Jon Cohen’s perspective “The New World of Global Health” was
informative but narrow. Mega dollar donors like Bill Gates and Ted Turner
do deserve praise but mega thinkers/leaders like UNICEF’s deceased James
Grant also deserve credit.
It’s frustrating to read about all the attention given to the need
for new medical breakthroughs. The fact remains that saving lives can’t
get much easier or cheaper. In 1978, the British medical journal “The
Lancet” called Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT, a simple mixture of sugar,
salt and water) “the medical breakthrough of the century.” For less than
a nickel per dose a child’s horrific death from diarrheal dehydration
could be prevented. Yet almost 30 years later, nearly a million children
still die each year from lack of access to this miracle cure. A similar
shameful statistic could be given about the life saving potential of a 2
cent dose of Vitamin A administered to a child just twice a year.
While highlighting debates between global health donors, researchers,
and providers is useful, the fact remains that all the aid, pledges, and
donations committed to date are woefully insufficient to achieving the
global health goals that world leaders have already agreed on. Additional, adequate and sustainable funding sources, like a global tax on
currency trading or airline travel, are vitally needed and must become a
top priority when discussing global health needs.
The greatest global health failing however (verging on a crime
against humanity -- if breaking a global pledge were actually a crime) was
the failure of world leaders to keep the promises they made at the 1990
World Summit for Children. The first President Bush was among the world
leaders back then who signed a pledge to “make available the resources”
needed to meet the child survival goals targeted for the year 2000. Some
progress was made but few goals were met. And, as Cohen mentioned, some
of that progress has since been lost.
But, in reality the failures to meet global health goals aren’t about
money. For less than American males spend on beer each year
(approximately $60 billion), all the world’s people who are now lacking
clean water, safe sanitation, adequate nutrition, basic education, and
primary health care could be adequately served. Such an investment would
not only save millions of lives and prevent tens of millions of
disabilities each year, it would also save us billions of tax dollars as
well. According to a 1997 GAO report, the global eradication of small
pox (costing the US only $32 million over 10 years) had already saved
American taxpayers over $17 billion dollars. Additional savings will be
made from the eradication of polio and measles. Our economy will also be
boosted by increasing the productivity and purchasing power of millions of
now impoverished people.
Even more important however is that fact that an adequate investment
in a global primary healthcare infrastructure would provide humanity with
a global prevention, early warning, and rapid response system for
addressing our two greatest national security threats -- natural and
terrorist-planned pandemics.
As long as great humanitarians like Gates, Bono, and bleeding heart
citizens only see global health as a humanitarian cause instead of the
national security issue that it is, the noble goals that are set will
never be adequately funded or achieved. Providing health care isn’t just
about doing good. It’s about doing what’s right (an inalienble human
right) and what’s smart (saving our own behinds).
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