Another Chance for Science T h e story is told of a young Indian mother who in 1967, starving and reduced to the ultimate in self-abasement, crouched against a wall a t a bazaar and begged passersby t o buy her ten-day-old son. The price she asked was 70 cents. A picture recently circulated shows a diseased Biafran child gulping down a cup of powdered milk, a ration that had t o last him two wecks. By that time he probably was deadanother of the estimated one million casualties of disease and starvation in t,his community of Africans who sought to modernize and to upgrade their miserable existence. I n late lgfiti, President Nassar revealed to his 30 million countrymen that a t one time during that year 15 days supply of wheat was all the grain food remaining in the country, and that he had to appeal t o Russia t o divert wheat ships a t sea to avert disaster. He informed his people that the United Arab Republic's wheat requirement in 1967 was four million tons, that their own crops could supply only 1.5 million tons, that Russia could provide only one million tons more, and that it would virtually exhaust U.A.R.'s foreign currency reserves to purchase the rest. H e reminded them that "every year we have another million children t,o feed, house, and educate." All of us know these stories-we talk about them sometimes such as when the traffic is not too heavy as we drive home from work in the evening, or as we pause on the fairway perhaps only long enough to brush the grass from our fifty-dollar five-iron or as we sip our ready-made apertif while lounging beside our carpet-rimmed pool. Sometimes they even intrude a little into our scientific effort. But then i t is rather easy to put them in an objective perspective by recalling that the earth has 3.2 billion human residents of which one-third, mostly in the northern hemisphere, live in relative affluence and produce more than enough food and goods for a population that increases about ly0 per year.' The remaining two-thirds live in developing countries where the population increases 2-3% per year and where the food production, health measures, and educational standards, chronicaHy a t poverty levels, now are receiving more expert attention and financial support than a t any time in history. If we are discomforted by sporadic reports of massive starvation in the world, we can take heart in the estimate from authoritative sources that by 1980 the developed countries of the world will produce sufficient grain t o feed the entire world population. But is it all that simple? Listen to what the experts tell us: Even with enough grain from developing countries t o feed the world, the finances and machinery needed to transport and distribute it are not available. Vegetable protein alone cannot provide the nutritional balance needed by young children; early deprivation of meat protein or other nutrients appears to permanently impair their intelligence or t o retard markedly development of learning. Supplies of fresh water are as much a problem as food; desalination (at $1/1000 gal) and large-scale transfer of water over considerable distances
are being considered, but both are too expensive to be practicable. Improved sanitation and other public health measures must accompany food and water but here, too, traditional procedures and equipment appear to be far out of financial reach on such a vast scale. Birth control mechanisms are still inadequate; yet another brealdhrough in this area is needed. I n short, the picture we get from the experts is that nearly all of the presently conceived solutions to t,he problem of providing the absolute necessities for twothirds of the world's population are dangerously inadequate if not hopelessly impracticable. The one hope we get from the experts is t,hat science can provide much of what is needed for realistic, workable solutions to these problems. However, it takes no more than a moment's reflect,ion to realize that the effort needed is a t the very least comparable in intensity to the war effort of the scientists of all the rival countries during World War 11. There has been much criticism of the foreign aid programs of the United States both a t home and abroad. Some say giving food to developing countries tends to depress agricult,ural development. Others insist that the money provided is not giving the expected returnthat inefficiency and corruption are taking too heavy a toll. Nn doubt some of this is exaggerated but the fact remains that what is being provided is not enough to keep many developing nations a t even a povertylevel economy. A major increase in the potential of this country's foreign aid effort is a clear necessity. I n the light of all that has been written here, we hope that both the scientists of the United States and our government will see in this situat,ion the opportunity t o use American funds and American scientific creativity in a manner that serves all mankind while a t the same time keeping more of the research and development funds a t home. We do not for a moment suggest that anything like all the foreign aid funds be diverted to the scientific community. However, we believe that a modest portion of these funds, allocated to the American scientific community for the express purpose of attacking those intractable and thus-far insurmountable problems related to providing the necessities for the underprivileged masses of the world, would be one of the wisest and most humanitarian investments ever made. This is another chance for science. For those who labored with such fervor during World War 11,it offers a new and far more compelling purpose. For those who have found modern-day science challenging but unfulfilling, it offersredemption from irrelevance. Yor those who can identify with the hungry masses, it offers the opportunity to abolish starvation as a human ill. For all scientists, it offers the chance to use our talents and our experience in a manner that can enrich the world. If this appears t o he an urgent mission of mercy, it is much more an exigent means of grace. If it seeks to proffer human dignity t o the impoverished, it serves to redefine it for the affluent. U'TL Volume
45, Number 10, October 1968
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