Battle of the Meds

Hi Bloggers,

This weeks readings on the pharmaceutical war that is currently ensuing with the armed forces and the research on sleep are really eye opening. To begin the first article Night of the Living Meds was very informal and spunky with the authors apparent sarcasm that ran throughout.  The article lays out the just of what the new phase of the armed force research is about.  We are not so focused now on bombs and nukes, but rather " [maximally] exploiting the states of exhaustion of ones enemy" to give the other side a disadvantage. If we can out smart the opponent in terms of sleep, we can beat them just on physical stamina and concentration. It is said that any effort to improve human performance is "to minimize [sleep need] for given tasks can...to a significant decrease in casualty rate of about 20 percent" and if this is successful, to compete with us, the opponent would need " 40 percent increase in troops to compensate this advantage".  The scientists are trying to make these men and women like giraffes, who as in one of my previous blogs, only sleep 1.9 hours a day.  The article then switches to the highly drug based "compensation" methods of the troops.  My favorite part is that when responding to the comments about this the military states "this behavior is a cultural norm in the US and is recognized but not endorsed".  Its funny how they say this, yet each year we as a nation spend billions on research to the right pills to substitute sleep. Thank goodness "you can rest easy knowing our troops are wide awake" is included, otherwise I may have contacted the author myself to add one last witty remark!  I understand the need to be as alert as possible in these extreme circumstances, but at what point are we as humans no longer researching but playing God?  Our Lord made us sleep for a reason, and now we are trying to combat it.

Source:
Night of the Living Dead By: William Saletan