School buses transport thousands of children every day. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), they are the safest vehicles on the road. This is due to the safety advancements school buses have undergone throughout decades of service and in response to several tragedies taking place. Collectively, these advancements have helped save lives and prevent accidents. Here is a list of 10 tragedies that resulted in safety advancements for school buses.

Related: Top 10 Deadliest Industrial Accidents That Were Avoidable

10 Railroad Crossings

Utah is known for many things, but a little-known fact about the state is that it happens to be the location of one of the worst transportation accidents in history. On the morning of December 1, 1938, a terrible blizzard swept through the Salt Lake Valley. Farrold Silcox was a school bus driver who had been driving for three years. He had 39 passengers after making all of his stops. On his way to Jordan High School in Sandy, there was a railroad crossing. Farrold stopped and looked both ways, then proceeded over the tracks.

As the bus was midway across the tracks, a freight train slammed into the bus, dragging it half a mile (0.8 kilometers) north before it was able to stop, killing 24 passengers and the driver. It was determined that the blizzard had hindered the bus driver’s ability to see the incoming train. Now, whenever a commercial vehicle is carrying passengers, the driver is required to stop and open the door and window in order to listen for an approaching train.^[1]

9 Manufacturing

School buses have evolved a lot since they were first introduced in the late 19th century. Every iteration of a school bus has been an improvement on the previous one in regard to safety. The next entry is the cause for one of these changes. On the morning of May 21, 1976, Evan Prothero drove a 1950 Crown with 53 passengers. After traveling for an hour, a buzzer began going off in the driver’s compartment, so he decided to exit the highway.

As he made his exit, he realized he was unable to lower his speed. The bus then hit a guardrail and went over its side, falling off the ramp and into a dirt field below. This caused the roof of the bus to collapse, resulting in 28 deaths and several injuries. The NTSB determined that the deaths were attributed to the construction of the bus itself. Regulations later required manufacturers to build sturdier buses that could withstand rollovers and other damage.^[2]

8 Emergency Exits

The following entry resulted in an enormous impact on school bus safety even though the bus was not actually on a school activity trip. On the evening of May 14, 1988, several children and their chaperones were returning from a trip to King’s Island. Over an hour into the trip home, the bus was hit head-on by a pickup driving northbound on the southbound lanes. The collision of the truck on the bus punctured the fuel tank, igniting the gasoline inside. This set the bus ablaze instantly.

The children scrambled to the rear, which was the only emergency exit. In total, 27 people lost their lives. When the authorities arrived at the scene, it was determined that the driver of the truck was intoxicated. He was charged and sentenced to prison for 16 years. Later, the state of Kentucky, as well as the country, passed legislation that called for more emergency exits on school buses, claiming if the bus had been better equipped, many more lives could have been saved.^[3]

7 Brake Training

Like the previous entry, the school bus in question was not on a school trip, but it was transporting several children at the time of its accident. On July 31, 1991, a 1989 Thomas school bus driven by Richard A. Gonzalez Jr. made its way down a steep mountain road. The bus began picking up speed, and he was unable to decelerate. As it continued descending the mountain, the driver started honking at the vehicle in front of him in an attempt to signal something was wrong.

The bus then veered into the opposite lane, passing the vehicle up. It then came to a bend in the road, but Richard was unable to negotiate the curve. The bus skidded, leaving the road at a high rate of speed, rolling down an embankment, and killing seven and injuring 53 others. The accident was largely attributed to the driver’s inability to properly operate the vehicle on a steep grade. In light of the accident, training was improved for drivers to make sure they knew how to travel on mountainous roads.^[4]

6 Child Check System

Some accidents are a result of someone not following protocols. In this instance, that resulted in one of the greatest tragedies involving school buses. On the morning of September 11, 2015, Armando Ramirez, a school bus driver for Public Transportation Cooperative in Whittier, California, started his route, picking up his three students and then heading to school to drop them off. After dropping them off, he returned to the transportation yard as usual and went home.

Several hours later, Paul Lee’s body was found lying in a pool of his own vomit inside Armando’s bus. He had unfortunately failed to notice that Paul had never got off the bus that morning to go to school. Once at the yard, Armando failed to follow protocols and check the bus to make sure there was no one in there. It was later determined that the bus driver’s negligence was to blame for the death of the student. As a result, a new law was passed in California stating that all school buses must have a child check system installed to force drivers to check their school buses.^[5]

5 Training for Hijacking

The following entry was a horrible experience for everyone involved, but it led to many advancements in the way these situations are handled. On July 15, 1976, Ed Ray, a 55-year-old school bus driver, picked up his students from school. Once on the road, he saw a van blocking the street with a man standing beside it. He slowed down to a stop; the man then approached the bus, holding a weapon. He took over the bus and drove it a mile down the road, where he met with two other men who helped him conceal the bus and take all 26 kids and the bus driver hostage.

The kidnappers drove them around for 11 hours in two modified cargo vans, eventually arriving at a rock quarry in Livermore, California—100 miles (161 kilometers) away. There, they transferred the hostages into a moving van buried in the quarry. Fortunately, the driver and an older boy were able to escape from the now-buried and collapsing van and seek help.

