To completely eradicate a disease would be an amazing accomplishment.  Disease eradication is a goal which the world hopes to strive for.  It is the reason that we continue to develop our field of medicine, to prevent the outbreak of and to get rid of existing diseases.  The medical field though cannot only focus on disease eradication because there are several problems which make it almost impossible.  Without disease, the world population would rise dramatically leading to world problems. Humans need to live in unison with nature and coexist by fighting off disease but also allowing it to survive.  The United States should worry about its own citizens and use the taxpayer money to develop its own medical field and technologies rather than continuing to invest billions of dollars into a process that is so flimsy and could fall apart.  To take away money, resources, and time that go into other aspects of medicine to focus solely on disease eradication would be unethical because it is an extremely challenging feat which has many difficulties to attain.  

One reason it is such a hard goal is because there are several countries who are too poor to be able to maintain a stable flow of money on the vaccines needed to eradicate a disease.  Countries such as Moradabad, India, and Nigeria are still facing the problems of polio, a disease considered to be eradicated, because the country does not have the capital to heal its citizens.  The numbers have surely fallen from “1000 children a day to 5 per day in 2006” but there is still the chance that if the money was pulled from polio treatment that another outbreak could occur.  This would destroy all the time and money that was spent going into the polio eradication.  Since 1988 more than 4.5 billion dollars have gone into the eradication of polio worldwide and there could still be an outbreak because of countries who simply do not have the money to give the vaccines to their citizens. The number of cases per year has drastically decreased from 1988 when the eradication first began but in 2006 the number of infected people soon began to rise again causing some alarm.  It is extremely hard to fully eradicate a disease because of how interconnected the world is now.  With global trade and transportation disease can spread at an astounding rate.  If the countries with extreme poverty are not able to control this disease than 29 years of money, time, and research will have been wasted just to be in the same position the world was in 1988.  

Disease eradication also leaves entire populations completely vulnerable to biological warfare.  Smallpox eradication occurred in 1977 and the vaccination of citizens ceased.  Because of global relations, the threat of biological warfare becomes an increasing threat.  In 1980 the world ceased to give out vaccinations for the disease which makes entire populations now susceptible to contracting the disease. The disease is kept in Moscow and Atlanta which is still poses a possible danger. The Soviet Union began a biological warfare program in the late 1980’s and was believed to weaponize small pox.  Although they never used these new technologies the threat is still there if these weapons or information were to fall into the hands of a middle eastern terrorist group or some other terrorist group as global relations continue to break.  The medical field has categorized small pox as a group A disease causing for alarm since smallpox is an extremely contagious disease that passes from person to person. The eradication of smallpox was a huge accomplishment for the world but this opens new doors to warfare and population extinction.  Although emergency plans and other precautions have been put in place, there are still many uncertainties which can cause a worldwide catastrophic event.  

Without disease, the number of human beings on Earth would grow drastically.  The world did not have 1 billion humans on it until 1800.  Humans then doubled their numbers in 120 years and then tripled that number within another 90 years.  If the worldwide population is to continue its growth at this rate than in 2100 there could be 18 billion people.  Earth can only sustain 10 billion people with food to survive.  This is an alarming fact because we are dangerously close to this number.  Scientists have come forth to think that a total of 108 billion people have lived on this Earth.  Taking away the roughly 7 billion that are still alive today you are left with 101 billion people that came before us.  That means that a total of 101 billion have lived and dies in the entirety that humans have been around.  Why has the rate of population growth increased so much in these past few hundred years? If one looks back in history they can see the certain elements that help with population control. A main factor to this control is disease.  As the medical field advances humans, can live longer.  The average life expectancy rate in the classical roman age was 35 years of age, now the life expectancy worldwide is 70 years.  As life expectancy grows larger there will be more people on this Earth at a given time because fewer are dying at a young age.  A man born in the 1700’s proposed an idea that famine, plague, and diseases were nature’s way of keeping populations low so that the worlds resources could sustain life for a certain number of individuals.  When scientists try, and eradicate diseases they are trying to overcome the power of nature.  There must be a unison between humans and nature which allows for the existence of disease to keep our populations in check but must also treat such diseases so that humanity does not go extinct.  

Another problem with disease eradication is that it is a long process that takes enormous amount of money and resources and if the support falls then all that effort will be wasted.  There is currently a huge push to start the eradication of malaria around the globe.  The problem with disease eradication funding is that the funding must continue until the entire process is done or it will all go to waste.  The malaria eradication will be a process lasting approximately 40 years.  The cost of this eradication would be 5 billion dollars a year.  Funding from organizations such as the Gates Foundation and other suppliers would have to continue their donations until the eradication was complete.  Political views on medical programs change dramatically over time and no one can predict if the views on the eradication would be the same in 20 years.  If the funding was to cease half way through the process, then 100 billion dollars would have been wasted and the malaria would rise again.  An issue in diseases such as malaria is that humans are not the only carries to the disease.   An eradication process such as this one would be extremely challenging not only because of the financial backing but also because there is no way to be sure that the mosquitoes who carry the disease as well would all be treated.  Huge challenges to disease eradication which usually end in the loss of valuable resources and enormous amounts of money are that humans are not the only carriers of certain diseases and the political instability that backs the programs.  

