China’s Challenges in Controlling Tuberculosis

Jenny X. Chen ‘12, Contributing Writer

Courtesy Negi Images

I was let out of school early because I had been coughing, with a low fever of a hundred degrees. My mother said to sleep it off, that it would be okay. There was not much to do but grimace and wonder when the dizziness and breathlessness would end, when everything would around me would stop sounding so muffled, overshadowed by the loud, insolent thudding of an overworked heart. There was not much I could do but try to sleep it off.

Sometime, later that night, my illness went away. And, in a way, so did his. But, while I woke to a school day and a crying mother, lost in a phone call to China, my cousin never woke. And his mother has never really stopped crying.

Separated by some 7000 miles, the United States and China differ in more than just geographical location. Cultures change as we sidestep the time-zones, and the diseases of the world ebb and flow across the geographical and political borders. TB bacillus, a threat to life in China that is incomprehensible to most Americans, currently affects nearly one third of the human population of the world; 1 in 10 of those affected contract active TB. In China, TB is the number one cause of death due to infectious disease in adults.

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Morals and Medicine in Modern China

Bianca Verma ‘09, Contributing Writer

Socialist ideology is pervasive in Chinese life, and thus digs deep into the moral core of individuals within the society. Arthur Kleinman defines a moral life is as “one that embodies our own moral commitments” (Kleinman 2). He goes further to note that those “who seek to live a moral life may develop an awareness that their moral environment, in the first sense, is wrong” (Kleinman 3). While businessmen and politicians may already operate in accordance with socialist-capitalist ideals, and thus embody their “moral environment” in that they are profit-driven and competitively seek to achieve their own ends, physicians are posed with a dilemma. While we hold American physicians to an ethical code that stresses the greater good of humanity and puts the patient before self, the temptation for individualistic motivations are thrust upon physicians in reform era China. In Priscilla Song’s article, “Cutting Edge Tactics: Practicing Health Care with Chinese Characteristics,” the nation clearly does not provide adequate financial or institutional support to physicians (only stringent laws and censorship), making it very difficult for physicians to survive without incorporating more selfish actions. However, while these actions may appear to be profiteering and self-interested, in reality, their moral frames have only modified to accommodate for the state’s external pressures, while still ideologically working for the greater good of the nation. In “The Honest Doctor” by Philip Pan, we find that even despite political secrecy and immorality, the unique morality of the physician can indeed shine through. Thus, we cannot necessarily proclaim that physician morality has degraded in reform era China, but rather altered under political and economic pressure.

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