The men were caught and arrested shortly after. Today, several districts and transportation companies train their drivers on what to do if they are hijacked, and many buses now have GPS and video cameras in them, which prove to be very valuable in such a situation.^[6]

4 Emergency Response Teams

It’s not always the actual accident that causes death. Sometimes, they are due to aftereffects of the accident; this is evident in the next entry. It was February 28, 1958, and John Alex DeRossett was a 27-year-old bus driver tasked with transporting students to school in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. That morning, he picked up his students and made his way down U.S. Route 23. On the road, there was a tow truck attempting to pull out a pickup from a ditch. As the bus made its way down the road, it clipped the tow truck and made a hard left. This caused the bus to go down an embankment and into the Big Sandy River.

Twenty-two students were able to escape from the single rear emergency exit as the bus was sinking. The remaining 26 students and the bus driver were then dragged down the river and disappeared. The National Guard was dispatched on March 5, 1958. The search lasted days, which caused criticism for being too slow. This brought a change to disaster response by the creation of a disaster response team for the county, making it the first of its kind and inspiring many other similar response teams across the country.^[7]

3 School Bus Yellow and Two-Way Radios

The early days of school buses were much more challenging, especially during inclement weather. The following entry is a prime example that devastated one community. Carl Miller set out one beautiful morning in March 1931 to transport his students to school. But by the time he had reached the school, the weather changed drastically, and a blizzard ensued. Carl, along with the only two teachers at the school, decided it would be best if the students returned home for the day. Carl then began down the road, but on his way, he took a wrong turn.

At one point, the bus fell into a ditch, and the engine stalled, stranding the bus driver and its 22 passengers. Carl decided to leave the two older children in charge and set out on foot to look for help. That afternoon, two men found the bus and rescued the children. Unfortunately, the tragedy claimed six lives, including the bus driver’s. After the event, it was determined that school buses should sport a uniform, highly visible color, which became the school bus yellow we know today. In addition, two-way radios were integrated into all school transportation vehicles.^[8]

2 Fire Suppression System

It’s easy to think that school buses are so advanced today there is no possible way to make them any safer. This next entry shows that it is far from the truth. Megan Klindt was a 16-year-old student who attended Riverside Community High School. She left her home to wait for her school bus on December 12, 2017. After boarding the bus, the driver, 74-year-old Donald Hendricks, attempted to turn around on the street. He backed up, but unfortunately, the road was narrow, and he went too far back, resulting in the rear of the bus falling into a ditch. Hendricks attempted to get the bus out of the ditch by accelerating, but to no use; the bus wouldn’t budge.

Moments later, the bus was engulfed in flames. The fire was seen by Megan’s family, who quickly called 911. Unfortunately, the fire killed both Megan and Hendricks. A team was sent out by the NTSB to investigate the accident. They concluded the bus driver was unable to safely operate the bus while backing up, and the fire was determined to have developed due to the ignition of fuel on the engine’s turbocharger after it overheated. After the accident, the recommendation was to have all school buses outfitted with a fire suppression system.^[9]

1 Responsibility of Operator

Most school bus accidents can be blamed on a malfunctioning bus or an incompetent bus driver. Unfortunately, some accidents happen from sheer bad luck. Royal J. Randle was a 24-year-old World War II veteran who worked for the Lake Chelan School District. On November 26, 1945, Royal did his usual route consisting of picking up students on the west side of Lake Chelan. As Royal drove his school bus through the lakeside roads, it began to snow. Since there was very little snow on the pavement, he didn’t bother putting on snow chains.

The falling snow quickly accumulated on the school bus’s windshield. This caused the windshield wipers to stop working. As it kept accumulating, it caused visibility issues for Royal, and he decided to pull the bus off the road in order to clear the obstruction. As he pulled the bus over, though, he hit a rock, which caused the bus to veer into the 30-foot (9-meter) embankment, rolling over twice and coming to rest with the front end of the bus 5 feet (1.5 meters) underwater.

Five students and one adult were able to escape before the shifted weight of the bus caused it to sink into the lake headfirst. Within six days, divers found a total of seven bodies, including the bus driver’s. The search for the remainder of the passengers was called off shortly after, leaving nine children’s bodies unaccounted for.

The accident was investigated by the Washington State Patrol, who concluded that the poor visibility caused the driver to crash and veer off the road, ultimately driving the bus into the embankment. They went further by saying the school district had the responsibility of discontinuing the operation of the bus when there was inclement weather. Today, bus drivers, as well as the school districts, are responsible for judging when weather conditions are unsafe for pupil transport.^[10]

There is a very thin line—one that’s easy to cross and even easier to blur in the field of medicine—where ethical experimentation and the malicious pursuit of knowledge through unethical means meet and perhaps even overlap. What is ethical science in the world of human subjects, and who’s to be the judge of that?

Is consent all that’s really needed for an experiment to be considered humane, and if so, how much consent? How many of the details does a patient need to know to reach the threshold of doctors safely saying that consent was, in fact, informed consent?

