Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun

Upon reading the follow-up article about Alabama and the hookworm crisis that Dr. McCoy emailed us, I started to think about our government and its structure in a new way. I find it very interesting that this information is not reaching major headlines. An entire county that’s plagued with an illness due to unsanitary conditions seems like something that should be broadcasted on the news station. I am intrigued by the fact that this information is not something widely known but I cannot say that I am surprised.

Flint, Michigan’s water crisis made headlines a year after the problem arouse. Some of those who were in charge of the project of changing the source of the water to flow through lead pipes were aware of the likelihood that this would be a problem. However, it was swept under the rug until it became such a health concern, that they had no other option but to pull it out and dust it off. And in case anyone was wondering, the lead pipes in Flint have not all been replaced, yet. Their citizens have been without clean water for three years now…

Issues like this remind me of the things that we have learned from Medical Apartheid. I was horrified by the things that we read in that book. The treatment that these African Americans received was not that hard to fathom because I have learned about other terrible discrimination and pain that they were forced to endure. However, I was astounded by the fact that I had never heard about any of this. You’d think that these things would be in textbook or classes that teach about ethics in science, but the only thing you hear about is the Tuskegee experiments. And when you learn about this, it’s often described in a way to make it sound like a little “hiccup” in America’s ethics. In reality, there’s so many more situations similar to this that society does not know about.

Our nation often refuses to accept when we are wrong and unethical. Dark secrets are often swept under the rug and only few ever find them, and when they do, they do not have the power to make the information spread. Our country tends to focus on blaming outsiders for everything. This article, Medical Apartheid, and this entire course has really made me question how much do I really know about this country and its mishaps; what are they hiding?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.