‘A once-in-human-history opportunity’
A new report proposes doubling research and development spending, a heightened priority on family planning, and increased taxes on harmful substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and even sugar as part of an effort to eliminate health disparities between rich and poor nations. The report, chaired by Harvard economist and Charles W. Eliot University Professor Lawrence Summers and published today in The Lancet, says that a dramatic reduction in health disparities across the globe is not only possible for the first time in history, it would be cost-effective. The report says its recommendations could bring nations with poor health care to the level of the best-performing middle-income countries within a generation. The resulting changes would save 10 million lives in the program’s target year of 2035 alone, the report’s authors said. Further, the economic benefit generated from longer, healthier lives would amount to between nine and 20 times the cost of the program. “This...