Throughout history, this line has been crossed many times, much to the tragic dismay, torture, and even death of some of the so-called patients who’ve been experimented on. There have been great breakthroughs in medical science through experimentation on living human beings, but at what cost?

Sometimes, tests were conducted upon individuals without their knowledge that they were the subjects of an experiment. Here are 10 such cases that led to medical breakthroughs.

10 Influenza
1941

Nobody likes getting the flu. It comes along when we least expect it, infecting us and making us sick for days or even weeks, sometimes leaving us bedridden for extended periods of time. But imagine getting the flu unsuspectingly and then finding out that someone had administered it to you. Well, that’s exactly what happened in the United States from 1941 onward in the name of experimentation.

Thomas Francis Jr., the microbiologist who originally isolated the viruses known as influenza A and B, conducted some of these experiments in 1941 on institutionalized persons, including children. Many of the experiments were conducted using people who’d become property of the state or were otherwise in mental asylums.

Francis didn’t tell them that he was spraying his recently isolated flu virus up their noses when he gave them a nasal spray. Even more terrifying, when the medical community found out about it, they seemed to think that the ends justified the means. The dominant ideology of the day was that it was perfectly okay to subject unwitting people to diseases and medical mistreatment as long as the research led to breakthroughs.^[1]

These tests paved the way for a greater understanding of influenza as a series of viruses and led to vaccines, many of which protected US troops during World War II.

9 Gynecology

Gynecology is a science that has a history replete with unethical tests and especially surgeries on subjects. What a nightmarish thought it is to be strapped or forced down while someone performs a surgery on you without your consent as you struggle to break free.

James Marion Sims was a surgeon and scientist who’s often credited as being “the father of modern gynecology.” The ways he came to his conclusions in medicine were rather striking.

His experiments took place in the 1840s in the United States when slavery was still legal. They were conducted without anesthesia almost exclusively on enslaved women who hadn’t given consent. Extremely painful surgeries were performed on helpless women who couldn’t legally say no.

Through these methods, Sims invented all sorts of dilators which opened the vagina, especially to treat vaginal fistulas, abscesses, or openings that connect one organ to another unnaturally. He forced his various instruments on unwitting women in the name of science and sadly paved the way for a lot of gynecological work as we know it today.

If anything, these faceless women who suffered at the hands of medical experimentation should be called “the mothers of modern gynecology” rather than giving James Marion Sims a similar title.^[2]

8 Spinal Taps

Back in 1896, we didn’t quite yet know whether spinal taps would be harmful procedures with short-term or long-term effects. Thus, some tests needed to be done. In one of the most twisted cases of medical experimentation, a doctor by the name of Arthur Wentworth stepped up to the plate.

He performed spinal taps on 29 children to test the safety of the procedure. Obviously, these children could not consent, and some argued that the kids weren’t even sick. Even for that time, people were outraged that a doctor was using children to test the safety of a new surgical procedure.

Even worse, it was immediately alleged that Wentworth didn’t even gather consent from the parents, who also didn’t know that their children would be used to study the effectiveness of spinal taps. But it’s certain that Wentworth was instrumental in pioneering many modern surgical procedures, such as the lumbar puncture which is still used today.^[3]

His supporters at the time claimed that the ends justified the means, while his opponents were mortified.

7 San Quentin

San Quentin is a prison in Northern California near San Francisco. It became the place that would facilitate one of the worst cases of experimentation on living, non-consenting subjects in history. These nightmarish tests were conducted by Leo Stanley, who served as the chief medical surgeon for the prison from 1913 to 1951. Stanley brought about some medical advancements in an extremely unorthodox way. In fact, he taught us exactly what not to do.

During his tenure, Stanley was obsessed with the genitals of men. He fixated on Hitler-like eugenics, hated homosexuality, thought that white Christians were the superior race, and thus advocated the active sterilization of the rest.

In some of the most evil experiments in world history, Stanley took the testicles from deceased prisoners and grafted them into living ones. Even more disturbing, Stanley sometimes transplanted animal testicles into living people.^[4]

His experiments affected countless men over decades and were his search for a more “vital” man through regulating testosterone production. This was the forerunner to modern hormone therapy before they got the chemistry figured out.

Ultimately, Stanley advanced the field of medicine by giving an undeniable example of the need for more oversight in the medical facilities within prison walls. For the longest time, many people like Leo Stanley were able to operate unhindered as long as they conducted their bizarre experiments on prisoners. He helped to give us a reason to usher in the new area of medical ethics for those who’ve been imprisoned.

6 Tuskegee Experiment

The Tuskegee experiment is another long-standing, unethical, horrifying case of medical science gone wrong. An idea that was already morally awful in theory became tremendously worse in practice.

Beginning in 1932, the experiment sought to identify the stages of syphilis and how to treat them as there was no known cure at the time. It was the era of the Jim Crow laws in the United States. Technically, African Americans had been freed from slavery, but racism and horrible treatment was still very much alive and well as proven by the Tuskegee experiment.

The study was performed on a large group of African-American men who had contracted syphilis and another group who had not. The researchers intentionally gave syphilis to the group who was initially free of the disease and observed the results.

