On atherosclerosis, if you are talking about the herpes virus that causes the breakdown of the wall of the otherwise healthy artery which is the first step in "hardening of the arteries," that is hardly anything new  Earl Benditt wrote about this in the 1980's.   Two teams of researchers proved him right.  But, no one has proved that the liver has stopped sending plaquing material through the arteries.  Reducing dietary fat won't prevent initial plaquing, but is still thought to be a good step toward preventing some.  I asked the Director of Psychophrmacology Education at UCLA how much the average doctor knew about what medicine does, his answer was not reassuring.  But, he said they know enough to read about a new drug before giving it to a patient, "most of the time."  As for the will of the people, if I can form the question I can get a majority to say almost anything.  Single payer will never happen.  Put your energies into something that will.