One Billion People Still Practice Open Defecation, Endangering Public Health: UN

[FrodosPet]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/08/one-billion-open-defecation_n_5289049.html

GENEVA, May 8 (Reuters) - One billion people worldwide still practise "open defecation" and they need to be told that this leads to the spread of fatal diseases, U.N. experts said on Thursday at the launch of a study on drinking water and sanitation.

"'Excreta', 'faeces', 'poo', I could even say 'shit' maybe, this is the root cause of so many diseases," said Bruce Gordon, acting coordinator for sanitation and health at the World Health Organization.

Societies that practice open defecation - putting them at risk from cholera, diarrhoea, dysentry, hepatitis A and typhoid - tend to have large income disparities and the world's highest numbers of deaths of children under 5 years old.

Attempts to improve sanitation among the poorest have long focused on building latrines, but the United Nations says that money literally went down the toilet. Attitudes, not infrastructure, need to change, it said.

~ snip ~

---------------------------------------------------------------

Attitudes do a lot more to change lives than either laws or spending. Not that laws and spending are not important, but this is just another example that expanding knowledge and promoting positive cultural change is more effective than writing checks, issuing commands and expecting everyone to fall in line.

[Orrex]

2. I find it encouraging that over 6 billion *don't* practice open defecation

Surely that must be an indicator of progress?

[L0oniX]

3. Well this is a shitty op.

sorry ...too easy.

[unblock]

4. no, there can't be *that* many republicans.