Before this, the major known work on syphilis was a Norwegian study conducted in Oslo, Norway, in 1928. But this research only used people who’d already contracted the disease, not patients who were newly infected with it.

So the Tuskegee study sought to complement the Oslo research. Of course, the major problem with Tuskegee was that they did not obtain the consent of those in the study and didn’t even tell them what was happening.^[5]

Before it had even begun, the study lost its funding with the stock market crash of 1929. The researchers decided to go through with it anyway and promised free medical treatment and food to those who participated.

But the free medical treatment never came. They just left the subjects to get progressively worse. The study went on for 40 years until a whistle-blower discovered it and leaked the information to a reporter. By 1972, everyone knew what was happening.

While horribly unethical, much of our knowledge of the ever-changing syphilis infection comes from the research done over this 40-year period as, oddly enough, the researchers never actually tried to hide what they were doing. They published their findings for the medical community.

We now know well the stages of syphilis from beginning to end. Our knowledge of a terrible disease was greatly advanced but at a tragic and deeply unethical cost.

5 Hepatitis
1947

In 1947, a rather disgusting study on the spread and control of the hepatitis virus was conducted by Dr. Joseph Stokes Jr., who gathered test subjects and fed them. However, he didn’t tell them exactly what he was feeding them.

In another example of plainly cruel medical research, Stokes gave participants chocolate milkshakes without telling them that the shakes had been mixed in a blender with livers containing the hepatitis virus. Feces containing the virus were also blended into the milkshakes.

The subjects were prisoners with no history of jaundice or presence of the hepatitis virus. So Stokes intentionally infected otherwise healthy people without their knowledge. As a result, he gave hepatitis to them and likely many other prisoners after the original patients returned to the general prison population, thus allowing the disease to spread.

In 1950, Stokes performed more experiments by intentionally giving 200 female prisoners hepatitis to further study the virus.

His work led to some advancements in our understanding of the hepatitis virus, namely how to control the disease and that having one type of hepatitis doesn’t protect someone from contracting another type. In fact, Stokes discovered that having one type of the virus increased the likelihood that a person would contract another type of hepatitis. But this knowledge came at a horrible cost.^[6]

4 MK-ULTRA

MK-ULTRA was a series of experiments conducted by the CIA to test many different things—from electric shock therapy to the effects of drugs. The premise was to discover or counteract means of controlling the mind, especially those of military prisoners.

The studies were conducted between 1953 and 1973. Among other things, they included dosing unsuspecting people with LSD to see how they would react. The unknowing subjects were at bars or the beach when researchers dropped drugs in their drinks and then observed their reactions. It was like date rape without the rape but with all the nightmarish psychological torture.

The CIA even dosed its own agents without their knowledge. One of their top scientists died when he was drugged without his knowledge and fell from a hotel building.^[7]

Though much of the documentation was destroyed, most major advancements in our knowledge of illegal drugs such as MDMA and especially LSD came from these horrific experiments that claimed lives and caused permanent damage in people who survived.

3 Acres Of Skin

The phrase “acres of skin” is exactly what Dr. Albert Kligman admitted to thinking when he entered the walls of Holmesburg Prison in Pennsylvania. The prisoners were his new test subjects.

His experiment? To test mind-altering drugs and weapons of war on the prison population.

Yes, this was legalized torture in small degrees that both the US military and 33 different corporations had funded. It often included applying small amounts of poisonous substances onto or into the skin of patients.

The military purpose of one experiment was to determine the minimum dose of a drug needed to render at least 50 percent of a population impotent. The tests at Holmesburg Prison were nightmarish. Even the more harmless substances tested, such as toothpaste and deodorant, were torturous because Kligman would have the application sites on the patients biopsied and observed.

These experiments lasted from 1951 to 1974. They produced a slew of information that led to advancements in many of the products we use today, especially with respect to skin care.

Ever notice that many topical creams and other products contain very small amounts of active ingredients? These tests determined the harmful amounts and narrowed them down to the appropriate doses.^[8]

Dr. Kligman has over 500 publications and thousands of citations by others in subsequent works today. Yet again, the questions remain: At what cost? Did the ends justify the means?

2 Blood Substitute

Sometimes, medical advancements come in the form of telling us exactly what not to do. Such is the case with the controversy surrounding a company called Northfield Laboratories and their ethics in administering a product called artificial blood.

In the 2000s, Northfield traveled to cities and towns and began informing the residents about the company’s new product, which was artificial blood. It was a blood substitute that didn’t carry the risks, such as disease, of actual blood transfusions and could also be given to people with religious objections.

Then Northfield was backed by the FDA in conducting a no-consent study. As their unwitting test subjects, the company used trauma patients who were incapable of consenting to receive the blood product. An alarming 13.2 percent of the blood substitute patients died as compared to the 9.6 percent death rate with the saline control group.

The study was a complete disaster. At a tragic cost in human lives lost, the researchers learned that artificial blood may mimic human blood, but a lot of work and lab testing needs to be done before artificial blood can come close to performing the same functions as actual blood.^[9]

1 Syphilis
1946–1948

While the Tuskegee study was ongoing, another experiment involving syphilis was conducted in Guatemala. In 1946, we had penicillin, which was known for its strength as an antibiotic, and we had syphilis, a curiously difficult disease to treat. Researchers decided to determine the effectiveness of using penicillin in syphilis cases.

They came up with a horrible idea to make this happen. US researchers infected unsuspecting people in Guatemala with the bacteria which causes the disease. Some of the victims were prostitutes, the mentally handicapped, prisoners, and even orphaned children.

The researchers’ methods were particularly gruesome. They poured the syphilis bacteria into the penises of men or slyly sneaked it into something that would be applied to the skin of individuals who had open wounds. They intentionally infected people to observe the effects of the treatment.

Fortunately for some, the penicillin worked. But what about the control group?

This particular experiment taught us much in how to use penicillin in conjunction with things like condoms to control the spread of the disease.^[10] But again, those results came at a tragic cost due to the unethical nature of the methods employed.

Here’s a fun little one on unethical, nonconsensual medical tests and experiments which ultimately led to knowledge and advancements in the medical field. Sometimes, those advancements were knowing exactly what not to do.

Through the course of human history, life expectancy has gradually increased; this is thanks to medical advancements. Because of scientific and medical advances, human life expectancy has increased much more dramatically in the last 100 to 150 years. The average life expectancy in the United States in 1900 was 49 years, and in 1800 it was even less (estimated to be between 30 and 40 years).

Our understanding of medicine, disabilities, and science, in general, has allowed this drastic improvement. Let’s explore ten medical advancements that increased life expectancy. Some of the advancements below are from the nineteenth century, and some are far more recent, as scientific advances continue to bring about medical technological innovation.

Related: 10 Weird Medieval Medical Practices That Actually Work

10 The Discovery of Germ Theory

From early on in our lives, we are taught about germs. Schoolchildren are regularly reminded to wash their hands. However, this was far from the case in the middle of the 19th century. Instead, the commonly believed theory was that disease was created through spontaneous generation.

Spontaneous generation is just what it sounds like, disease appearing from literally nowhere. Luckily, in 1861, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur (the creator of the process of pasteurization) proved to the scientific community and the world at large that disease was not caused by “spontaneous generation.” Instead, it was caused by microscopic organisms, also known as “germs” or pathogens.

The medical and scientific community eventually embraced this theory, leading to thousands of deaths being prevented from infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever, the flu, dysentery, and more. The positive effects have been endless. Understanding how disease forms and spreads has been an absolute cornerstone to medical and scientific advancements and has positively impacted human life expectancy.

The Germ Theory is possibly the most important advancement in human medical history.

9 Anesthetics

Surgeries are commonplace in today’s society; it is not rare for a person to have three or more surgeries throughout their lifetime. This would have been completely unheard of just 150 years ago. There have been many advancements in surgical science in recent years, but none has been as important as the usage of anesthesia.

Before anesthesia was commonly used, it was not unusual for patients to choose death instead of emergency surgery. After all, surgery was used only as a last option when doctors were desperate. Without anesthetics, the idea of surgery must have been completely terrifying, especially since the patients were not given much more than the option of opium, alcohol, or a leather strap to bite on. And, of course, the surgeries were often unsuccessful anyway.

The first recorded use of an anesthetic during surgery was in 1846 by William G. Morton, using sulfuric ether on a patient with a tumor in his neck. Early on, however, anesthetic usage was somewhat unpredictable and dangerous. But as it became more common, the practice became refined. Now, the risk of an accident involving anesthesia is extremely low. This allows more patients access to life-saving surgeries and has greatly increased human life expectancy over time.

8 Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

The next item on our list is not from so far in the past. Rather, it sounds like something from the future. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology with incredible potential in all areas of science, including the medical field. AI technology is sometimes called “machine learning,” where software can catalog information more efficiently than a person.

The possibilities for AI in medicine are vast. Currently, AI systems are used in various ways, such as patient diagnosis, doctor-to-patient communication, maintaining medical records, cataloging prescriptions, remote treatment of patients, and more. While the current usage of AI has helped save many lives and optimized medical processes, the potential for the future is even greater.

AI can screen diseases, personalize patient treatment, and even edit genes. It is exciting to imagine the advancements that medicine and science can achieve with the increased usage of Artificial Intelligence technology.

7 Laparoscopic Surgery

As mentioned earlier in our list, surgery was far less common before the advancement of anesthetics. Another major advancement in surgery came more than 100 years later in the form of laparoscopic surgery. This type of surgery involves a smaller incision than traditional surgery. Then, the surgery can be performed with less risk using small tubing and even smaller cameras.

Laparoscopic surgery was first developed in the 1980s and is sometimes called minimally invasive surgery for obvious reasons. The many benefits include:

• A shorter recovery time and hospital stay
• Fewer complications
• Smaller scars
• Less pain for the patient

Despite being a relatively new technology, laparoscopic surgery is almost as common as other kinds of surgery in modern hospitals because it is so beneficial. Access to less invasive and less dangerous surgeries has already saved thousands of lives through preventative measures and will continue to increase our life expectancy.

