The Challenge of Global Health

January 23, 2007 2:20 PM

The Challenge of Global Health is an article written in the most recent Foreign Affairs, describing how "stovepiping" health care funding towards only HIV/AIDS, the shortage of health care workers in the West, and a vacuum of international health-care experts are all causing great damage to developing countries. The article was written by Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague, Betrayal of Trust, as well as a Pulitzer Prize winner for her writing on Ebola. Previously on mefi: garrett resigns, comments on world leaders.
posted by thethirdman (7 comments total)

Meanwhile, a roundtable of experts responds on the Foreign Affairs website.
posted by thethirdman at 2:21 PM on January 23, 2007

There's a related article in the new england journal this past week.
posted by mert at 2:28 PM on January 23, 2007

Being that I work for a school that just started their Global Health department and has a lot of cash from B. Gates to get it going, I can say yup, she's right for the most part. And it's been a problem for years. See Ethiopia 1984.

But I think Paul Farmer has done a good job in picking out what's good and what's bad about her article.

I would love to link to a couple of the podcasts I put together on global health....
posted by dw at 2:38 PM on January 23, 2007

she's great--always has been (i bookmarked it--too long to read now--i hope she spoke of the strings attached to our funding--the abstinence bullshit and the faith-based groups providing help?)
posted by amberglow at 3:53 PM on January 23, 2007

Related: Economist Emily Oster on AIDS treatment fallacies
posted by btkuhn at 6:42 PM on January 23, 2007

dw, thanks for the Paul Farmer link. I read garret's essay shortly after finishing Pathologies of Power and I was constantly wondering how he would comment on her critique.
posted by The White Hat at 8:13 PM on January 23, 2007

Thanks for this. I work in HIV care, and it's too easy, inside that bubble, to see all roads leading to HIV funding as a good thing. Garrett does a great job of contextualizing that funding and pointing out the limitations that go along with such a narrow focus.
posted by OmieWise at 6:26 AM on January 24, 2007