The Seeds of Ignorance — Consequences of a Booming Betel-Nut Economy | NEJM
▻https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2203571
#Betel nut’s increasing availability in Asian markets throughout Europe and the Americas1 may ultimately make regulation politically feasible. Such products are always cheap, are fairly easy to find in urban areas, and generally don’t come with a warning label. Once higher-income people are at risk for the harms associated with betel-nut use, it should become easier to foster meaningful awareness of the substance and its adverse effects. For the time being, however, the medical community is stuck on the outside looking in as a largely unregulated industry fuels a global health disaster — a painful reminder of how little progress has been made toward addressing egregious health disparities between privileged and marginalized populations. Perhaps the famed neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal said it best back in 1899: “Every disease has two causes. The first is pathophysiological; the second, political.”
« #économie » “#politique” #poison #cancer #noix_d’arec