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.