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Sickness and Wealth is available in local bookstores or through the publisher, South End Press. $18.00 / ISBN #0-89608-716-6
The book is also available in Spanish, under the title El Negocio de la Salud, from the Spanish publisher Paidós. It is available from bookstores in Spain and in seven South American countries.
↑ Back to topIn this powerful and accessible collection of new essays, international scholars and activists examine how official and corporate actors of globalization-including multinationals, the IMF and World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and “first world” governments-have enacted policies that limit medical access and promote disease and death for many in the poor world. The contributors to Sickness and Wealth provide a history of health and “development” strategies; reveal the grim health consequences of these policies throughout the world; and highlight the work of activists and organizations currently working for improved global health.
Edited by affiliates of Health Alliance International, which is based at the University of Washington in Seattle, Sickness and Wealth features lucid explanations on this pressing topic, as well as instructive graphics and strong photography.
Sickness and Wealth provides a history and context for health and development strategies; shows how profit-driven “development” policies are being exported to countries throughout the world; and reveals the actual health consequences of profit-driven policies, and highlights the work of several social movements currently confronting globalization and working toward improved health.
Authors include Vandana Shiva, revealing the effects of industrial agriculture on poor people’s health; Patrick Bond, exposing the political roots of South Africa’s cholera epidemic; Evelyne Hong, exploring the role of international agencies and corporations in health care; Seiji Yamada, documenting how militarism and war produce disease; and several writers describing how the struggle for people’s health is, itself, becoming globalized.
↑ Back to topMeredith Fort, Mary Anne Mercer, Oscar Gish.
↑ Back to topStephen Bezruchka, Joseph Brenner, Patrick Bond, Alejandro Ceron, Abhijit Das, Paul Davis, Meredith Fort, Oscar Gish, Steve Gloyd, Tim Holtz, Evelyne Hong, Celia Iriart, Patrick Kachur, Mary Anne Mercer, Emerson Merhy, Ellen Shaffer, Vandana Shiva, Juan Carlos Verdugo, Howard Waitzkin, Seiji Yamada.
↑ Back to top“The reading classes are learning what the world’s bottom billion have long been forced to know: that global economic and social arrangements are increasingly inegalitarian and are bad for out health. Militarization, privatization, and unfair trade policies are in fact tightly linked to diseases such as malaria, cholera, and AIDS. Sickness and Wealth exposes the mechanisms of these connections.”
— Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, Founding Director, Partners in Health
“This concise, readable book succeeds in alerting us to the machinations of structural adjustment programme, debt, trade agreements, US militarization, pharmaceutical companies, and health care privatization that have overt consequences for the world’s health and well-being.”
— Jennifer Kasper, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Arizona, Global Public Health, Vol. 1, No. 1 (115-119)
↑ Back to top“A timely, radical, and accessible tool for understanding the corporate attack on health care as a right. An exceptional mix of activist and scholarly voices makes Sickness and Wealth stand apart. This book is indispensable to those interested in health and social justice.”
— Sarah Shannon, Executive Director, Hesperian Foundation
Diagnosing Global Injustice by Joia Mukherjee
Globalization and Health by Meredith Fort
Brief history of health and development strategies
Chapter 1
The Lethal Divide: How Economic Inequality Affects Health by Stephen Bezruchka and Mary Anne Mercer
Chapter 2
The Legacy of Colonial Medicine by Oscar Gish
Chapter 3
The Primary Health Care Movement Meets the Free Market by Evelyne Hong
Chapter 4
Sapping the Poor: The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programs by Steve Gloyd
Expansion of the neoliberal model
Chapter 5
The Failures of Neoliberalism: Health Sector Reform in Guatemala by Juan Carlos Verdugo
Chapter 6
HMO’S Abroad: Managed Care in Latin America by Celia Iriart, Howard Waitzkin, and Emerson Merhy
Chapter 7
Trade and Health Care: Corporatizing Vital Human Services by Ellen Shaffer and Joseph Brenner
Chapter 8
Militarism and the Social Production of Disease by Seiji Yamada
How economic globalization policies affect health
Chapter 9
Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply by Vandana Shiva
Chapter 10
The Political Roots of South Africa's Epidemic by Patrick Bond
Chapter 11
The Reglobalization of Malaria by Timothy Holtz and S. Patrick Kachur
Chapter 12
The Battle Against Global AIDS by Paul Davis and Meredith Fort
Mobilizing for health
Chapter 13
The Struggles for People’s Health by Alejandro Cerón, Abhijit Das, and Meredith Fort
Conclusion
Shall We Leave It to the Experts? by Mary Anne Mercer