In the time it takes you to read this sentence, a child will
have died of malaria somewhere in the developing world. In the time
it takes you to read this column, five children will have died from
measles somewhere in the developing world. And in the time it takes
you to sit through a lecture, over 625 men, women and children will
be handed a death sentence: HIV. Do you know what’s worse?
Most of us couldn’t care less.
As citizens of the relatively germ-free United States, we have
little concept of the horrors of infectious diseases, which plague
much of the developing world. Most of us can probably live our
entire lives and never know someone dying of malaria or
tuberculosis ““ a luxury that members of less fortunate
nations do not have.
This isolation has caused the American people, government and
medical industry to turn a blind-eye to the plight of developing
nations. According to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, over
90 percent of the money spent on medical research and development
in the United States goes towards solving only 10 percent of the
world’s health problems.
On an economic level, that makes sense; why would a
pharmaceutical company risk billions developing a cholera treatment
for a penniless farmer in Uganda, when it could make trillions
selling a drug that fights sexual impotence in old fat men in Los
Angeles? This is an inhumane trend that must be remedied.
Take for example the AIDS pandemic. A lot of effort and money
has been devoted to curing and preventing AIDS, but over 40 million
people are infected worldwide and over 29 million of these AIDS
victims live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Now, let’s put this into perspective. Twenty-nine million
is approximately the entire population of California and over half
the population of England. If 29 million Californians were infected
with HIV, we would have found a cure yesterday.
Malaria is another disease that ravages the world, yet it is
largely ignored by developed nations. Three-hundred to 500 million
people will contract malaria this year, and over one million people
will die because of it. However, medications for the prevention of
malaria are available and, once diagnosed, malaria is easily
treated and cured.
So, what’s the problem? It all goes back to the economics
of the situation; providing all those at risk with anti-malarial
drugs would cost billions. Frankly, the lives of those who die of
this disease don’t seem to be worth that much to those with
the means to save those lives.
Since 1945, 23 million people have lost their lives in wars, and
that’s far too many. However, during that same time period,
an estimated 150 million have died of AIDS, TB and malaria.
The United States is a nation that has demonstrated a
willingness to fight against genocide with all its strength,
regardless of cost. The campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from
power will cost an estimated $95 billion, and the proposed U.S.
budget for 2003 calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in
military expenditures. Other nations spend similar amounts on
national defense.
Could you imagine the incredible effects, if the nations of the
world were to lay down their weapons of war and instead devoted
their vast resources to the development and implementation of
weapons designed to fight microbial genocide? AIDS, malaria,
measles, TB and other horrendous diseases would be cured
tomorrow.
While that scenario isn’t very likely, there is much the
United States can do to combat these growing, worldwide pandemics.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush pledged millions
to fight AIDS in Africa, but we can and must do much more. The
public needs to become aware of the fact that although these
diseases seem far away, they pose a threat to us that is far
greater than we can imagine.
As director general of the World Health Organization Hiroshi
Nakajima said in 1996, “We stand at the brink of a global
crisis of infectious disease. No country is safe from
them.”
The threat of infectious disease is real ““ both for those
living in the developing world and for those of us blessed to live
in the United States. The United States has the ability to find
cures; we have the resources to find cures.
What we need now is a burning desire to find those cures. It may
cost billions, but it must be done. Once we start caring, we can
save the lives of millions of people worldwide, and that’s an
outcome worth any price.
Ludlow is a second-year political science student.
E-mail him at dludlow@media.ucla.edu.