The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism Read online

that once a human being comes into existence, none -- not even the parents on whom it depends for several years -- has the right to deny it the right to be born and grow. The duty of a doctor is to save and not to kill anybody; if killing an infant is ghastly, killing a foetus is ghastlier.

  The emergence of social and preventive medicine (also called community medicine or public health) as one of the important disciplines of medical science has as much to do with economic fundamentalism as with the health of society. Here it is the medicine that is used to propel social and economic policies, and not vice versa, formulated, separately or in tandem, by the secretaries of the government and the tycoons of the industry. The secretaries, in fact, act as connoisseurs of the big business. The population control, the AIDS control and the control of communicable diseases -- all these programmes have been fine-tuned to suit or adjust the market forces. If, endeavours have been, and are being, made to eradicate small pox, chicken pox, polio, rabies and other such diseases, for which vaccines are available, it is because no medical cures are available for them in the market, and vaccines can be sold on a much higher scales, if the government and other agencies working in social fields are properly convinced of their importance. This has been one of the ways to pull back the money which the government might have exacted in the form of taxes, or the agencies might have collected as donations from the rich. The ostensible human spirit behind these programmes would vanish in a few moments, once alternative ways having bigger market potential are found.

  It also happens that a few partisan research reports are used to introduce a new product in the market. When the milk powders were first marketed on a large scale, an impression was deliberately created that the powder-milk was more salubrious for children as it contained the right balance of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. The propensity of young women to maintain their figures was also banked upon. They were made to believe that breast feeding could damage the shape and contour of their breasts. The campaigns tremendously enhanced the sales of milk powders. The children suffered and the industry thrived. Thanks to the paediatricians who have exhibited greater dedication and wisdom than the other medical specialists, after a lapse of few years the campaign for breast feeding again picked up. Another factor that has helped in the rejuvenation of interest in breast feeding has been its contraceptive role. The population control programme has been extremely dear to the economic fundamentalists. Similarly, in the marketing strategy for vanaspati ghee and refined oil, the fear of increase in cholesterol level was used with astonishing effect. The people, conscious of their cardiovascular health and frightened with the possibility of death due to hypertension, heart attacks, and cardiovascular strokes, have been readily responsive to these campaigns replacing the animal ghee first with the vegetable ghee and then with the refined oil. It does not bother the industrialists that the reports in favour of the refined oils may not have been fully substantiated and may ultimately prove, as happened in the case of milk powder, premature; by that time, they would have earned billions.

  Community medicine, as has been said earlier, is often misused to ensure that the interests of big industries are not jeopardised. The world organisations working in the field of public health like the WHO, World Population Fund, UNICEF, etc. seem to have been established less with the objective of saving the people from diseases, death and destruction and more with the aim of safeguarding the economic fundamentalists. These organisations may or may not accept it publicly but the truth is that a certain game-plan can be deciphered in almost all their campaigns. It is certainly not without reason that the likes of the animated, high-cost and worldwide movements that have been regularly run for the eradication of smallpox, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, rabies, etc., have not been planned for the eradication of malaria, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhoea, amoebiasis and worm infestations, in spite of the fact that the latter have been responsible for more mortalities and morbiditiesthan the former. The diseases in the first group have no medical cure and the vaccines developed can be best sold through public health programmes. The diseases in the second group on the other hand have medical treatment available in the market and the eradication of these diseases would cause high losses to the pharmaceuticals where manufacturing and marketing of antibiotics, anti-tubercular drugs, anti-malarials, anti-amoebiasis, anti-pyretics and anti-spasmodics fetch billions of dollars every year. This is also why the international organisations continue to pressurise the developing countries for adopting more effective population control measures and running big vaccination programmes but they hardly ever raise issues of sanitation.

  It is also not without ulterior motives that the secondary prevention is stressed and primary prevention mercilessly side-lined. Campaigns at national and international level are launched only for secondary prevention. The programmes of the nature of primary prevention such as maintenance of sanitary conditions, anti-mosquito drives, avoidance of promiscuity, smoking, drinking, gambling etc. are either not initiated at all or if the enormity of the problem compels them to take some action, it is at a substantially lower scale. The primary prevention obviously is inimical to the market forces because it can lead to momentous damage to the production. Even the illiterate know that low sanitary conditions are responsible for the majority of diseases in the developing countries. Yet, no projects of the intensity and magnitude of the "Pulse Polio" or smallpox eradication campaigns are prepared and implemented to improve sanitation in the rural and suburban localities.

  The study of the Western Model of AIDS prevention programme being pursued all over the world leaves an unmistakable impression that it has been designed keeping in view the commercial interests of the business world where sex, with all its ramifications, has become a colossal industry. The scale of the commercialisation of sex can be gauged from the estimated figures that Mumbai alone has more than seventy thousand "sex-workers". Each of them entertains, on an average, eight clients daily. It means more than half million men visit prostitutes in a single day in a single city. A high percentage of the sex-workers have been found to be HIV positive. Hundreds of thousands of males are exposed to HIV virus one day. While the sex-barons are sincerely interested that the disease was controlled as quickly as possible because it threatens their survival, they do want it to be done in a manner that causes the least damage to their business. Consequently, the whole emphasis in anti-AIDS programmes, at least before the emergence of antiviral drugs, has been centred on "safe sex". The so called safe sex is doubly advantageous for the sex-industry. First, it does not forestall people from getting enjoyment from sexual "recreation:. Second, it helps boost the sale of condoms. An overwhelming majority of the anti AIDS messages exhort the people to use condoms during sex rather than avoid liaisons with anybody other that one's marriage-partner. The result of this strategy is that the sales of condoms are rapidly multiplying, the persons involved in the campaigns are earning handsomely and the magazines, advertising agencies and video-companies are reaping huge profits through their "fight" against the killer disease; but AIDS continues to attack with devastating speed and force.

  Science is the name given to the efforts to arrive at the truth and knowing the realities. It unfolds the mysteries of nature and explains how the myriads of natural forces combine to maintain the perfect harmonious equilibrium essential for the sustenance of the universe and for the survival of all living beings. It teaches us how to avail the materials and energies for different purposes. It would however be dangerous to presuppose that science is merely an information-giver and has nothing to do with our morals. What is incontrovertible is that science too, like religion, has been and is being misused by the vested interests. The blame falls not on science but on those who misappropriate it. The scientists themselves have often tended to refute the greatest truth of the universe. A general empathy towards religion, which was the outcome of maledictory campaigns against it by the forces of economic fundamentalism, influenced the scientists too who stro
ve to present science as an antidote to religion. Religion had already been equated with orthodoxy and retrogression. Sciences were developing under the patronage of the forces of economics who had already said good bye to religion, religious morality and God. it was therefore natural for the emerging edifice of science to maintain distance from the Faith. It was formally decided that scientific theories will be given without using God’s name. When science discovered that there exists a most wonderful equipoise in the universe that keeps life intact, that there seems to be a common cause of all the causes (a common force behind all the forces) and the common cause has to be cognizant of the needs of all the creatures, they named this common cause Nature. Had it been called God, the avowed antagonism of religion by science would have suffered a major setback. The acceptance of the One by science could have been a big boost for the moralists and the materialists could have faced encumbrances in their naked pursuit of money. So, the numerous laws governing the