It disappoints me that the Economist would follow the fallacious arguments of so many others by framing HIV/AIDS intervention as an issue of "cost-effectiveness." This form of analysis has unfortunately become the dominant tool by which HIV/AIDS intervention is judged today. I am always weary when people put forward the cost-effectiveness argument regarding access to health care because it seems to me a thinly veiled way of saying that some lives are simply not worth saving. How do your really calculate the costs of not intervening any ways? Have you factored in the number of children who are orphaned because of HIV/AIDS? The communities that are utterly decimated by it? What about all the other human costs?
I would argue that we need a significant paradigm shift in the way we think about HIV/AIDS treatment today. If we are to truly overcome HIV/AIDS we, as a global community, must acknowledge that every human being has a right to adequate health care and that no lives are more or less "cost-effective" to save then others. It is time we moved away from the disingenuous, bottom-line, utilitarian analysis of HIV/AIDS treatment and instead focused on the fact that the right to live viz-a-viz adequate health care is a human right.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar