Rebuttal to 'How Vitamins Could Change the World'
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People are poor because they are stupid. What next?
Let us be very careful about the lessons that the World Economic
Forum draws from the recent UNICEF study on vitamin deficiency
and health.
Victim blaming reaches the height of absurdity with this "Behave
Yourselves" approach to health which would have us believe that
people are ill because their behaviour is wrong or inadequate.
The rather transparent purpose of this theory is to avoid exam-
ining the root or structural causes of poverty - and the result-
ing poor health status of the poor.
Now we are being told that 2 billion people live in poverty be-
cause their IQs are low. Apparently "2 billion people are con-
signed to lives below their physical and mental potential" be-
cause they are malnourished and the answer is to throw some vi-
tamin and mineral supplements at them.
Once again, public health logic and history is being reversed.
We have known for decades that malnutrition is bad for all as-
pects of healthy development including intellectual development.
And perhaps it is important to deepen our understanding of the
mechanisms involved through studies such as these.
However, in terms of implications for action, let us be very
clear. Two billion people live in poverty because of man-made
(and I use that term advisedly) not god-given economic and po-
litical arrangements on this earth. Malnutrition is one of vari-
ous elements of miserable living conditions, others being cold,
discomfort, filth, unsafe surroundings, chronic insecurity and
violence. Another element is stunted development --physical and
intellectual.
Logic requires that we seek common underlying causes for these
phenomena. The underlying cause is a grotesquely unfair economic
and political world order. Two billion people live in poverty
AND 2 billion people are consigned to lives below their poten-
tial, because wealth and power are concentrated among a minis-
cule and very discreet minority.
Enough diversions. People (not stakeholders) want food (not
micronutrients); they want water (not Oral Rehydration Therapy)
they want a decent income (not microcredit); they want work or a
livelihood (not an income-generating activity); they want democ-
racy (not participation in good governance); they want a life
(not a microexistence). Whatever people want, they and not the
World Economic Forum will decide.
We have heard the WEF message loud and clear. It is not unfamil-
iar. It is yet another diversionary tactic in a last ditch at-
tempt to maintain the status quo. Of course people want the
right quantities of vitamins and minerals, but they want it in
the context of a decent, full, dignified human life not in the
context of a strategy which says "Here are some micronutrients
in exchange for the right to continue our fabulously profitable
exploitation of your human and material resources".
A.K.
Note: I can hardly agree more with this position.
Claudio Schuftan
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn