Poverty and Medicine
| A recent New England Journal article highlighted an illness called Noma that takes a significant death toll on the children of Africa. The pictures of the large facial ulcers on these poor children are hard to view. It is a mixed bacterial infection obtained as a direct result of severe malnutrition. While not every child who has malnutrition gets Noma it, we can prevent it and in the early stages cure it. In the article they highlight a new food bar which requires no re-hydration and has had some success in treating these children. It has been almost one hundred years since Dr. Albert Schweitzer landed in Africa for the first time. As both a Christian theologian and a physician he believed in " a reverence for life ". This philosophy led him to battle disease, ignorance and malnutrition in Africa. Many have followed him over the years and yet here we are in 2006 with large-scale starvation and malnutrition still present. Schweitzer said the following: " It is only in his struggle to become ethical that man comes to possess real value as a personality ….If the ethical foundation is lacking, then civilization collapses, even when in other directions creative and intellectual forces of the strongest nature are at work." Here I would like to raise the following questions the first two of which I will consider here and the two other questions to be considered next month. First, What are we individually to do in the face of such poverty? Secondly, what role should government take in these matters? Thirdly, what role do corporations have in this battle and finally how all of this relates to poverty in our country and to the lack of health care for some of our people? It turns out that the money donated for the 2004 Tsunami from both American citizens and corporations exceeded the money given by our government. So while most of us can not be an Albert Scweitzer, we can muster donations, both individually and collectively through our work or religious organizations, to help stamp out malnutrition and diseases like Noma, Malaria and Tuberculosis from the world. Should we be asking our government to give more in aid to these countries? Yes, because US government donations to world poverty as a percent of our GDP are lower compared to other developed countries. We are talking of about 1 % of our GDP. In the end, by leading the world in this matter, we will help to restore our image in the world as a truly compassionate country. By supporting those companies who make food bars or other needed supplies we help our own economy. Also, the government should develop a Health Care Corps similar to the Peace Corps. It could even as a subgroup of it. Such a group would give the specialized help these countries need to battle such medical conditions. So both collectively and individually let us not ignore our fellow human beings that are suffering and dying needlessly. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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