poverty, not AIDS, killing Africans

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Wed Mar 15 10:24:56 PST 2000



>
>Meanspirited, maybe, but is it a conservative argument to say that
>African health problems arise out of poverty? Is it a radical argument
>to say that, no, AIDS is responsible?

I've been thinking about this, and I don't see why it's an either/or thing (something I find myself saying a lot these days). Why are an AIDS crisis and a general public health crisis mutually exclusive? Why can't TB be rampant in both HIV+ and HIV- people? Doug
>>>>>>>

Thing always get dicey when anyone tries to prioritize among compelling needs, such as alternative allocations for pervasive life-ending diseases, of which Africa has more than a couple. Even though it would be possible to provide plenty of additional aid to a variety of such causes, choices would still need to be made. People don't like to confront these choices.

I would wager that Africans are less excited about AIDS in particular than a variety of poverty-based plagues, some of which would be relatively cheap and easy to ameliorate, if not wipe out, relative to AIDS.

mbs



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