In Which My Mind Wanders from Malaria to Pollution to Abortion...

I once watched a show about malaria on the Discovery channel. The subject of the show was how people are trying to stop the spread of this debilitating disease.

Malaria is caused by a protozoan of genus Plasmodium. It is spread by Anopheles mosquitoes. If a mosquito bites a person or creature with malaria and then bites you, it might regurgitate some of the Plasmodium into your bloodstream.

Malaria is not a nice disease to have. Symptoms include shortness of breath, fever, cough, chills, and in the worst cases, coma and eventual death. It is estimated that one person dies from malaria every thirty seconds. There is no vaccine for malaria; people must take preventive measures to avoid getting the disease, and if they still get it, then they must be treated with anti-malarial drugs. There are prophylactic drugs (drugs that prevent the disease), but they are usually cost-prohibitive.

There are many fronts in the war on malaria, taken up by different groups of people, all with the same goal of reducing malaria. Plasmodium is spread by Anopheles mosquitoes when they bite humans, and if we could reduce the occurence any of those three pieces of the puzzle (the protozoan, the mosquitoes, and the biting), we could reduce the rate of infection. Also, if we could figure out a way to make people immune to the infection, we could reduce the frequency of illness too.

There are interested parties working on all these fronts. Some are working to re-engineer the Anopheles mosquito so that it does not take up the Plasmodium from an infected person. Other scientists are figuring out how to infect the mosquitoes with a harmless strain of Plasmodium, preventing them from carrying the more dangerous ones. Others are working to reduce the population of Anopheles mosquitoes by spraying, removing standing water, etc. Still others fight the spread of malaria through human behavioral changes, such as using mosquito nets, chemical repellents, and insecticides. And of course there are scientists working on a malaria vaccine, new and improved treatments, etc. By tackling the problem from multiple angles, their combined efforts are reducing the number of cases of malaria every year.

A multi-frontal approach is the best way to solve complicated problems. For example, Americans are often criticized for how much they drive, because driving is the source of about 20% of this country's annual CO₂ output. It would be really nice if we could reduce the amount of air pollution. A naïve approach might be to ban automobiles. But if we were to do that, then millions of people would be left stranded. I, for one, would be hard-pressed to get to work. Instead of outlawing the undesirable behavior, perhaps attacking the reasons behind vehicular air pollution might work. Cars emit pollution because people drive a lot and the cars they drive have internal combustion engines.

First, we could work on reducing the amount of driving that people do. For example, we could implement a reliable and inexpensive mass transit system wherever possible. We could also encourage future developments to incorporate residential and commercial areas together, so that people wouldn't have to drive to go shopping. And we could encourage people to carpool, combine trips, etc.

Second, we could work on reducing the emissions when people do drive. For example, we could develop more affordable and reliable battery-powered cars that people could use for small trips. (If I could afford one, I would totally buy a battery-powered car for my commute to work.) In addition, we could implement stricter gas mileage regulations for new cars, and provide incentives for people with gas guzzlers to switch over to more efficient cars.

As you can see, there are many approaches that address the root cause of the problem, rather than the symptoms. In this way, a solution that takes people's needs into account can be implemented.

This multi-frontal approach can be applied to important social issues too. For example, legislators have been very quick to attempt to ban abortion. I don't think anyone loves the idea of abortion, but it is a sad reality that even if abortion is banned, there will be women who will seek abortions. So instead of banning abortion, perhaps instead we should take on the reasons that women get abortions.

Sometimes, women get abortions for medical reasons. It could be that the woman is in poor health, or that the fetus has some sort of serious medical problem. We can reduce the number of women and fetuses with medical problems by providing good healthcare and especially prenatal care for all. We would be well-served by a single-payer, government-sponsored healthcare system.

Sometimes, women get abortions because of an unwanted pregnancy. In some cases, the woman has been raped; the obvious solution to this problem is rape prevention services, such as education, support, crisis centers, etc. But in the cases where the woman has not been raped, there still may be reasons that the woman does not want to go through with the pregnancy.

Perhaps she works at a low-paying job and cannot afford the child. Obviously, a single-payer healthcare system would eliminate the medical expenses, but what about the time she must take off from work? We could implement a paid family-leave policy. And what happens to the baby when she has to go back to work? Affordable, high-quality child care and schools would help.

Perhaps her husband is abusive and she doesn't want to bring another child into that situation. We could establish a well-funded network of temporary women's shelters where she could stay while she got herself back on her feet.

Perhaps she really doesn't want a child. Adoption is a possibility, of course, but there are tens of thousands of children (mostly minority, disabled, or older children) who are already waiting for a forever home. If Jeff and I hadn't wanted our (healthy, white) baby, I'm sure he would have found a home immediately, but unfortunately, it's not so much the case for children born under less "fortunate" circumstances. One way to maximize the number of homes available for children is to allow same-sex couples to adopt, because they tend to adopt a higher percentage of minority and disabled children than opposite-sex couples.

Perhaps she doesn't want to go through pregnancy. It is hard on your body, let me tell you, and I would not want to purposefully subject someone to such an ordeal unless she really wanted it. The solution to this involves affordable and readily available methods of birth control for both men and women. Also, reliable sex education, because some people erroneously believe that certain acts they perform cannot result in pregnancy, when they actually can. (While abstinence is the most effective form of birth control, the reality is that hormones often get the best of people and they have sex.)

I'm no idealist; no matter how much we would like for people to behave in a certain manner, there will be people who won't. But if we were to take a multifaceted approach to solving our society's most serious problems, we could address people's needs and provide them with the means to do what's right.


Source of some of the information about malaria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria