In this day and age, we import fruits and vegetables, toys, oil, clothes and pretty much everything in between. All this may seem good and all, except for one minor detail: we are importing another good. It is one that doesn’t seem to be desired in the same demand, but still lurks in the shadows. Yes, all the while that we are importing commercially viable goods, we are also paving the way for the transmission of disease.
With more of this thing called globalization, we are endangering the lives of countless others through the spread of infectious diseases, notably TB. In fact, according to the U.S. News and World Report Vol. 142, No. 22, “In a world I nwhich one tird of the population is infected, the occasional traveler who goes to places steeped in TB brings it home. And in a country dependent upon the talent and energy of people migrating from high-Tb areas, the microbe has become a regular import. Moreover, the tubercle bacillus, a survivor that mutates around the drugs designed to wipe it out, is a formidable foe for a public-health system that has just shown itself to be inconsistent, disconnected, and underfunded.” Wow. Stepping back, it appears that we have a long way towards improvement. In this current society, we try to be all noble, helping others avoid political persecution, delivering military and financial aid and even providing jobs. Yet, there is always a dark side. In this case, it appears that we are in fact endangering the lives of others through TB.

Renovating Society

As we have already established, the plan to just find a new drug to treat MDR-TB is not a convincing solution. Yet, this does not mean that the disease will continue to mutate until everyone in the entire world is hopeless. No, instead it just means that we need to find a different kind of solution.

Though there are surely many possible solutions, one that sounds particularly interesting would entail a broader outlook that those presently under consideration. If in fact, MDR-TB is viewed as just another form of a disease that mutated into a resistant strain, then we can look at MDR-TB and all the other diseases at the same time. The plan would need a total renovation of our society. We need to start looking at all the resistant forms of the disease with the acceptance that a Fix-All-Society is not the right answer.

We need to find out how we can live in a society with a little bit of bacteria. Bacteria are not always bad for society. In some cases they can actually be beneficial. If we let the weak survive, then the strong will not necessarily mutate so quickly. Then, just maybe, disease as we know it will not be as deadly. Then, we will not be worrying about the possible new deadly form of a disease. Instead, we will find other worries to occupy our mind.