Divide

Nanofilters promise cheap, pure drinking water for third-world countries. However, development costs are high. Who should pay?

Nanomedicine is expected to be able to cure or control typical first-world diseases such as cancer or diabetes and is thus heavily funded. Yet, due to lack of money, third-world countries are still suffering from diseases for which treatments currently exist such as typhus, cholera or polio. How can this be justified? Is this a technological problem or a political one?

Consider also these questions:

•  What causes the divide in the world?
  

• Can we still talk about a “western world” and a “developing world”? Have a look at this video for a new perspective on this topic:

• If treatments for diseases such as typhus, cholera and polio are already existent, should we invest more money to develop other equivalent nano-treatments? Nanoscience and technology can give us medicines at lower cost, and not only to cure first-world diseases. There are diseases, such as the African trypanosomes, whose treatment would be greatly advanced by any achievement in drug delivery to the brain.

• Look here for a possible approach to the issue of patents and intellectual property rights.