1614 



ISSUE TWO— THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL HEALTH"' 



Statement of the Issue 



For more than a century the health of the peoples of the world 

 has been a subject of international concern and action, enlisting 

 the combined efforts of diplomacy and science. However, public 

 awareness and public investment have not been commensurate with 

 the health benefits of global action. The author. Dr. Freeman H. 

 Quimb}^, puts the central question in his introduction to the stud}^: 

 Why has a matter so important to all mankind— human health and 

 disease prevention — not become a more effective, comprehensive, 

 and dynamic focus of international cooperation? ^*^ 



Importance oj the Issue 



Disease is international ; it moves freely across political boundaries. 

 Preventive medicine, also inherently international, requires con- 

 tinuing vigilance and international cooperation on the part of scien- 

 tists, diplomats, national and local political leaders, and the public. 

 Pockets of infectious and communicable disease exist all over the 

 world, in less developed countries and even in those most advanced. 

 Under conditions of social disruption, floods, hurricanes, and other 

 natural disasters, these cells of infection can burst forth as world 

 epidemics. Conversely, by a relatively modest investment in each 

 case, they can be eradicated or controlled. Yet, half of the world's 

 people have no access to health care at all; millions die each year of 

 readily preventable sicknesses. There is even some retrogression as 

 the effects of urban blight strike the slum poor in the midst of affluence. 

 Against this dismal picture of underachievement must be seen a great 

 and growing array of unused and underused technical capabilities 

 for controlling disease and building health. The issue is how to, 

 advance world health through programs utilizing these capabilities 

 supported by the combined efforts of diplomats, scientists, and the 

 public. 



In the context of the Science, Technology, and American Diplomacy 

 study series, the issue is illustrative in several special ways: 



(1) It demonstrates that general acceptance of the importance of an 

 issue, and of the desirability of taking measures to cope with it, does 

 not insure full implementation of appropriate measures. The problem 

 differs in intensity from that of the brain drain,"' in which a persistent 

 issue that lacked comparable popular appeal and dynamism surfaced 

 from time to time only to drop out of sight again, still unresolved. 

 The issue of global health, affecting the lives and well-being of people 

 everywhere, commands continuing support from the world's govern- 

 ments. This support, however, does not extend beyond halfway or 

 palliative measures to stout and forceful programs and toward rational 

 goals of achievable global health. 



'" U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, The Politics of Global Health, a study in the 

 series on Science, Technology, and American Diplomacy, prepared for the Subcomjnittee on National 

 Security Policy and Scientific Developments by Freeman H. Quimby, Science Policy Research Division, 

 Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 

 1971. See vol. U, pp. 081-763. 



i" Ibid . p. 085. 



"3 lor a lull treatment of this subject, see: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Brain 

 Drain: A Study of the Persistent Issue of International Scientific Mobility, in the series Science, Technology, 

 and American Diplomacy, prepared for the Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific 

 Developments by Dr. Joseph G. Whelan, Senior Specialist in International Affairs, Foreign Affairs Divi- 

 sion, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1974, vol. II, pp. 1037-1318. 



