Why are we still putting up with malaria?

“To ask the right question is already half the solution to the problem.” – Carl Jung
Malaria is a terrible disease.
Malaria kills 600,000 people every year, and incapacitates millions more.
Malaria kills more than a person a minute.
Malaria is the most devastating disease spread by Earth’s most lethal creature.
And yet, despite all of this, we still choose to do nothing about eliminating it.
Sure, we spend billions of dollars trying to find a cure for all sorts of things.
But as the gambling industry knows, trying is a powerful lure to get people to play a game that they have no intention of winning.
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Perhaps Yoda had a point.
We go through elaborate scientific motions that look like progress but actually are just busywork designed to carve out our careers.
We glorify the power of the microorganism to mutate, evolve and evade all attempts to destroy it.
But what we don’t do is draw a line in the sand and hold ourselves accountable for continuing to allow millions of people to be killed by something we have the power to destroy.
So the question is: Why are we still putting up with Malaria?
The assumption is that we’re being forced to because we have no choice.
But if that assumption were proven to be false, then the truth behind our tolerance for malaria…is because it is of some benefit to us.
It’s a useful tool for controlling and destabilising millions of certain people groups.
The pursuit of a cure for malaria is worth more money than the deployment of a cure.
Malaria is a source of employment and revenue for millions of people.
Malaria research is a guaranteed cash cow for many companies.
Having people to help makes us feel better about ourselves.
If we cure Malaria, then what will we be left to do.
Our reputations and careers have been built for decades on fighting malaria. If we knock it out in the first round we’ll have to face the scary prospect of reinventing who we are.
We’re afraid of not being in charge if we allow “those people” to be empowered and come up from under the bondage of that disease.
These are questions that we Medics aren’t trained to ask.
But if we’ll be brave enough to ask different and difficult questions…And bold enough to respond to the answers we get…then we’ll discover the joy of annihilating problems that are impacting the lives of generations.
Btw, if you take out the word Malaria from this post and insert any other problem that we – or you personally – are tolerating, the same arguments hold true.
Remember, you can’t change what you choose to tolerate.

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