The Silent Emergency
21/5/10 09:16![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsImagine what it would be like iif a whole planeful of schoolage kids got onto a jumbo jet- you know, a Boeing 747,and the plane crashed on the main runway at Heathrow Airport on landing.
This would probably hit the headlines on every front page, in every land around the world. the media would turn up- CNN, BBC, Sky News, they would all be there. people would want to know how, why this happened, and make sure that it didn't happen again.
Back in the 1980s, when I first got involved in serious campaigning, I was told thatactually, two million young children died every year through measles - a vaccine preventable illness. And two million a year, divided by 365 days, meant that it was the equivalent of at least a planeload a day, every day, for the whole of that year. but CNN and the BBC were not turning up to ask why. There were no banner headlines. And all because these kids died in several places around the world. They did not all die in one moment and at a single place - and so the world never noticed.
" And it will be the same this year, and the next, unless we do something" the speaker said.
That is what I mean by "The Silent Emergency". Kids are dying. And they are dying needlessly. Dying because they lack a vaccine that costs about 10p to administer. Seriously, It's a no brainer - is a human life worth 10p? That is ten lives for one British pound - about two US dollars.
Back in the day when I was a relatively young, fairly idealistic activist, I decided that I, at least, would do something. i lobbied politicians in my country to support the GOBI initiative.
the UN was asking governments around the world to put money into
Growth monitoring
Oral Rhydration therapy
Breastfeeding and
Immunisation - GOBI for short.
Those four things were supposed to combat infant deaths. And the money was raised and the programmes implemented. And Infant Mortality Rates (IMRs) fell - all around the world.
However, in many lands more than 50 kids in every thousand still do not reach the age of 1 year old. Even today, they die before their first birthday. 50 per 1,000. that's one in 20.
And it's not just measles that is killing them - it's things like Polio - equally preventable. It's TB and other infections, brought on by living in slums, brought on by bad housing and poor sanitation. And why do they live in slums, you may ask - why don't their parents just move out?
And the answer is money. their parents lack an education that will get a job in the big city, so they and their children are forced to stay in the shanty towns of the developing world - what we used to call the Third World.
Oh, well, some say - lets fly out, build factories and give them jobs - problem solved. Er, no. foreign investors want cheap labour. They pay a pittance, then go and sell what the poor produce on the world's markets for a small fortune. A soccer ball costing £80 in London's Oxford Street will be made by kids earning less than 5 US dollars a day. And it won't take all day to make one soccer ball.
This is why I am skeptical about globalisation. If we are going to use industrialisation as a tool to end poverty, we have to say that either employers set up a Japanese style management 9 this means that employers build housing and provide schools and healthcare for workers0 or we say that workers get to join Unions and demand higher wages along with getting voting rights to join and elect political parties in free elections.
Me, I don't care which way it gets done, so long as workers get decent housing, primary education and healthcare. The very reason that Nike and other big companies go to 3rd world countries is that if they went to the US and the UK and tried to make kids work for even ten dollars a day, the unions would have their arses inin court. we just would not let them pull that sort of crap over here.
But, they can pull something like that in a third world country, and collectively, they can get away with it. And kids are dying, just because their parents are poor.
Wake up, people - this is an emergency! Solutions have been found, we just need the political will to implement them. we can talk about those in the comments.
This would probably hit the headlines on every front page, in every land around the world. the media would turn up- CNN, BBC, Sky News, they would all be there. people would want to know how, why this happened, and make sure that it didn't happen again.
Back in the 1980s, when I first got involved in serious campaigning, I was told thatactually, two million young children died every year through measles - a vaccine preventable illness. And two million a year, divided by 365 days, meant that it was the equivalent of at least a planeload a day, every day, for the whole of that year. but CNN and the BBC were not turning up to ask why. There were no banner headlines. And all because these kids died in several places around the world. They did not all die in one moment and at a single place - and so the world never noticed.
" And it will be the same this year, and the next, unless we do something" the speaker said.
