Poverty Linked with Poor Health

Poverty and poor health? Wow --  the medical brain trust is really onto something;)

Here's the article "exposing" this mysterious link.

New research indicates that it's not just the poor who are getting poorer. An analysis of poverty rates and health published in the September issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people living in extreme poverty tend to have more chronic illnesses, more frequent and severe disease complications and make greater demands on the health care system.

"When we talk about poverty, there is the tendency to feel it affects a small percentage of the population and the rest of us are doing better," said Steven Woolf, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the study. But in this situation, he said, "we're all doing a little bit worse."

But, Yes, wouldn't these exact observations hold for the supposed epidemic of AIDS in Africa? Thru decades of colonial oppression, exploitation and various tin-pot dictatorships, Africa, sadly, remains an impoverished countinent.  So, Why all the focus on a mysterious, Chimpanzee virus instead of these systemic problems?

I submit that if you give them clean water and nutritious food, you'll solve most of the problem.

And, it's a much better way to spend billions of $$ of western guilt-money.

UPDATE:

In other news, an epidemic of obesity in mostly stupid, rich white people is plaguing the planet. Oy vey, as my sainted, departed Bubbe used to say.

Comments

[Johnny B.]

In regards to your "update" - as I said somewhere else about this, I really love how language is used. By using the word "pandemic" rather than the truthful "widespread problem of over-eating", you medicalize the issue and open the door to drugs for treating the "disease". People who are overweight buy in, because it relieves them of responsibility for their actions that caused the problem, and allows them to continue their bad behavior while "treating" the "disease" with a drug.

The explosion of ADD in the past 20 years kind of rings a bell here (formerly known as "hyper-active", formerly know as "misbehavior").

[noreen martin]

You are so right Johnny. Have you noticed how many new diseases are now on the scene. Every little ache and pain has a disease classification. Over-eating and wrong,food combining is now acid-reflux disease. It does take the responsibility of health off of the individual and places one more in a victim status which of course requires some new drug for the treatment. As the commericials say, go talk to your doctor blah, blah, blah about this new drug.

[George]

Hank,

So you quote yet another highly esteemed collection of goons, in a highly esteemed goon journal, in a form that can be cloned by all the highly, and less than highly, esteemed newz outlets.

Poverty is linked by NEW research to chronic disease?

No way. I want to see the OLD research that says it isn't. It must have been better done, because everyone knows modern medicine has made terrific leaps in saving lives and eradicating disease so how could a social condition, due mostly to the laziness of the poor people who have no comprehension of what the term pull yourself up by your bootstraps means, possibly be the cause of a more severe disease burden now?

Hank, How could you not question this foolishness?

And then to have the effrontery to compare the USofA with Africa!

I am seriously disappointed in you. it can only be the effects of Labor Day festivities. I mean like Nero and the party boys and girls at *that* moment of empiric collapse.

[Sims]

The Hungry Can't Eat AIDS Messages...

http://iafrica.com/news/sa/921207.htm

Oh REEEEAAALLY???

No DUH!

TORONTO
'The hungry can't eat Aids messages'
Fran Blandy
Fri, 11 Aug 2006

Good nutrition could be the only available life prolonging alternative to people living with HIV/Aids in rural areas, a senior officer for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday.

"Sick people can't farm, they can't work. Hungry people can't eat Aids messages," said HIV/Aids and food security officer Dr Gabriel Rugulema, speaking to journalists ahead of the 16th International Aids conference in Toronto which starts on Sunday.

He said people who had little access to food could not be bothered with Aids warnings. Bad nutrition depressed the immune system, resulting in a higher likelihood of contracting HIV, the faster development of Aids and subsequent death.

Good nutrition key

Rugulema said too much emphasis was currently being placed on Aids as a medical problem, when in rural areas good nutrition was the key to the efficacy of anti-retroviral drugs, as they had to be taken after a meal.

"The critical role of nutrition must be given its proper attention in Aids policy," he said.

Rugulema said a well-nourished person living with HIV/Aids could maintain a good appetite, stable weight, experience less illness and recover quickly should illness occur.

Govt can "do more and do better"

[GOVT IS CORRUPT CARPETBAGGERS]

Rugulema said the South African health department could "do more and do better" when in came to fighting HIV/Aids.

South Africa has the highest number of people living with the virus in the world, accounting for more than one eighth of the estimated 40.3 million cases.

Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has come under criticism from Aids activists and opposition parties for her stance on anti-retrovirals, concentrating on their negative side effects and that people should eat healthily as a primary way to fight HIV/Aids.

She has often said that foods such as lemon, beetroot, olive oil and raw garlic can protect one from HIV/Aids.

[DUH! ESSENTIAL LIFE FOODS!]

Rugulema said the efficacy of those particular foods had not been proved.

[WRONG. SURE AS HECK HAVE BEEN PROVED. THAT'S WHAT MSIMANG DOES! AND IT WORKS!]

"They should be part of a broader basket of foods," he said. He said he would like to see "very aggressive" HIV prevention programmes in townships and good ARV treatment programmes.

Growing up with HIV

Ionel Belfiore, a 17-year-old HIV-positive advocate with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation, attributes his ongoing health to "a lot of healthy living, exercise, vitamins and luck."

Having been separated from his parents in Romania and put in an orphanage after he contracted HIV from contaminated blood at about one-year-old, Belfiore has been lucky enough to have lived longer than the expectancy rate for HIV infected children.

After spending a year in a steel crib under appalling conditions he was adopted by an American family and as a 17-year-old has become a strong advocate for the fact that it is possible for infected young people to grow up happy and healthy.

[TAKE THAT, DAVID HO!]

Every day, 1800 children become newly infected with HIV and half a million are expected to die this year, said the Foundation's president and CEO, Pam Barnes.

Barnes says the evidence that ART's can help children live longer showed how important they are, even though nutrition was important.

[BULLSHIT ON THAT! NUTRITION ?SECOND?]

"We know drugs work, even in resource poor settings," she told Sapa.

[AHHHH HA HA HA!]

She said children had been grossly neglected in the world's response to Aids, with a lack of medicines or even the testing of medicines for infected children who were being jeopardised by being given smaller doses of adult medicines not tested for their needs.

In South Africa, the challenge was the "sheer numbers" of Aids orphans, which made it difficult to reach these children, said Barnes.

[GENOCIDE IN RWANDA=AIDS ORPHANS FOR AIDS INC!]

[Sims]

Barnesville,

can you enable HTML in your comments? It's hard to make a differnt comment in the text without it.