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THE LESSONS OF SWINE FLU.
It's looking like swine flu doesn't have the genetic capability to mutate into anything especially lethal. The high death toll in Mexico may simply be evidence that the disease was much more widespread than was initially understood. All of which is very good news.
But it's also a teachable moment of sorts. The influenza might prove relatively harmless. But it could have been a reaper bug. And in that case, if Mexico's aggressive public health response had been a little less effective, the consequences could have been catastrophic. Indeed, in the past couple of years, we've had at least a couple close calls. SARS was incredibly deadly but never became terribly infectious. Swine flu was quite infectious but didn't become particularly deadly. Both originated in relatively poor areas. All of which is to say, there are a lot of issues in foreign aid that are matters of compassion rather than direct national interest. A lack of secondary education doesn't jump borders or kill Americans. But an influenza strain does. No one exactly wants to invest lots more money into building up the pubic health infrastructure of poorer countries, but it's the sort of thing that might save us a lot of money -- not to mention a lot of lives -- if it works.
COMMENTS (7)
No one exactly wants to invest lots more money into building up the pubic health infrastructure of poorer countries
Damn right! Poor countries can just import Viagra from Mexico like the rest of us!
Posted by: Ron E. | May 5, 2009 12:44 PM
And we could stop brutalizing animals in horrendous factory farms. But it wouldn't be a 'reasonable liberal' thing to suggest.
Posted by: Obama / Steelers / etc | May 5, 2009 1:05 PM
Ezra--
Sending aid to invest in Mexico's public health system so that it can respond to an epidemic after the fact is not the answer.
Poverty breeds epidemics.
And those who die are poor people with compromised immuned systems living in croweded, unsanitary conditions. (This is why Mexicans have died and Americans haven't.)
This was true during the epidemic of 1918--many of the people who died were young men--the soldiers of WW I--who had been living in terrible conditions. They were much more vulnerable than older middle-class Americans who weren't involved in the war.
If we are concerned about global pandemics then we should be investing in programs that will lift people out of poverty-- at home and abroad.
Maybe lack of education can't cross a broder, but lack of education correlates very closely with the poverty and poor health that
leads to epidemics.
Posted by: maggie mahar | May 5, 2009 1:25 PM
I'm not sure Mexico should receive all the blame. The first two cases, predating those in Mexico by several months, were in California, and the virus itself seems to have originated in hog farm in North Carolina which lost large numbers of pigs a decade ago. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1510217.html
I also read an article saying that the Mexican public health organizations did quite a good job. Financial resources were not their only problem. Apparently many Mexicans will not visit doctors and confide only in their shamans.
Posted by: Paula | May 5, 2009 1:34 PM
You can buy oseltamivir for 50 cents in mexico with no prescription required. In fact you can buy any drug you want over the counter (except narcotics).
Isnt Mexico one of those surveyed countries that supposedly has "better" healthcare than the USA anyways? Who knew?
Posted by: joe blow | May 5, 2009 9:34 PM
Just because the H1N1 virus has not gone lethal and pandemic so far doesn't mean it "doesn't have the genetic capability." It just means that this particular mix of genes at this particular time has not presented these characteristics. Here's hoping it doesn't... not now, not this fall, not ever. But I'd rather government lean forward a little than be caught unawares by a significant public health threat. Health officials at all levels of government have walked the tight line effectively on this. Reactions have been thoughtful and measured, for the most part. But imagine if government did not appear to take this seriously and the virus did mutate into a killer. Elected officials are petrified at the prospect, so expect plenty of attention from them, and probably a bit of hand-wringing to increase health budgets.
Posted by: JeffB | May 5, 2009 11:29 PM
"Just because the H1N1 virus has not gone lethal and pandemic so far doesn't mean it "doesn't have the genetic capability."'
Nope. I heard a presentation on this last week by a post-doc on genomics. There are certain genetic markers shared between the 1918, Asian, and Hong Kong pandemic flu strains but not found in non-pandemic strains. The mexican H1N1 swine flu doesn't have these genetic markers. That's the basis of CDC's assertion (and optimism).
Posted by: Sock Puppet of the Great Satan | May 7, 2009 3:58 PM