That is what I mean by "The Silent Emergency". Kids are dying. And they are dying needlessly. Dying because they lack a vaccine that costs about 10p to administer. Seriously, It's a no brainer - is a human life worth 10p? That is ten lives for one British pound - about two US dollars.
Back in the day when I was a relatively young, fairly idealistic activist, I decided that I, at least, would do something. i lobbied politicians in my country to support the GOBI initiative.
the UN was asking governments around the world to put money into
Growth monitoring
Oral Rhydration therapy
Breastfeeding and
Immunisation - GOBI for short.
Those four things were supposed to combat infant deaths. And the money was raised and the programmes implemented. And Infant Mortality Rates (IMRs) fell - all around the world.
However, in many lands more than 50 kids in every thousand still do not reach the age of 1 year old. Even today, they die before their first birthday. 50 per 1,000. that's one in 20.
And it's not just measles that is killing them - it's things like Polio - equally preventable. It's TB and other infections, brought on by living in slums, brought on by bad housing and poor sanitation. And why do they live in slums, you may ask - why don't their parents just move out?
And the answer is money. their parents lack an education that will get a job in the big city, so they and their children are forced to stay in the shanty towns of the developing world - what we used to call the Third World.
Oh, well, some say - lets fly out, build factories and give them jobs - problem solved. Er, no. foreign investors want cheap labour. They pay a pittance, then go and sell what the poor produce on the world's markets for a small fortune. A soccer ball costing £80 in London's Oxford Street will be made by kids earning less than 5 US dollars a day. And it won't take all day to make one soccer ball.
This is why I am skeptical about globalisation. If we are going to use industrialisation as a tool to end poverty, we have to say that either employers set up a Japanese style management 9 this means that employers build housing and provide schools and healthcare for workers0 or we say that workers get to join Unions and demand higher wages along with getting voting rights to join and elect political parties in free elections.
Me, I don't care which way it gets done, so long as workers get decent housing, primary education and healthcare. The very reason that Nike and other big companies go to 3rd world countries is that if they went to the US and the UK and tried to make kids work for even ten dollars a day, the unions would have their arses inin court. we just would not let them pull that sort of crap over here.
But, they can pull something like that in a third world country, and collectively, they can get away with it. And kids are dying, just because their parents are poor.
Wake up, people - this is an emergency! Solutions have been found, we just need the political will to implement them. we can talk about those in the comments.
(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 22:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 15:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 16:02 (UTC)/snark
(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 17:04 (UTC)I definitely agree that malaria's one of the worst failures of the Western development program. The question is, why haven't tens of billions of dollars of health spending in the developing world haven't made a bigger dent in the problem. You're skeptical of globalization, but all this money spent in a few very different ways (gov't-to-gov't loans and grants, NGO spending, NGO action, private action, etc.) haven't solved the problem.
You say there're solutions out there. What would you propose? I'm not sure we could require unions and democracy in developing nations. It'd cause capital flight to places that don't, and the odds of the Caymans requiring the same sorts of things that the US does are nil; besides, the odds of actually enforcing these measures in some parts of the world are slim to none. Outside spending has been going on for decades with no end in sight. So what's the practical solution?
(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 22:48 (UTC)We made regulated capitalism happen in Europe, America, why not make it happen in the 3rd world? if people in the Amazon don't want it , why are they already fighting the loggers? you think people in Burma don't want democracy? It's the military junta that doesn't want it.
the price of the dollar isn't important. the value of a human life is the constant here, it's worth more than money, Ok? However much the currency is worth, it isn't as much as one human child in my eyes.
I believe that if we give people in developing nations the chance to build systems to keep the multinats in check, that people will use them. iif the Multinats are left with no other choice but to sit down and be reasonable, they will do it.
(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 22:53 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21/5/10 22:41 (UTC)We either throw people overboard , or we build a bigger , better lifeboat.
