Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.John F. Kennedy

January 2013

  • 220 Million Women Want It

    Speaking at the forum in Davos, Switzwerland,Babatunde Osotimehin, the UN Population Fund Executive Director told his audience that 220 million women in the development world want family planning and aren’t getting it. He also said that many women would like to have fewer children, that a high percentage of the women die giving birth and that their death could be prevented with family planning. He asked for governments to do more to make family planning accessible to all women who want it, warning that without it the world’s population will grow by a billion within a decade. Surprising at it may be, the Davos setting gives the remarks added hope they might be heard. The people attending the yearly conference are drug makers who see in 220 milllion women an expanded market, people who can be intermediaries with the Catholic church’s opposition to contraceptives, people who can talk to governments, government themselves, members of the press, who made it possible for me to read about it. And too one can’t discount the people who might care just because it’s important to care about this issue.

  • A New Mindset

    Many will have no doubt heard of the recent report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers finding that as much as 2 billion tons of food, about half the food produced, doesn’t make it to our tables. What has not been as publicized are the reasons for the waste and the suggested remedy. The reasons go to the values that make our culture what it is and involve the expectations of good looking produce. The report found about 30% of vegetable crops are not harvested because they fail to meet retailers’ exact standards of physical appearance. Another finding is that about half the food that is bought in Europe and the U.S. is thrown away by consumers. Part of the problem generated by the waste is the corresponding waste of the water used to sustain crops that then do not do what they are to do. The waste of water is estimated as 2.5 to 3.5 times greater than the total human use of fresh water in a day and could lead to even more dangerous water shortages around the world. To prevent all this waste, the IMechE report suggests that governments, development agencies and organizations like the UN must all work together to help change people’s mindsets and discourage wasteful practices by farmers, food producers, supermarkets and consumers. Regardless of who ends up doing what, wouldn’t a changed mindset begin with us?

  • Health Care and the Profit Motive

    I am struck by a recent piece by NYT Economic Scene Columnist Eduardo Porter in which he raised the issue of “ how much should we rely on the private sector to satisfy broad social needs?” It’s a profound question, and one at the core of our political divisions. If we can make use of it, we might be in a better position to resolve many of our current issues, in health care, in education or in the delivery of public services. The piece is titled “Health Care and Profits, a Poor Mix” and he cites studies and cases where non-profit nursing homes and hospitals converted to be for-profit institutions. Patient care declined and in some cases increased mortality, apparently influenced by lower staffing levels. According to Porter, the U.S. relies on the private sector to deliver essential public services far more than other industrial nations. Pensions and bail bondsmen are examples. It stems, he says from a “more narrow understanding of our collective responsibility to provide social goods.” He goes on to discuss that our trust in private enterprise may be “undeserved” since the track record evidence does not support it, and he then raises the issue of how the profit motive, especially in health care, interferes with the quality and delivery of those services. It’s an argument that merits far more attention than we are inclined to give it.

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