6 Organ Transplants

Failing organs have been a common cause of death throughout human history. For this reason, scientists have attempted organ transplants for decades. The first successful organ transplant (a kidney) was in 1954 by Doctors David Hume and Joseph Murray. This was a major advancement for medicine, and it has only improved.

Less than ten years later, in 1963, the first lung transplant was successful. Shortly after, in 1966, a pancreas was transplanted. The next year, liver and heart transplants were successfully achieved. These procedures have become much more commonplace and are performed hundreds (or thousands) of times each year. Organ transplants have had a profound impact on patients with failing organs and have allowed many people to be saved.

As technology advances, organ transplants have taken place from animals to humans, including a kidney from a pig to a human. This is called Xenotransplantation. In the near future, organ replacements may be able to be created by a 3D printer or even grown in a lab or medical facility! Organ transplantation technology has been one of the most important medical advancements in increasing human life expectancy.

5 Antibiotics

In 2010, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh was asked to vote on the most important medical developments of the last 50 years (see the complete list here). The most important advancement in their eyes? The discovery of antibiotics.

In 1928, one of the happiest accidents in human history occurred. Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered a mold in a petri dish. This discovery turned out to be penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic. While penicillin did not go into common use immediately, antibiotics continued to develop throughout the 1940s.

The mass production of penicillin began during World War II, notably by scientists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain. Thanks to the development and contributions of many other medical scientists and doctors, antibiotics have saved many lives and extended even more.

How can you disagree with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh? Clearly, antibiotics have been a crucial medical advancement.

4 ACE Inhibitors

Next on our list is an important, though hardly well-known, treatment. ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme) inhibitors are used for various purposes. Commonly, they are used for patients with high blood pressure, heart conditions, or kidney disease.

In basic terms, ACEs dilate or widen the patient’s blood vessels. This allows the amount of blood flow from your heart to increase. ACE inhibitors can help lower blood pressure and are often prescribed for this reason. However, they are also prescribed for heart failure, diabetes, heart attacks, and those at risk for heart attacks and strokes.

ACE inhibitors are prescribed to millions of patients across the United States annually. This medical advancement is not only a preventative measure to protect patients from organ failure; it has greatly improved the quality (and likely duration) of life for many patients since the introduction of the medication back in 1975.

3 Kidney Dialysis

Kidney dialysis is a medical procedure involving removing waste and excess fluid from a patient’s blood when their kidneys are not working properly. In most cases, a dialysis machine is used. The patient’s blood is filtered by the dialysis machine and then returned to the body. In other words, it is as if the patient is using an artificial, external kidney.

While dialysis is certainly not a perfect or comfortable solution, it has saved many lives. In many cases, dialysis is used as a sort of stall tactic. It allows patients to continue functioning without a functioning kidney. This time is used to help the patient find a suitable donor organ. Incredibly, this medical advancement was created in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation of World War II.

Dr. Willem Johan Koff created the first dialysis machine (dialyzer). To help his patients, he created the machine using spare parts, including soda cans and pieces from a washing machine. His creativity and the continued ingenuity of the medical community overall have saved many lives and extended the life expectancy for patients suffering from kidney disease.

2 Medical Imaging Technologies (MRI, X-Ray, CT, Ultrasound)

CT scans, MRI, x-ray, and ultrasound technology are all benefits of the next advancement on our list. It sounds simple, but for centuries, doctors could not see many parts of the body (while patients were alive). This all changed with the invention of the x-ray in the late 19th century by German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen.

Shortly after, a hospital in Glasgow opened the first radiology department in medical history. The next developments in medical imaging did not come until the 1950s and ’60s, with the increase in ultrasound and CT usage for medical diagnoses.

In 1973, Paul Lauterbur created the MRI (magnetic resonance image). The MRI is often one of the first tools medical professionals use to get an accurate diagnosis. The benefits of medical imaging are countless and still growing today as technology continues to march forward. The advancement of medical imaging is hugely important for individual patients and scientists to understand the body as a whole.

1 Vaccine

The vaccine is possibly the greatest single tool that humanity has against disease prevention. Vaccines were first invented in the late 18th century. As with many great technological advances, it was discovered due to necessity.

The smallpox virus raged worldwide, causing countless deaths and infections. Edward Jenner was the first to use vaccinations to combat this epidemic. Eventually, through the use of vaccines, smallpox was eradicated. Other important vaccinations in the 1800s and 1900s include rabies, tuberculosis, cholera, polio, and more.

Due to necessity, new technology has been used to develop vaccines. Through mRNA technology, new vaccines are now being developed expeditiously. Vaccines are a key part of our society and have undoubtedly saved millions of lives through disease prevention.

Believe it or not, one-fifth of the 21st century is already behind us, and the past 20 years were pretty intense. While there were plenty of social and political changes across the world, one industry that has seen significant advancement is medicine.

The first 20 years of the 21st century have seen advancements in the way we identify, catalog, and treat a plethora of diseases. This list highlights the 10 most significant medical advances made in the first fifth of the 21st century.

