> A consultant to a major institution recently offered the following -
> which I paraphrase -

>   Health Informatics for developing counties is a good idea since it
>   will promote the U.S. export of diagnostic and information mangement
>   systems, helping the balance of payments, and the longer production
>   runs will bring down costs in the U.S. reducing the U.S. health care
>   crisis.

Sam, thank-you for sharing this (paraphrased) quote. It strikes me as a
particularly chilling example of the unreflexive patronizing tone that
throughout history has accompanied many efforts to "develop" the "third
world". It's clear whose agenda "counts" in this quote, and who is seen to
benefit financially from the global information village.  Since the
internet is a "space" already "colonized" by the West, there is less room
for developing countries to fashion the technology (software, applications)
in their own image, given the temptation to use "off-the-shelf" products
which contain our own cultural/corporate implicit assumptions and biases.


Blake D. Poland
Department of Behavioural Science
Faculty of Medicine, McMurrich Building
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
Canada   M5S 1A8

tel: 416-978-7542; fax: 416-978-2087
email: [log in to unmask]