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SPAN November/December 2007
Letters to the Editor To view the article in magazine format,
Please click here for the PDF File  Arshad Ajmal, Patna, Bihar The write-up on kala-azar is in the right perspective and rightly concludes on the necessity of medicine at an affordable price. Dr. C.P. Thakur pointed out that due to DDT spraying during the malaria eradication program, the spread of kala-azar was checked. As kala-azar is a vector-born disease and the sand fly is the carrier of Leishmaniasis, DDT spraying killed the sand fly. A second string is the family profile of the victims and the telling photographs of the habitat of the sufferers. Ironically, the habitat and breeding place for the sand fly is the same as for the victims. It is calculated that kala-azar travels 16 kilometers monthly. I think it is equally important to work on healthy habitats for the poor. Thanks for a good article on the suffering of our region. Mireille Cronin Mather, Institute for OneWorld Health San Francisco, California The article is an accurate, moving piece on the societal and personal?impact of kala-azar on people in Bihar and provides a nice overview of the current gaps and activities in addressing the disease. Well done! A few items of clarification: Fungizone is the brand name for Amphotericin B, so they are one and the same drug, and although OneWorld Health is based in the United States, the Paromomycin IM Injection was developed in India with Indian researchers. Also, the patient study population for Phase 4 is targeted at 2,000 patients. P.S. Sundaram, Mumbai "Just a Small Town Boy" reveals the growing disenchantment with the culture of "work, buy, consume, die." This is only to be expected given the erosion of values in society. Not that urban life is necessarily sinister and immoral. People may not be intrinsically bad, but they imbibe a culture where a sense of sharing and concern or to "love thy neighbor as thyself" is rare. This is true of developing countries as well.
Jonas Salk had sought to allay fears over the safety of his anti-polio vaccine by publicly injecting himself and members of his family with the same vaccine. This stunning episode should have found a place in the SPAN article. Janki Tarun Shukla, Ahmedabad, Gujarat I liked the article "Kala-azar, the Destroyer of Hope" best because it touched my heart. There are lots of middle class families in India that don't take the effort to look at these children, but the United States brings this issue out. S. Raghunatha Prabhu, Alappuzha, Kerala SPAN magazine's back-page write-up, "Early Detection of Breast Cancer," was very informative and inspiring. Jeannie Mulford deserves kudos for openly and candidly stating that she had breast cancer and survived after surgery. This statement must be very consoling to many women who are likely to have breast cancer and refuse to undergo mammogram tests for fear of adverse publicity and supposed shame. My wife is also one among them. The government should give encouragement and incentives to undergo mammogram tests. Non-government organizations should conduct advertising campaigns encouraging mammogram tests and dispel the notion that undergoing the test is a shame. Mahesh Kapasi, New Delhi Dancing is an appropriate outlet to let go of negative emotions. It goes with music and music does not recognize human-made boundaries. It joins the hearts of different people from different countries. Let me say that "music is the best medicine." Music and dance not only provide solace in misery; they are also ideal accompaniments to our joys. |