10 Prosthetics Have Gone Bionic

The Six Million Doller Man made it seem like bionic implants and prostheses were an impossible future. That show aired in the 1970s, and the future is now! Of course, people aren’t transformed from crippled astronauts into superheroes, but bionic prosthetics have gone from science fiction to reality.

It will be a while before these limbs look and feel like biological appendages. Still, advancements are being made towards that goal. Modern prostheses can function better than past versions. Some even make it possible for the wearer to manipulate them with their minds.

By placing electrodes on various parts of the skull, a person can manipulate their bionic prostheses by thinking. The technology needs some work, but it’s been proven to function with some patients being able to open and close a bionic hand to pick up and manipulate objects.

The technology has gone beyond manipulation to make it possible to “feel” with bionic fingers. Other advancements include bionic lenses that restore vision. Work is being done to create implantable neuroprosthetic devices that can control computers, so expect this technology to improve and advance over the next 20 years.

9 HIV/AIDS Treatment Has Taken The Fight To The Virus

For years, it seemed that HIV was a virus that couldn’t be defeated. When it infected someone, it was only a matter of time before they developed AIDS, which would ultimately claim the patient’s life. For the latter part of the 20th century, that was typically the result of an infection.

There were antiviral medications patients could take, but they were numerous, and each came with side effects. This made it difficult for patients to stay on schedule, and eventually, the virus won out. That began to change in 2006 with the release of Atripla.

The medicine combined three antiretroviral drugs into a single dose, making it much easier and less damaging to take. In 2013, Stribild was released, and it combined four HIV antiretroviral medications into a single dose. Medicines and treatments continued to improve over the first two decades of the 21st century.

In 2017 and 2019, two new medications, Juluce and Dovato, were released, drastically improving treatment options for patients. Those two breakthrough drugs made it possible for every patient with HIV to be on an effective single-dose therapy, helping to reduce the number of HIV patients who develop AIDS while drastically reducing healthcare costs.

8 We Cracked The Human Genome

In 1990, an international scientific research project began the arduous task of cracking the human genome. The idea was to determine the base pairs that make up human DNA. These would then be mapped to better understand the human genome, which would aid in medical research and treatment.

In 2000, the Human Genome Project released a rough draft of the human genome. It was the first time in history that people could read a complete set of human genetic information. Three years later, a final draft was released as the program shut down, having delivered on its promise to map the three billion nucleotides contained in our DNA.

The finished project presented a mosaic of various individuals, and the data derived from the study has been instrumental in furthering our understanding of human genetics. The project made it possible to map an individual human genome easier and relatively inexpensively. This makes it possible to identify disease-causing mutations before they manifest in a patient.

Genomics advancements have furthered cancer research and treatment with the creation of more targeted drugs. Additionally, we now know the genetic basis of nearly 5,000 conditions, which is a significant improvement over the 60 we understood before we cracked the human genome.

7 Advances In Genetic Engineering

Science fiction tells us that genetic engineering results in the creation of monsters. In reality, it offers a means of correcting congenital defects and mutations that result in disease. The most well-known process for accomplishing this is CRISPR, or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.

Essentially, CRISPR is a means of targeted editing a living organism’s genes. It can also be used to create agricultural products, genetically modified organisms, and control pests and pathogens. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for developing the technique.

The use of CRISPR genomic modification remains controversial, but it has been shown to be effective in various medical applications. Research in biomedicine shows that CRISPR can treat cancer, progeria, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, Huntington’s disease, and many more diseases resulting from a person’s genes.

In 2020, CRISPR was used effectively to treat glioblastoma and metastatic ovarian cancer. Further research and development will likely yield more advancements in treating various diseases, pathogens, and more. Research is being conducted worldwide to advance CRISPR into various therapies, suggesting it will become commonplace in the future.

6 Heart Disease Is No Longer A Death Sentence

Before the turn of the century, doctors could do very little for a patient who suffered a heart attack. Treatment typically consisted of providing a drip of morphine and lidocaine, which was believed to prevent irregular heartbeats. Most patients didn’t recover, but these days, deaths from heart disease have dropped by 40%.

A lot of that is due to the development of new medicines, including Lipitor, Mevacor, Crestor, and Simvastatin, which all work to slow the progression of atherosclerosis (plaque and fatty material buildup in the arteries). With those drugs, fewer patients are getting to the point of having a heart attack.

Still, heart attacks do occur, but when they do, they are treated very differently than they were in the past. Today, it’s all about speed. Once a patient arrives at the hospital, a clot can be destroyed with drugs. A genetically engineered tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) can bust up a clot, restoring blood flow.

Patients who require surgery are treated differently from the past, resulting in far fewer deaths from a cardiac infarction. The improvement stems from a 1998/2000 goal set by the American Heart Association, which wanted to reduce cardiac deaths by 25% by 2010. In 2008, the goal was achieved, and by 2020, a 40% reduction was reached.

5 Stem Cell Research & Application Made Leaps & Bounds

The use of stem cells in research isn’t anything new, as the technology to derive them from embryos was developed in the early 1980s. Since then, technology has advanced significantly, and medical research and treatment applications have hit the ground running in the 21st century.

