Leprosy Article Excerpt about Perspective

• Below is a portion of an article written by an MD comparing funding amounts of wall street executives, war initiatives and public health campaigns. He uses leprosy to prove one of the points. the whole article by Dr. Tom Engelhardt is here: http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/11840-tomgram-matt-bivens-pox-americana.html
• When Curing Millions of Leprosy is "Failure"
• ...But wait. Aren't some of these public health campaigns wasteful failures? Sure they are. Let's look at one public health failure: The drive to eliminate leprosy.
• Caught early enough, leprosy can be cured today with the antibiotics dapsone, rifampicin, and clofazimine. Over 25 years -- courtesy of Novartis pharmaceuticals and the Japanese Nippon Foundation -- these medicines have been handed out for free, and have cured more than 14 million people of the disease. They work so well that the WHO now recommends integrating the world's 250,000 known leprosy patients into primary-care settings, just like those with any other illness.
• Treatment is so effective, in fact, that several years ago the WHO launched a campaign to eliminate leprosy entirely. Ultimately it sank 15 years and about $200 million into the project. (I cannot find a link for the $200 million figure, provided to me by WHO officials in e-mail correspondence.)
• But there's a logistical nightmare when trying to eliminate leprosy. Other targets such as smallpox, polio, and Guinea worm exist in one reservoir only: sick humans.
• Not so with Mycobacterium leprae, a bacterium that attacks skin and nerve cells. Even today, we don't know everywhere this bug lives. It has been found in the oddest places: in armadillos in Louisiana and Texas, in the noses of healthy people in some parts of the world, and even in some soil samples.
• Such a bug was never an easy target. Even so, in 1991, the World Health Organization vowed its "elimination" -- and then defined "elimination" to mean less than 1 case per 10,000 people. At such a low background level, it was hoped, the disease might dwindle into irrelevance. It hasn't worked. That 1-in-10,000 target was arrived at via politics and hopeful thinking. It was achieved worldwide in 2000, putting the WHO in the risible position of claiming "elimination!" and then seeking more money to, like, eliminate it some more.
• The organization was bitterly criticized. Earnest, indignant treatises have been written noting that there is too little money to go around, and accusing the WHO of risking the credit of the more promising drives against polio and Guinea worm.
• So, the anti-leprosy push was a $200 million failure.
• Because it didn't eradicate leprosy.
• It only cured 14 million people.
• Of leprosy.
• For half the price of an Alaskan bridge to nowhere.
• Oddly enough, $200 million is reportedly the tax deferral enjoyed by former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson -- he of bailout infamy -- when he joined the Bush cabinet as treasury secretary.
• So there you have it, finally: For $200 million of public money we can take a walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ himself, curing millions of leprosy. A truly inspiring future is, as always, easily within reach, if we choose it.
• Or we can just give Hank Paulson a tax break. Maybe throw in a credenza by way of thanks.