> How many people could we save if an equivalent amount was put into reducing obesity, smoking, and drinking?
How confident are you the answer isn't very close to zero? We've already curtailed smoking quite a bit in the past 30 years. At the level of an individual, it isn't any particular mystery how to stop obesity or to simply not drink, but population-level interventions attempting to get people to voluntarily behave differently for their own health historically haven't worked well in these specific domains. Throwing more money at the problem doesn't seem like it would obviously change that.
Also keep in mind that overeating and alcohol addiction have significant genetic components. Research into gene editing has the eventual potential to cure damn near any disease, including whatever pet causes you personally think are worth defeating.
>population-level interventions attempting to get people to voluntarily behave differently for their own health historically haven't worked well in these specific domains
Said like that it paints things like there are not far more resources spent on propagating the bad habits (as some ROI is expected from this by some actors), and any attempt to put a social health program in history always ended in major catastrophes.
It is also capable of creating new diseases that will be resistant to anything we currently have to fight with.
You can torture and execute people with electricity, but it does not follow that discovery and use of electricity was, on the net, a wash.