E-DRUG: the Global Village and essential drugs (9)
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Dear Wilbert,
I suggest that you also consider the globalization of medicines in the
sense that people who more and more migrate for work carry medicines
from their home country to treat their health problems abroad; as do
travellers from the North, who visit developing countries for vacation.
In fact foreign travellers tend to donate their home-country medicines
to people in the host countries when they come across people in need.
So, in remote village in the Karakoram mountains in Pakistan, you would
find European medicine brands left behind by the mountain expeditions.
Migrant workers also bring back medicines to their home countries to use
in self-medication. We came across this in our drug utilization studies
in the Philippines where around every tenth household has one member
working in the Middle East (sending home lots of money leading to higher
consumption of inessential medicines such as vitamins). We would sometimes
find medicines in the households which we could not find in the PIMS (the
popular drug guide in the Philippines).
Also, globalilization is reflected in the imagery related to modern
pharmaceuticals. In my own study in the Philippines mothers said that
they preferred modern pharmaceuticals over herbal preparations promoted
by the Primary Health Care programme, because the modern medicines were
developed in the United States, and made in clean, high tech laboratries.
Anita Hardon
Medical Anthropology Unit
University of Amsterdam
Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185
1012 DK Amsterdam
tel 31 20 5252670
Fax 31 20 5253010
Email: hardon@pscw.uva.nl
PS: Please make a note my above email address.
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