Putting AIDS in Perspective

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/01/opinion/edhalperin.php?page=1

this article focuses on something that i have thought for quite some time, but had not seen enough from the leaders of global health addressing. too much money is being spent on expensive drugs, centers, and outreach for diseases that affect a small amount of the population instead of focusing on the basic needs of people such as water and shelter which affects the majority of the population in many cases. maybe it's because these issues aren't sexy enough to fight and hard to convince the public of. maybe there is some hidden pharma campaign. but it makes no logical sense to not help communities with clean water but to give them the third line treatment for multidrug resistant tb. this falls in line with a principle of life that can be applied in many situations - if one does not have the basics (whether knowledge, physiological needs, or a skill in a sport), why or even how can one focus on some distant branch or fruit (doing a crossover before learning how to dribble, learning about diseases before learning normal physiology, or playing hendrix before learning the basic chords)?

another aside: do people feel better to "fight" a disease? to have a "war" against malaria or something? does having an "enemy" help people feel they are doing something and make them more likely to want to conquer it? providing clean water or a sewer system is a lot more boring and it works with people to help build something up. which is kind of why we value the surgeons and specialists of this country but do not care much for those providing primary care and preventative care to the millions of this country. this thinking has seeped into our psyche when you think about it. we like the exciting cases, the weird diseases, the grey's anatomy situation. this value is reflective in the reimbursement and salaries of our doctors. we value the surgeon who cuts into our body to remove a tumor, but not the doctor that never let us smoke because it would lead to cancer, plus a host of other problems.

i know i started to rant towards the end, but i think it's all interrelated. what does this mean for where we are heading? a good amount of this thinking is specific to americans, especially those related to health since we are one of the only nations without a form of socialized medicine. we need to make the boring meaningful and valued.

even in a religious sense. going to church, praying namaz, keeping a fast is all seen as the mundane and easy to forget. but it's the home run, the grand slam that people love and adore and look forward to. the hajj, the visit to jerusalem, meeting the pope, going to rishikesh.

my point in all this is not to knock the high points of thought, accomplishment, or experience, but to remind us all that we must work on the foundations and respect it before moving forward.