• Question: If you could discover the cure for an illness. What illness would you prefer to cure? Why?

    Asked by Mgodo to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 11 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ceri Dare

      Ceri Dare answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      I would end war and fighting. That kills lots of people directly, and also indirectly as people can’t get good medical treatment, good food, a stable place to live, and the education they need.

      I would also get rid of smoking. Smoking-related diseases kill half of the people who smoke. Smoking is a huge cause of people getting ill and dying early, and it makes a lot of profit for big companies who do very bad things like using child labour and slave labour.

      Part of my Public Health training is to look at all the things which make people unwell, not just diseases but social problems too.

    • Photo: Sally Cutler

      Sally Cutler answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Hi – this is a difficult one. I think I would target illness of young children that have had no chance to experience any life of their own. During my studies in Africa many of those infected were babies, most of which died. Really sad when the infection was treatable. We have tried to improve things, but there are many other infections of childhood in these countries beyond the one I was working on. How can we select just one illness?

    • Photo: Robert Hampson

      Robert Hampson answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Heart disease, Cancer, or Obesity.

      These diseases continually afflict rich westerners and they have to continually take drugs once they have developed the disease. This means you can keep selling them expensive drugs every week. You could make a large amount of money and use the money to research cures for all the smaller more nasty diseases.

    • Photo: Marikka Beecroft

      Marikka Beecroft answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Would have to be HIV, it kills so many people everyday but not quickly. You just slowly loose your immune system and get infections upon infections. It’s treatable if for example you live in the UK with the NHS, you get given the drugs you need to continue a long and normal life. In places like Africa though you can’t get those medications readily and get sick quicker. I’d just like it to easy to treat and cure so people don’t suffer.

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