AN ENDOCRINOLOGIST THINKS ABOUT CHOLERA
CHOLERA AND DIABETES IS THERE A METAPHORIC
CONNECTION?
When we talk about a CURE for Cholera, what
do we talk about?
NOT ABOUT A VACCINE
NOT ABOUT WHAT SORT OF TREATMENT, SUCH AS
REHYDRATION THERAPY
NOT ABOUT COMPLICATIONS OF CHOLERA
The Illness Cholera affects about 3-5
million people worldwide annually with about 100-200,000 deaths.
Biomedical oriented experts argue about the
effectiveness of a two-dose cholera vaccine, antibiotics for mildly dehydrated
patients, and also for severely dehydrated patients along with rehydration
therapy.
But the Public Health Experts know, both in
the UK and the USA, that long before Antibiotics, Cholera was eliminated:
Safe Drinking Water
Hygienic Sewage Disposal.
Why is an Endocrinologist thinking about
Cholera? This endocrinologist is influenced by the effectiveness of Cuban
International medical brigades at times of emergency and stability, who bring
about improvements in the health status of poor people all around the world (in
79 countries in the last count).
I was prompted to write this down when I
read the enthusiasm with which Paid Professors in American were
enthusiastically endorsing a new medication for Type 2 Diabetes (with extremely
attractive designer label names). Very few of these pharmaceutically sponsored
professors would know or care about the Public Health aspects of Diabetes
Prevention. Right now, more than 90 per cent of the money spent on Diabetes is
about:
Medications and treatment of Blood Sugar and
Cholesterol and High Blood Pressure and the Complications of these parameters
which are poorly controlled despite so much money being poured into it. Only
one in five patients in America with Diabetes have it under control along with
control of Blood Pressure and Cholesterol. And of course, the clue is there:
poor people have poor control of these and socially isolated and marginalized
people suffer more complications.
It is like providing Vaccine for Cholera
and Rehydration salts for treatment and expensive antibiotics but not paying
attention to Safe Drinking water!
Food that is not plastic or is edible for
the majority of the population, for example.
Only 2 out of 3 persons living poorer
countries have access to water. 1 in six person in this world, that is 1 billion
people, still use open space for defaecation, NO TOILETS!
It is unethical to withhold anti-retroviral
medications just because the sufferer cannot pay; perhaps it is also unethical
for every country, while boasting about their surging economies, but not paying
attention to the basic primary needs of their populations.
As recently pointed out in an editorial in
NEJM, the cost, which the governments are concerned about, has to include the
benefits to Life of the individuals and also the benefits to the economy of
saved lives.
Why is that Brasil, India, South Africa,
China are all boasting about their surging growth whereas their children are
becoming fat, the poor are dying earlier than the rich, Diabetes is affecting
so many of their populations, while infectious diseases are killing adults and
children?
There is little interest in investment by
these trumpeters to improve the primary needs of their populations.
SOCIAL PROBLEMS CANNOT BE SOLVED BY MEDICAL
AND TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS. At the beginning of the 20th centuries,
politicians trumpeted that Poverty would be eradicated by the end of that
century because of technological advances.
Where are we?
A similar situation exists in the world of
type 2 Diabetes. All attention is to the treatment where money is generated for
companies or individuals but not on the social improvement schemes whereby
communities will improve their lifestyle, there are no political or individual
capital gains!
We need to think the ethical aspects of the
following:
The greed of the food/nutrition companies
and their paid professionals (nutritionists)
Provision of Good Quality, chemical free
Food; antibiotic free, Growth Hormone Free Meat for consumption by all, from
animals treated well as they provide our sustenance.
Not a single person is going to DIE if all
the Coca Cola were to disappear from the face of this earth- but quite a few
lives are in danger, individuals, families and countries. While the
sugar/chemical added fizzy drinks are in the market, the manufacturers and
their agents in the market place prosper but the childhood obesity, adult
diabetes would continue to increase … and the manufacturers and their agents
wont take responsibility, it is unfortunate that the responsible individuals
are in charge of some of the poorer countries as well.
Once again, visiting Belgium, and walking
around in a suburb full of immigrants, it resembled a poor neighbourhood in
America, with its fast food shops, no fancy shops but items sold cheaply that
couldn't find a market elsewhere.. And OBESITY. I have not seen this kind of
childhood obesity anywhere in Europe! Good bye Fish and Chips, welcome Kebab
and cheap cooking Oil! (Used over and over and fanning the omega 6
inflammation)
Dear friends, here is yet another example
of globalization! Immigrants, poverty, obesity, poor educational system … and
when they get diabetes, the professors pandering to the drug companies fill
them up with medications which they can exult about knowing fully well that
none of the medications now in the market for type 2 DM is as good as the
social medicine of Life Style Change!
