| A Litte Perspective |
9 June 2003
|
SARS? Mad Cow? Quit Whinging!
Marcus Gee is a journalist with the Globe and Mail, a great paper from the great city of Toronto, and a few days back, he gave the developed world a shot between the eyes about disease and the complaining that the rich world does over diseases that most people in the Third World won't live long enough to get.
Mr. Gee pointed out that malaria kills 3,000 a day. The human version of mad cow disease in the UK has killed 139 since it was discovered years ago. Tuberculosis will kill more people by the time one has finished reading this week's Kensington Review than have died of SARS in Canada since the disease first made the news.
AIDS has moved off the radar for most in the rich west. Those who have contracted it have access to over-priced drugs, and while it is devastating, it is not a disease that leaves orphans all over North America and Europe. It does in Africa, where most AIDS sufferers and HIV-positive people live.
None of this even considers the 2 million children who will die from dehydration caused by the diarrhea that comes from drinking impure water.
On planet Earth, 57 million people, more or less, died last year. About 10% of them died from TB, AIDS or malaria. Zoloft, Viagra, Ritalin are big sellers in the rich world because people aren't happy or can't have sex or are hyper-active. For a few dollars' worth of antibiotics and quinine instead, millions could be saved.
Mr. Gee wins the prize for telling the truth. Time to get out of the business, sir, that kind of thing might catch on faster than the flu. And an epidemic of that sort has no cure.