Matters of Scale - Viagra, Malaria, and the Future of Health Care
Number of years the average U.S. life expectancy would increase if all cancers
could be eradicated overnight, according to estimates by Beverly Winikoff,
a physician at Rockefeller University | 2 years |
Number of years the average life expectancy would increase, according to Winikoff,
if good nutrition, exercise, and good health habits (such as not smoking) were followed | 7 years |
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Estimated number of adult deaths worldwide attributed to tobacco in 1990 | 1 in 12 |
Projected number of adult deaths worldwide expected to be caused by
tobacco in 2020 (70 percent of them in developing countries) | 1 in 7 |
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Global expenditures in 1995 on military protection of national borders
and interests, conflicts over which have caused more than 23 million
war-related civilian and military deaths since 1945 | $864 billion |
Global expenditures in 1995 on prevention and control of AIDS, tuberculosis, and
malaria, which together have killed 150 million people since 1945 | $15 billion |
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Number of new medical drugs, which are increasingly targeting diseases of affluence
and overconsumption in industrial countries, developed between 1975 and 1997 | 1,223 |
Number of those new drugs that aim to treat malaria, schistosomiasis, and
other "tropical diseases" that are significant killers in developing countries | 13 |
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Amount the World Health Organization estimates it would cost to reduce
by half the 1.1 million annual deaths caused by malaria | $1 billion |
Estimated amount the Pfizer drug company made from 1999 sales of its
anti-impotence pill Viagra | $1 billion |
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Sources: Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich, New World, New Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), page 121. World Health
Organization (WHO), The World Health Report 1999 (Geneva, Switzerland: WHO, 1999),
pages xii and xiii. WHO, Removing Obstacles
to Healthy Development: Report on Infectious Diseases (Geneva, Switzerland: WHO,
1999), page 28. Bernard Pecoul, et al. “Access to
Essential Drugs in Poor Countries,” Journal of the American Medical
Association,
Vol. 281 No. 4, 27 January 1999. <jama.ama-assn.
org>. Noelle Knox, “Pfizer Touts Its Own,” Associated Press, from
on-line periodical: <www.abcnews.com>, 11 November 1999.