Stem divide to form “daughter cells,” which can then turn into new stem cells or become any other specialized cell in the body. Under the right laboratory conditions (or in the body), stem cells can replace damaged cells. Potentially, they can be used to grow new organs.

The applications of the latter are promising, as any organs grown from a patient’s own cells wouldn’t require a lifetime of anti-rejection medication. Furthermore, the organ would theoretically be accepted without a problem, reducing the risk of transplantation, which is already a complex procedure.

Other applications include treating against disease and genetic conditions. In one study, manipulated bone marrow cells were transplanted into two seven-year-old boys. This stopped the progress of a fatal brain disease called adrenoleukodystrophy. Research into other applications is promising, suggesting stem cell therapy is truly the future of medicine.

4 Targeted Cancer Therapies Are Improving Survival Rates

For years, the primary method to treat a patient with cancer was through chemotherapy and radiation therapy. While these often worked, they did so by attacking cancer cells and healthy cells, which presents its own set of problems. Over the past decade, new techniques have been developed that make it possible to treat cancer more effectively.

Targeted therapies make it possible to eliminate many of the dangerous side effects of chemo and radiation therapies by going after the cancer cells without the danger of harming healthy cells. These targeted therapies work in several ways, but for the most part, they do the following:

-They identify and kill cancer cells directly.
-They interfere with the spread of cancerous cells, blocking the ones responsible for tumor growth.

The past decade has seen FDA approval for more than 25 new medicines that have shown an effectiveness in treating cancer patients through targeted therapy. The drugs are either small-molecule or monoclonal antibodies, which target specific cancer cells’ functions of how they divide, grow, and spread.

The technology behind targeted therapy is still relatively new, so advances are continuing around the world. It doesn’t mean we’ve beaten cancer, but we have advanced in the fight against one of humanity’s most insidious enemies.

3 Nanomedicine Left Science-Fiction Behind And Became A Reality

Sci-Fi has long been the domain of nanotechnology, and for a good reason. Programming machines smaller than cells is fantastical in nature, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. To be clear, that’s not what modern nanomedicine is, but the impact of what it has become suggests the future may be devoid of side effects.

Current nanomedicine is centered mainly around drug delivery. Instead of programming impossibly tiny robots, nanomedicine works by employing nanoparticles that are specifically engineered to target specific cells in targeted drug delivery. In short, it takes medicine directly to the affected cells, which reduces the total amount of drugs required.

Additionally, nanoparticles avoid healthy cells, which limits side effects. As the technology develops, it could reduce side effects in targeted therapies, improving drug effectiveness and survival rates.

Nanotechnology-based drugs are already on the market. Drugs like Abraxane, Onivyde, Rapamune, and others have improved anti-rejection and cancer treatments. Research is ongoing, and further advances in the treatment of HIV and cancer are looking to be the way of the future.

2 It Is Now Possible To Print Body Parts

Fabricating a body part from raw materials has long been the subject of science fiction, but that’s not the case any longer. Since 3D printing technology has advanced over the past two decades, new methods in creating implantable body parts have emerged. The current technology makes it possible to combine cell types with polymers to create living, functional tissues.

The technology behind this is still in the early phases of development, and it isn’t widely available at this time. Still, studies have made significant leaps and bounds via the technology. By 2020, researchers had successfully printed and implanted bionic eyes, hearts, skin, bionic ears, elastic bones, ovaries, and antibacterial teeth.

Because it’s still in the research and development phase, these items and organs have been successfully implanted into mice and other animals. Still, the technology is incredibly promising. As it develops, it should be possible to utilize a specialized 3D printer to recreate organs that can be implanted into patients.

Bioprinting and biotechnology companies are working hard to recreate everything from blood vessels to ears and whatever is needed in the future. It may eventually be possible to print a person’s heart to replace a damaged one without having to wait for months or even years on a transplant list.

1 RNA Vaccines Left The Lab And Took The Fight To The Virus

On their own, the vaccines developed to fight against COVID-19 are a fantastic medical achievement. Simply getting them through all the necessary red tape is noteworthy. Still, there’s far more going on behind the scenes than the average person knows because the technology that went into creating the vaccines represents a significant advancement.

The vaccines were made as quickly as they were, in part, because the research was already underway to develop the technology of RNA vaccines. Traditional vaccines work by placing an inactive version of the whole virus into the body. The immune system responds by learning how to attack and deal with it.

Another way to fight a virus is to deliver the nucleic acid that encodes the protein. The person’s immune system reacts by making the necessary protein to fight the virus. RNA vaccinations inject the nucleic acid that codes for the proteins that the cells need to make, delivering the “instructions” the body needs to fight off the virus . . . in other words, the vaccine changes the host’s DNA.

RNA vaccine technology is relatively new, and the COVID-19 vaccines are the first to make it out of the testing phase and into patients’ bodies. Thus far, it’s appeared successful, but it’s only the beginning. Further research and advancements in the technology could battle against viruses that have been difficult in the past, making RNA vaccines one of the most important medical advancements of the 21st century.