Drugs Work Better When African Bellies are Full

Last night I read a fascinating account in the Wall Street Journal that profiled Joe Mamlin, a doctor in Kenya and professor of Medicine at Indiana University. He has developed a practice that addresses a simple but often neglected fact--AIDs patients do much better after they get drugs if they have enough to eat. It sounds so strange to a Westerner, but the article recounted how many of the sufferers of AIDS simply wither due to starvation in spite of being given the modern cocktails of drugs that keep the disease at bay.

The concept is simple: They've planted a two-acre vegetable garden on the hospital grounds and the homegrown onions, carrots, collard greens, cabbage and fruit are provided to the patients with their prescriptions. "The standard advice that comes with medicine throughout the developed world--'take with food'--is just catching on in Africa. Dr. Mamlin is pioneering a merger of medicine and agriculture."

One other promising system they've developed is to send patients home with the ability to grow their own food. Kenya's Moi University first gives out the vegetables, eggs, milk and other foods then patients graduate to the Family Preservation Initiative, where they learn skills that will help them grow their own food, or get a job so they can buy food.

One of the most promising crops in Kenya has been the passion-fruit. One man has a pump he calls 'the moneymaker,' it is a Stairmaster connected to a pump, to water his seedlings. "With passion-fruit, every week I make money." he says. "Now I am at peace."

Another patient, who had lost her five children when she was sick, is now feeding them all and is back in business growing passion-fruit. The worker's cooperative they've formed is called Amkatwende, which means 'Rise up, we go."