no small reaction here on HN or just about anywhere.
Still, to the point of the main article, yes, we live in an age of medical miracles, and it arrived quite suddenly, only in the last 7 years or so, and we have a lot of gas in this tank.
