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Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children VIII pp 1–9Cite as

Our Time of Pestilence: Purchasing Immunity and Ignoring the Misery of Others

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Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 719))

Abstract

Do medical professionals have a moral obligation to relieve the misery of people far away? The world is increasingly starkly divided geographically, into lands of long life and lands of early death. In the wealthy world, we are followers of Herman M. Biggs, who said that “health is purchasable”: medical professionals warn of impending epidemics and attend to reducing risk. In the poor world, people live in misery and die in disasters. The word “epidemic” is used to designate perceived threats to the long life of the wealthy, such as obesity, but “epidemic” is not applied to the sources of greater misery, including malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrheal diseases, which are responsible for more widespread mortality. The experience in 2009 with H1N1 flu illustrated the danger of the excessive focus on forecasts of epidemic risk: expenditures for flu vaccine were far in excess of spending for prevention of illnesses that cause greater mortality. In the end, billions of euros were transferred from public funds into private hands, yet flu immunization was irrelevant to the outbreak, and the outbreak was relatively mild. To learn from lessons like this, health professionals should attend to the main purpose of medical science: to make the world better.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks Dr. Tom Jefferson for expert opinion and conversations about influenza immunization. Material in this chapter was originally presented at the Infection and Immunity in Children conference, Oxford, UK, 28 June 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, USA

    Philip Alcabes

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  1. Philip Alcabes
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Correspondence to Philip Alcabes .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Children's Hosp., Dept. Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3052, Victoria, Australia

    Nigel Curtis

  2. Institute of Child Life and Health, UBHT Education Centre, University of Bristol, Upper Maudlin Street, Bristol, BS2 8AE, United Kingdom

    Adam Finn

  3. University of Oxford, Level 4,John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, OX3 9DU, United Kingdom

    Andrew J. Pollard

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Alcabes, P. (2012). Our Time of Pestilence: Purchasing Immunity and Ignoring the Misery of Others. In: Curtis, N., Finn, A., Pollard, A. (eds) Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children VIII. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 719. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0204-6_1

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