An intellectual journey through influenza and food systems
Published: January 2017
As evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin put it in 1992: “Asbestos and cotton lint fibres are not the causes of cancer. They are the agent of social causes, of social formations that determine the nature of our productive and consumption lives, and in the end, it is only through changes in those social forces that we can get to the root problem of health”. Why would it be different for emerging infectious diseases? Was the west Africa Ebola epidemic caused by Ebola virus or by the dismantling of public health infrastructure in the countries where it emerged, following years of structural adjustment? What's the agent? What's the cause?
volume 17, No. 1, p38, January 2017
Cholera cover up in Haiti
Published: January 2017
Article Info
The cholera crisis in Haiti is a painful wound that keeps on bleeding. The aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, which hit the small Caribbean country on October 4, has sparked another outbreak of cholera, a disease now endemic in Haiti and which since 2010 has infected 800 000 Haitians and killed more than 10 000. It seems this impoverished nation, with scanty water and sanitation infrastructure to protect itself, cannot get ahead of the suffering and devastation brought on by the introduction of cholera 6 years ago.
