On the heroic Ebola doctor myth

Ebola is caused by a virus, not by malnutrition or poor sanitation. A virus transmitted by blood, saliva and excrement.

Obviously adequate nutrition, running water and sanitation prevent many diseases and help to care for the sick. But well-fed people, like doctors, become infected if they do not have protective clothing and chlorine disinfectant and are so overburdened that they cannot rotate out of proximity of Ebola patients in time to recover from heat stress.

More health care personnel, treatment facilities, and supplies are needed. Many local health workers have died. Their replacements will have to be trained and paid.

Taking aim at Dr. Paul Farmer is particularly misinformed, as Farmer has long insisted that "structural violence," Johan Gaultung's (1969) one-phrase summation of the life conditions of the world's poor, economically exploited and politically marginalized peoples are at the root of ill health. For Farmer, creating effective public health systems, prolonging lives and strengthening communities' economic and political health all go together. However, Farmer does not stop there. He looks to the role of international economic and political interests in oppressing the world's poor and creating the conditions for ill-health and the spread of infectious disease.

Please read Farmer's work, some of it collected in Pathologies of Power (2003) and Infections and Inequalities (1999), both published by University of California Press.

The U.S. military also have their uses, in this case, expeditiously getting supplies to the region and setting up isolation and quarantine units.