Health Issues

Despite incredible improvements in health since 1950, there are still a number of challenges, which should have been easy to solve. Consider the following:

• One billion people lack access to health care systems.
• Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one group of conditions causing death globally. An estimated 17.5 million people died from CVDs in 2005, representing 30% of all global deaths. Over 80% of CVD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Around 11 million children under the age of 5 die from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases, each year.
• In 2002, almost 11 million people died of infectious diseases alone, far more than the number killed in the natural or man-made catastrophes that make headlines. (These are the latest figures presented by the World Health Organization.)
• AIDS/HIV has spread rapidly. UNAIDS estimates for 2007 that there are roughly:
  • 32.8 million living with HIV
  • 2.5 million new infections of HIV
  • 2 million deaths from AIDS
• There are 8.8 million new cases of Tuberculosis (TB) and 1.75 million deaths from TB, each year.
• 1.6 million people still die from pneumococcal diseases every year, making it the number one vaccine-preventable cause of death worldwide. More than half of the victims are children. (The pneumococcus is a bacterium that causes serious infections like meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis. In developing countries, even half of those children who receive medical treatment will die. Every second surviving child will have some kind of disability.)
• Malaria causes more than 300 million acute illnesses and at least 1 million deaths, annually.
• More than half a million people, mostly children, died from measles in 2003 even though effective immunization costs just 0.30 US dollars per person, and has been available for over 40 years.

These and other diseases kill more people each year than conflict alone.

Why so many needless deaths? The collection of articles below, hope to help shed light on this tragedy.

Articles on “Health Issues”:

Global Health Overview

Last updated Sunday, July 12, 2009.

This article looks at some global aspects of health issues, such as the impact of poverty and inequality, the nature of patent rules at the WTO, pharmaceutical company interests, as well as some global health initiatives and the changing nature of the global health problems being faced.

Read “Global Health Overview” to learn more.

Health Care Around the World

Posted Monday, August 31, 2009.

This article provides a high level overview of the various ways health services are provided around the world, as well as accompanying issues and challenges. Topics introduced include health as a human right, universal health care, and primary health care.

Read “Health Care Around the World” to learn more.

Diseases—Ignored Global Killers

Last updated Sunday, February 17, 2008.

This article looks into a number of issues of global diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS/HIV, and the global response to them. For example, many people cannot afford medicines for these or other diseases, even though some are easily treatable.

Read “Diseases—Ignored Global Killers” to learn more.

AIDS around the world

Last updated Sunday, February 17, 2008.

This article looks specifically at AIDS, and the global reaction to it. It seems to have only become a global interest when some rich countries were threatened by it. Global initiatives have been welcome but slow to get off the ground, while access to drugs and medicines is proving difficult, and, political.

Read “AIDS around the world” to learn more.

Pharmaceutical Corporations and Medical Research

Last updated Wednesday, November 04, 2009.

For a while now, pharmaceutical companies have been criticized about their priorties. It seems the profit motive has led to emphasis on research that is aimed more at things like baldness and impotence, rather than various tropical diseases that affect millions of people in developing countries. Unfortunately, while a large market therefore exists, most of these people are poor and unable to afford treatments, so the pharmaceutical companies develop products that can sell and hence target wealthier consumers.

In addition, there is concern at how some pharmaceutical companies have been operating: from poor research and trial practice to distorting results, and politically lobbying and pressuring developing countries who try to produce generics or try to get cheaper medicines for their citizens.

Read “Pharmaceutical Corporations and Medical Research” to learn more.

Pharmaceutical Corporations and AIDS

Last updated Sunday, June 02, 2002.

The AIDS crisis is one example that highlights the motives of some of the larger pharmaceutical corporations. When South Africa wanted to try and produce cheaper drugs to help its own people, by producing more generic and cheaper drugs, these companies actually lobbied the US government to impose sanctions on them!

Read “Pharmaceutical Corporations and AIDS” to learn more.

AIDS in Africa

Last updated Monday, June 22, 2009.

AIDS in Africa is said to be killing more people than conflicts.

It causes social disruption as children become orphaned and it affects many already-struggling economies as workforces are reduced.

As an enormous continent, various regions are seeing different results as they attempt to tackle the problem. Numerous local, regional and global initiatives are slowly helping, despite significant obstacles (such as poverty, local social and cultural norms/taboos, concerns from drug companies about providing affordable medicines, and limited health resources of many countries that are now also caught up in the global financial crisis).

Read “AIDS in Africa” to learn more.

Tobacco

Last updated Wednesday, July 02, 2008.

In this section, we look at the example of tobacco consumption. Smoking kills millions. Furthermore, it exacerbates poverty, damages the environment, and (through diversion of land resources away from food production) contributes to world hunger.

Read “Tobacco” to learn more.

Obesity

Last updated Monday, October 27, 2008.

Obesity is a growing problem. The number of people overweight or obese is now rivaling the number of people suffering from hunger around the world. Obese people were thought to be mainly from richer countries or wealthier segments of society, but poor people can also suffer as the food industry supplies cheaper food of poorer quality. Environmental, societal and life-style factors all have an impact on obesity and health. While individuals are responsible for their choices, other actors such as the food industry are also part of the problem, and solution. Unfortunately, the food industry appears reluctant to take too many measures that could affect their bottom line, preferring to solely blame individuals instead.

Read “Obesity” to learn more.

Sugar

Last updated Friday, April 25, 2003.

In this section, we look at the example of sugar consumption; how it has arisen (as it was once a luxury, now turned into a necessity). We look at things like how it affects the environment; the political and economic drivers in producing sugar (for example, historically, sugar plantations encouraged slavery); its health effects today; its relation to world hunger (as land used to grow sugar and related support, for export, could be used to grow food for local consumption); and so on. As we will also see, it is an example of a wasteful industry. That is, so many resources go into this industry compared to what might be needed. This wastes labor, wastes capital and uses up many resources.

Read “Sugar” to learn more.

Beef

Last updated Thursday, January 01, 2009.

Beef, as sugar, is another vivid example of enormous waste, in resources, environmental degradation, in contributing to world hunger, poverty etc. For example, more than one third of the world’s grain harvest is used to feed livestock. Some 70 to 80% of grain produced in the United States is fed to livestock. A lot of rainforest in the Amazon and elsewhere are cleared for raising cattle — not so much for local consumption, but for fast food restaurants in America and elsewhere. There are enormous related costs of what is an inefficient means of production. A more realistic estimate of the real cost of a hamburger was put at $35! As with sugar, beef was a luxury turned into an everyday item. Like sugar, it is also an example of how people’s tastes are influenced and how demands can be created (or very much expanded), rather than meeting some natural demand.

Read “Beef” to learn more.

Water and Development

Last updated Saturday, September 01, 2007.

Issues such as water privatization are important in the developing world especially as it goes right to the heart of water rights, profits over people, and so on. This article looks into these issues and the impacts it has on people around the world.

Read “Water and Development” to learn more.

Illicit Drugs

Posted Sunday, March 30, 2008.

The global illicit drugs market is enormous, estimated at some $320 billion. This makes it one of the largest businesses in the world. Some believe in strong prohibition enforcement. Others argue for decriminalization to minimize the crime and health effects associated with the market being controlled by criminals. Are there merits to each approach?

Read “Illicit Drugs” to learn more.

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