ClockworkAnge™

“DR. ATUL GAWANDE: We’re in the midst of public man-made death now, and yet it can be so hard to see, because it doesn’t happen like in a war, where the bomb drops, and then you see the bodies in the field. Here, it’s difficult to see because, number one, data monitoring that would allow us to see it, and the inspectors general and other audits, aren’t functioning, so you don’t get some of the visibility there. Number two, the deaths are scattered. Seeing a mortality rate rise in communities for children from 3% to 4%, which is the kind of thing that you can begin to see now, that’s a one-third increase in deaths, but you can’t feel and see the difference just walking around. A lot of the most powerful interventions that were done were ones that would raise vaccination rates from 60% to 90% or raise HIV coverage, keeping people on their medicines, jumping from 70% to 95%.”