Rx for Survival

I watched the first episode of Rx For Survival the new PBS series on public health last night - pretty incredible stuff.

The first hour of last nights broadcast told the story of the CDC's 'Disease Warriors' (basically a bunch of western college kids) and the social and geographical obstacles they were able to overcome in the coutrysides of Africa and India when they erradicated smallpox in the 1970s. It then gave a brief history of vaccines, their invention (Jenner, Pasteur, and Salk), how they work, and underlined their importance as the cornerstone of public health.

Part one caught back up with the current day 'Disease Warriors' still battling the same issues in modern India, only now with Polio rather than Small Pox. To the extreme detriment of their youth many muslim religious leaders have banned vaccinations and mislead parents into believe they are bad. There is very little as frustrating as watching video of an Indian father saying his heavily at risk children do not need Polio vaccine because Allah is protecting them. But, just when you are blaming all the World's problems on lack of education and religion they jump back to an affluent island off the coast of Washington state where scores of out-of-touch hippies are not vaccinating their children either. Very Interesting.

Anyone interested in Big Picture public health definately needs to check this out. The series continues evenings this week on PBS.

Rx for Survival homepage
Episode summary
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