Blog #3 Cancer

In relations to my last current event topic which was cancer, I am now narrowing it down to a certain type of cancer. A major Global problem which is killing millions of women is cervical and breast cancer. These cancers have not only run ramped here in the states but are magnified by the millions in low income countries such as Africa and Asia. Around 2 million women are developing breast or cervical cancer every year, according to the first global review, which warns that the diseases could overtake maternal mortality as a cause of death in younger women. Studies show that breast cancer is rising in women at the reproductive age 15-49. The IHME has stated that the number of deaths from breast and cervical cancer will soon past the number of deaths accrued from pregnancy and child birth. As of right now the number of people who have been diagnosed with breast cancer is 1.6 million which has increased from 641,000 in the last 20 years. These growth rates however are taking place in mostly low income countries unlike the UK whose growth rate for this type of cancer is less than 1%. There have been around 200,000 deaths from cervical cancer in 2010 mostly in Guyana and Zambia.
Something obviously needs to be done to stop so many of these deaths from taking place, but first we must take a deeper look at the causes. On the surface it is obvious that one main reason for these cancers is that the countries are poor. As high-income countries enjoy the benefit of early cancer screenings, drug therapies and vaccines, the burden of breast and cervical cancer is shifting to low-income countries in Africa and Asia. They have little to no sources for medicine and cannot afford to go to doctors to get tested. Then we need to look at why these countries are poor and why aren’t the wealthier countries doing something about this. The reasons are that we are sucking these countries dry of their resources and using them for extensive cheap labor and wealthier countries do not want to spend their money on a problem that doesn’t really affect them. Some claims makers then say that “basic cancer prevention and care does not have to be hugely expensive, involving education so that women are diagnosed earlier and the drug tamoxifen which is now out of patent and, therefore, cheap. Screening and the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine that is now given to girls in the UK and other developed countries could prevent many cases of cervical cancer around the globe” In this case why isn’t this being done? It might be because the wealthier countries still don’t want to spend their time and money to train doctors overseas or there just are not enough people that care about the well being of others. Maybe if we had a system that didn’t revolve on money and corruption these cancers would have never grown so drastically. If everyone cares more about others than their own person gain maybe such things never would have happened.