Review Of Paul Farmer's Infections And Inequality

In Paul Farmer’s book, Infections and Inequalities, the author writes about his experience as a physician anthropologist in rural Haiti. Farmer writes with the intent to challenge the modern view on how tuberculosis and HIV are treated in economically developing countries and also to emphasize how closely these two deadly diseases are related. As one of his main arguments, Farmer disputes the common notion that public health efforts in developing countries must solely focus on “cost-effective” preventative measures. Instead of this one-sided approach, he suggest not abandoning preventative measures but rather redoubling efforts to bring a balanced combination of preventative and restorative medicine to developing countries. He makes that point that while preventative measures may be cheap compared to the treatment of those already infected, prevention also has its limitations …show more content…
During this time, Farmer was trying to increase the access these women had to the only treatment that would help manage their disease, expensive antiretroviral drugs. At the time, there was a huge debate over his use of these drugs in Haiti. Many policymakers, international health experts, and even other physicians were calling into question the cost-effectiveness of using such expensive drugs in such resource-poor settings. In response, Farmer stated, “By the way, patients never say that. I still have yet to meet someone who would say, ‘Well, what a shame I have AIDS, but as I’m a rural Haitian woman, it’s not cost-effective to treat me.’” All in all, Farmer’s underlying proposition is that “cost effective” healthcare denies the world’s poor proper treatment. That is to say, the idea of cost-effectiveness cannot become the sole gauge by which public health interventions are judged and that we must no longer accept whatever we are told about “limited