Me, I say we fix the way we are running planet earth. We could probably support 10 billion people if we ran things well enough. there isn't any need for anyone to die - we just have to fix things so they don't die young.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/10 07:46 (UTC)There's every need for people to die, lots of people too IMHO, unfortunately we in the West have developed Vaccines and "Fix people" and keep many alive who by rights should not be here. Death at an early age is just a "Control check" to ensure those weak genes don't end up in the pool, Medicine unfortunately is to blame for the mess of the gene pool we have.
"First do no harm" My ass, just keeping people alive who shouldn't be is setting us all up for one huge fall.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/10 13:45 (UTC)There's every need for people to die, lots of people too IMHO, unfortunately we in the West have developed Vaccines and "Fix people" and keep many alive who by rights should not be here. Death at an early age is just a "Control check" to ensure those weak genes don't end up in the pool, Medicine unfortunately is to blame for the mess of the gene pool we have
I have to say that I disageee. Before about 1600, the population of britain was extremely low. the country was wracked by famines every time we had a bad harvest, and frequently it was the case that many died in childhood.
Then we invented seed drills, and people like Jethro Tull inspired an Agrarian Revolution. The population started to rise. Then we invented vaccines for things like smallpox, polio and other illnesses. And in spite of two world wars, the population rose significantly.
I recall that , back in the 80s the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation calculated that we could raise enough food on Eearth to feed a maximum of 12 billion people. that would be a crowded Earth indeed. And yet our present population is only six billion.
Kids are not dying of hunger so much , they are dying of infections brought on by living iin slums in close proximity to open sewers. they are dying of malaria because mosquito nets are not available.
Ok, if people have more kids, and they all survive, that will cause problems. but look at the UK experience. Most women with access to contraception had fewer kids. those kids went on to earn more than their parents generation , in most cases.
If the Indians and Chinese start to go the route that europe did from 1920 to the present day, we will see them eradicate things like TB, polio and all the other childhood diseases iin the next few decades. This will mean that people do not #need# to have plenty of kids to ensure that some survive to look after them in old age. We can therefore expect populations to fall, not rise, with the prevalence of vaccines.
Taken your argument to it's logical conclusion, keeping anyone alive is a bad idea. A child that is kept malaria free is in a better condition to create wealth, and provide goods and services than a child stricken with a delibitating illness.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/10 14:37 (UTC)Taken your argument to it's logical conclusion, keeping anyone alive is a bad idea. A child that is kept malaria free is in a better condition to create wealth, and provide goods and services than a child stricken with a delibitating illness.
Yes, keeping people alive is a bad idea, financially, the health corporations have been for a while, extremely high cost and considering they get their staff "Cheap" because most of them do it "Because we want to make a difference", I see little justification in the ever increasing costs and lower standards in healthcare.
As for your child, match that child up with the costs of fixing him after he falls ill, and to be quite honest whatever he produces in his life, if sold in his home country alone, he'd make a loss, I can see that prevention may be the cheaper option, but come on, nature isn't about "Safe", That's man's silly idea, nature is always trying to kill us, why else would we feel so happy after an adrenhaline rush? I commended on Cathy edgets(sp) Journal a while back when she had a vid up about the serenity of the natural world, but it's Never ever truely calm, We in Blighty decided some years back to kill all the beasts that do us harm (or were considerred capable of doing such) so now, instead of living life as we should, we have to build roller coasters, racetracks etc so a select few (usualy those with cash) can get the rush nature used to provide.
Kids are not dying of hunger so much , they are dying of infections brought on by living iin slums in close proximity to open sewers.
The very fact we have need to guide our shit elsewhere, surely should tell us we have too many on the planet, I'd have said.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/10 07:31 (UTC)In developing nations, IMRs have fallen dramatically since the 1980s.
Immunisation worked.
I intend another OP where I present maps , showing global falling IRMs - if LJ loads them up....
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/10 13:47 (UTC)however, the fact is that Iimmunisation , togher with the other Unicef initaitves actually did reduce IMRs across the globe in a meaningful way.
take a look at the maps on my next OP- currently shoing in this community.