Thursday 29 April 2010

POVERTY: malnutrition not resolved by micronutrients

An article in SciDev.net entitled Don't Medicalize Micronutrient Deficiency argues that biofortifying foods or handing out food supplements is not a sustainable solution to malnutrition problems. Countries that have high levels of malnutrition have food and agriculture problems that pills or fortified foods will not solve.This is a timely reminder, when so many 'solutions' come in the form of technical fixes that are often expensive, short term, inappropriate, unsustainable and often don't even work. I recently mentioned Bill Gates efforts to eradicate water borne diseases like polio, malaria and cholera by developing vaccines when the best strategy would be to improve water and sanitation. Water borne diseases can not be eradicated in areas where people don't have access to clean water and adequate sanitation.
http://hivinkenya.blogspot.com/2010/04/pills-for-poverty.html

No comments:

Post a Comment