Interventions in the field of public health are a significant form of “soft power” by which imperialism extracts profits from the world’s poorest billions. US involvement in the health field is intended, inter alia, to help ensure efficient use of low-cost labor in transnational production chains; to support and rationalize military interventions; to create and exploit worldwide markets for health-care products, especially pharmaceuticals; and broadly to consolidate control over the lives and bodies of Global South people. Crucial to the enterprise is a complex network of charitable foundations, US government initiatives, international institutions, national health ministries, and NGOs, all steered by the interests of Western capital. By far the most influential force within this network is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the world’s largest private charity.
“Global health imperialism” has been characterized as an informal system with the following features:
Global health...
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Levich, J. (2019). Global Health and US Imperialism. In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_82-1
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