The New Tb

In the article "scientists and the new TB", the author Paul Farmer is discussing the reappearance of Tuberculoses and MDR TB and more prominently its association to HIV. He additionally clarifies that the patients whom are poor and who have been deficient of education are held responsible for containing the illness and the health care systems conventionally does not attempt to cure these patients, on the contrary tends to hold them accountable for carrying the illness and not complying with the health care professionals. His additional dispute is that the forces of poverty, economic inequalities, political violence and racism are the factors in the way of the remedy for these patients. He furthermore declares that poor individuals in the industrialized countries are too not receiving the precise handling. I ought to say that I do concur with him in the implication that in third world countries the factors that are revealed in the above exist, but I oppose with him when it arrives to industrialized countries like Canada. I believe the health care system is to a great extent further consistent and trust-worthy, and therefore even the deprived citizens in a country akin to Canada obtain the opportunity to be treated if they are willing to comply with the health care professionals. Moreover, Paul Farmer concludes that according to his case study people who acquire TB are poor and he censures the structure of the society and the health care systems. The fact that he discusses and evaluates distinct countries and their health care systems makes his arguments international and dependable, but it does not alter the fact that his standpoint in opposition to the health care system tends to be pessimistic.

From my personal understanding with the Canadian health care system it's apparent to me that patients by means of a disease wealthy or unfortunate would get treated as much as they comply with the treatment. It's as well factual that many issues that were indicated in the article would in addition match the Canadian system. For instance Canada as well as other countries has been facing masses of problems with the episode of TB and HIV co-infection. Tuberculoses, nonetheless remains the primary eradicator disease in much of the human race. TB is a disease that should have been relegated to the history books a long time ago. The reason for its reappearance would be the advent of HIV and the emergence of TB strains resistance to multiple drugs (MDR TB). The social factors surrounding TB are poverty, economic inequality, political violence and racism. In the article" scientists and the new TB" the author describes that the linkage of HIV, (which is the virus that causes AIDS) and the MDR TB (which occurs when the naturally occurring mutants become favored during the course of intermittent or poorly conceived therapy), has made TB born again. They are together referred to as "sociomedical phenomena". The reason TB is so wide spread is because unlike the HIV infection, the tubercle bacillus, may be transmitted by the coughing TB patient to another individual, and there is no requirement for any exacting contact. There is a Significant out breaks of MDR TB in homeless shelters, prisons and medical facilities. Paul Farmer refers to this disease as a social issue. He quotes Rene Dubos, who disputes that TB is a social disease and the impact of social and economic factors on the individual should be considered as much as the harm that is cause to the human body due to the infection. The notion that patients refuse to comply with anti-tubercelouse therapies does not make sense to him. He argues that as the WHO, stated, half of he TB cases are never diagnosed. In his case study he examines the relationship between structural violence and the emergence of drug resistant TB by presenting his data from Haiti. His case study is about a young man from Haiti by the name of Robert who had TB but was not able to obtain the treatment at first because the hospital was distant from where he lived and by the time he received treatment it was not the accurate type. Another cause was because the prescribed medications were so expensive," selling more than half of their land-in order to buy the prescribed items." {pg.19 course kit}, another reason he was not able to get medication was due to the political difficulties they were having. I believe Robert's experience is the central thesis of the article because of its linkage to the structural violence and the difficulties he had to bear. The other notion that the author emphasizes on is that the recommendations that are given to the MDR TB patients by health care professionals are not relevant to those persons most likely to acquire the disease. He argues that, as it was seen in the case of Robert, he was not able to keep up with all the prescriptions and the life style that was recommended for him by the professionals and that he the comply as much as it was possible. He also stated that patient's etiological believes did not predict their compliance with chemotherapy but in contrast the compliance of patients were strongly related to whether or not they had access to food and income. After anthropologists examined South Africa, where the disease was so wide spread, they came up with the conclusion that the black patients have a different perception of the disease and might seek help in different forms. Basically trying to prove that they do not comply with the treatment. But the author states the truth remains that the primary cause is not that they have a different perception but is hunger and malnutrition among the South Africans. Paul Farmer's argument against the three pulmonoligists who thought that the serious problem with TB is patient not complying with the therapy is that, there is no mention of the structural barriers to therapy. He argues that most health care professionals tend to blame the patient for justification of TB. For example when the Mexican health officials were asked about TB, they blamed the patient's poverty and lack of education. The following are the issues that concern him, put into five different categories. The first on is conflating structural violence with cultural differences. In this he explains that cultural differences are not to be concerned with the bad health care systems that exists. The second one is minimizing the role of poverty. Which he explains is the main reason people acquire and pass away from TB. The third one is exaggeration of patient agency, which clarifies that patients are not being able to pursue the instruction of the health care professionals due to poverty and are being blamed for their sickness. The forth one is romanticism about folk healing, which is regarding the usage of alternative medicine because of the unfair distribution of the world's resources. And the fifth one is persistence of insularity, in which