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September 1992 (Volume 70)
Quarterly Article
Bradford H. Gray
December 2024
Dec 19, 2024
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This is an account of a thwarted humanitarian effort and the strategic and ethical issues that it raised. Between 14 and 17 million people in the world are blind with cataract, a condition readily corrected by surgery. In 1989 a proposal was developed to attack this problem by supplying volunteer ophthalmologists to the world’s leading private voluntary organizations that carry out programs in less developed countries. The proposal was rejected. This article describes the proposal and the issues on which it foundered: cost effectiveness, appropriate technology, changing ideologies of assistance, and conflict between the cultures of medicine and public health. The account illustrates the far-flung consequences of technological change in medicine, as well as the practical and ethical questions facing organizations that carry out overseas assistance programs.
Author(s): Bradford H. Gray
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Volume 70, Issue 3 (pages 535–556) Published in 1992
