Post for 11/11

What struck me when reading this article was the fact that good health does not exist in a vacuum. Even with the proper medications (and even some diagnostics!), there are obstacles to health care delivery. Clearly the development of better diagnostic testing is necessary, and it can make a huge impact on people's lives. However, medical technologies aren't going to bring clean water to the clinic or better educate clinic staff. So in some respects, technological advances (on their own) are just Band-Aids on larger infrastructural and societal problems.

That being said, it is encouraging to see the international health community trying to "meet people where they are at" and determine the user's needs in under-resourced settings. It seems to me that durability and flexibility of the diagnostic tests are the name of the game. The various cultural clashes that were mentioned toward the end of the article were interesting (for example, white malaria nets were not accepted in a culture where white is associated with the dead). It never would have occurred to me that something's color could have such an impact! Despite the research community's efforts to serve these under-served populations, profits and patents are inevitably involved. I hope that people/companies will be reasonable about how much money/royalties they require. It seems absurd to be making huge profits off of others' suffering. However, I do realize that at the same time, financial incentives are necessary to encourage the development of these technologies.