The money that is being used to support these medical endeavors in foreign countries could be better used for our own citizens.  In 1945 the Marshall Plan began to go into effect which promoted the U.S. involvement in developing a health system in Africa.  This allows for the African people to have access to free healthcare as the United States citizens pay for it through their taxes.  Yes, it is an enormous triumph to one day can have universal healthcare around the globe but the cost is not worth it.  Because the United States is paying for these services approximately 470 million dollars went to help South Africa alone in 2012.  The United States should first focus on its own citizens before it starts to take care of other countries.  By using this money for Africa many poor American citizens suffered from it.  The United States does not offer free health care service so if this is how the health plans will continue to go it would be ideal for the poor in this country to move to Africa to receive this treatment.  Medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States and many lower-class citizens are turning down medical services because they are not able to pay for them.  The ones who do accept or seriously need the treatments are only able to pay back around 12 percent of their total expenses.  This means that hospitals in the United States loss an average of 73 billion dollars.  The death rate of pregnant women also increases as we help out these other countries.  In the United states the death rate of pregnant women rose from approximately 6 percent in 1987 to around 13 percent in 2006.  The opposite occurred in places who are now receiving this universal healthcare.  Their death rates dropped as they received more money and resources from the United States.  If this taxpayer money was rather split between other countries and our own these statistics would drastically change.  To use this money to help HIV victims in our country just as they would in another country would drastically improve our countries life expectancy rate and the number of people who would accept treatment would rise.  Hospitals would then be able to take this taxpayer money to pay for treatments and medical expenses so that they would not be at such a loss as well.  If the government were to use this money first in our own country and then help other nations it would gain rise to a better way to fight diseases and other medical problems in our world.  

An internal strategy for disease eradication in the United States would be a more attainable goal rather than a global attack.  This strategy would save resources and would also allow the money that would be spent on other countries to then be used for other medical advances.  There have been several attempts to eradicate several diseases worldwide and have all failed.  These attempts waste resources and time because other countries are not able to give out the medicine needed to all their citizens.  The CDC is very good at identifying and using money efficiently to attack infectious disease in the United States.  There are seven infectious diseases that the United States has been able to eradicate and out of the country.  To try and eliminate these same diseases around the world would be a long process that if not seen to completion would waste U.S. Dollars.  The U.S. should not have to use the taxpayer dollars for other nations medical programs.  There foreign countries should seek the assistance of the U.S. to help build up their medical field but then the U.S. should slowly take away its help so that the country can become successful with their eradication programs and healthcare.  It is important that we first take care of our own citizens before we spend large amounts of money on other countries and their medical programs.  

Using the money that it would normally have put into disease eradication or other foreign programs the U.S. could increase their medical technology significantly. Each advancement in technology allows for the procedures and operations to be more effective and cheaper.  Some of these advances will allows doctors to “detect and treat these diseases and will improve their quality of life while reducing their demand for more intensive procedures” (MacRae).  A medical technology that could be greatly improved if this money was to be put towards it is Cancer Nanotherapy.  If developed this treatment would be more efficient and would cost much less than any other form of cancer therapy.  This technology would target cancerous tumors and would shoot them with millions of nanoparticles that fight the cancer.  This procedure does not attack the normal cells in the body but only attacks the tumor and surrounding cancerous cells.  One other field that could be developed with the money and resources that would be taken from  eradication programs would be Brain-Machine Interfaces.  Around 100,000 Americans live with an upper arm amputation.  Old technologies use a brain implant to help control artificial limbs or other assistive devices.  The new advances in technologies would allow for a headset to replace the implants.  These headsets would still allow for the brain to be scanned so that limbs, wheelchairs, and other devices can still be controlled by the mind. Another advancement using these external headsets would be to help rebuild spinal cords.  Around 6 million Americans are paralyzed. This development in these two industries would affect millions of Americans and help improve their standard of living.  By using the money that would normally go into other countries medical industries or into the disease eradication programs there could be several advances made into the medical technologies in the United States.  

The world is an extremely interconnected place as countries begin to work together to solve global problems.  This does not mean that it is beneficial for the United States to try and attack diseases in foreign countries.  It is opposite to the desired affect and creates more problems in the United States.  It would be very beneficial for the citizens in the U.S. if the government focused on developing new technologies.  By saving the money from other countries and using that money to continue to fight diseases in our country would continue to develop the medical field.  The world should continue to develop each individual country medical fields but to completely eradicate diseases would cause for overpopulation and the ability for countries to be attacked using biological warfare.  The eradication of diseases at a worldly level is unethical and should not be a task for the globe to try and achieve.  
