Health as a Matter of Social
Justice
Joanne M. Carroll, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical
Sciences
Pharmaceutical companies are among the world’s most profitable
enterprises. Yet, every day we hear about millions of people who
barely subsist, let alone have money for medicines. In the Third
World they die of diseases developed countries overcame decades
ago. They die of diseases whose cures go unresearched because they
would turn little profit. Inequities exist as well among the urban
poor in our own nation. What’s wrong with this picture? It’s a
question that Joanne Carroll wants everyone to consider.
“We are facing a crisis in terms of who benefits from the fruits
of our technology and knowledge,” she says. “It is a moral,
political, and scientific question, and we have to look at how we
can incorporate the question of equity in our thinking, our actions
and our world view.”
During her tenure as a Fellow of the Vincentian Center for
Church and Society here at St. John’s, she and a St. John’s College
colleague created a lecture and discussion series on how religion
and science can combine forces to address poverty. In her required
public health course, pharmacy students look at current health
issues and analyze not only the medical causes of disease, but also
the social, economic and political factors that contribute to
health and disease.
“We have the resources to reduce or eliminate global poverty,
but what is it that we as individuals and a society are willing to
do?” she asks. “I don’t have the answers. But, if I can engage in
sincere discussion with students and raise awareness of the global
situation, maybe some in my class will find a way to become part of
the solution.”