Social Enterprise Links

Check out these videos on public health and social enterprising

http://google-africa.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-sms-to-serve-needs-of-poor-in.html

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/537/index.html

UNAIDS

What do people think of this study published by UNAIDS about the need for routine laboratory testing of patients in Africa on ART

http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2009/20090911_DART_Story.asp

Social Business

For all business minded people--that seek profits but also a better world, think about social business. This will be the beginning of a series of posts that discusses social enterprise in its many forms. The idea was brought to me by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who started Grameen Bank which provides micro credit loans to the poor in Bangladesh; it is probably the largest social business in the world. Please check out his book:

Creating a World Without Poverty:Social Business and the Future of Capitalism

" I am sure many people would like to create social-purpose companies if such entities were recognized by the economic system. It is a major failure of the current economic system that it cannot accommodate this basic human urge." Yunus 165

EHealth

I am now going to school in Atlanta at Emory University's School of Public Health. The program has a lot of opportunities and adventures in store, the first was at the CDC where they continue to use new forms of media to disseminate important public health information: check out their Ehealth website, google gadgets, facebook page, and youtube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CDCStreamingHealth

http://www.facebook.com/CDC?ref=search&sid=9801631.4133318816..1

Peter Singer: Why We Must Ration Health Care

"It’s one thing to accept that there’s a limit to how much we should spend to save a human life, and another to set that limit."

Paul Farmer: Partners in Health

http://www.pih.org/home.html

Peter Singer: Why We Must Ration Health Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?_r=2&hpw

"You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed."