Rx for Global Health

Boy crippled by polio



Before I start my bitch about global health...I got tickets to see the panda! Wooooo hooooo I get to see the panda on Nov 21st at 11:10am. This is huge, I will have to take the day off. Oh well, my boss understands.

I was watching "Rx for Global Health" last night on PBS narrated by Brad Pitt. It is a 3 part series (9 hours total) of global health problems including AIDS, malaria, polio, dysentery, etc. and the like. As most of us know, most of these problems are in 3rd world countries and Africa suffers the brunt of it. 80% of all AIDS persons are living in Africa. Yet Africa has roughly 719 million people (same as Europe) and Europe only has 1% of AIDS cases. Europe, being a conglomerate of rich nations, does not have nearly the problem of AIDS that Africa does. I guess that wealth has something to do with the lack of an AIDS epidemic. It was really sad to watch the program but it was also appalling to me to see such terrible poverty and sickness and to know that we HAVE the money and manpower to do something about it, but we don't. After all what could Africa possibly offer us, surely not oil.

Oral polio vaccine


I also find it shocking that we have had a polio vaccine (that works 99% of the time) since 1952 and there are still cases of polio out there. The oral vaccine is 2 small drops on a child's tongue. No doctor or nurse is needed to administer the vaccine. Then to top off the madness the directors interviewed affluent families living on Vashon Island off of Washington state. Many of these people refused to vaccinate their children because they believed their immune systems are strong enough to protect them and vaccines are linked to autism. Hmmm. Ok, this is a dangerous situation. We have relatively smart people who are plugged in, yet lack critical thinking skills and the ability to READ scientific literature. I don't mean reading an article about polio in the Post, I mean read an article in a PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL. Medical information for the masses,in this day and age, is so watered down and taken out of context, that I chuckle every night at the nightly news. It is hard for these people to fear something that does not exist in the US anymore. There parents were the last generation to fear polio, small pox, mumps, and whooping cough. As my mom told me, having a preventable illness as a child was incentive enough for her to assure her children never had to endure it.

People like that is what makes me think of myself as an elitist. I will admit it, I am a snob when I deal with ignorant people who try to come off as intelligent. It is not worth my time or energy, so I blow them off. That is why I have little patience for middle class Americans who know better. This is why I like the idea of helping people in 3rd world countries who WANT HELP. Very sad. How many mothers in Africa would give their leg to have their children vaccinated and how many people in the US are not vaccinating? When enough people stop vaccinating their children, the diseases will re-appear. Every medical person knows that, and that is what keeps public health officials up at night. The only reasons we don't have those epidemics is because MOST OF US are vaccinated thanks to my parent's generation of diligence. It will be my generation that will bring down the cornerstone of public health...mass vaccination.