Bill Clinton Quotes
We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values. Technology can help cure diseases, but we can prevent a lot of diseases by old-fashioned changes in behavior.
Clinton, Bill. "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union." Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 2000-2001. Office of the Federal Register, 2001.
The Health Minister also warned South Africans against the proven anti-retroviral drugs which had saved millions of lives. This was after the President, Thabo Mbeki, told the public that AIDS was not caused by a virus that could be transmitted by sexual contact. South Africa ended up with the highest percentage of AIDS victims of any country in the world having made no serious effort at prevention. Millions of lives were lost as the result. South Africa, which is in most respects, a very modern nation, with far more competence in government and administration that most nations of Afric. However, in the protest against apartheid a generation of young people did not attend the schools, which although segregated were quite good. The result has been that some of today’s South African leaders, although more idealistic and less corrupt than in many other African nations, there is also great areas of ignorance. In the case of a health minister who does not understand the science and knowledge of the most serious communicable disease of the era, it is rank incompetence. When the President, was also ignorant in the health arena, that sealed the fate of millions of South Africa at a time when the government generally was extremely competent.
This quotation is one of the most amazing of its era. In addition to establishing the importance of study of the human body itself, and the importance of empiricism, but it is one of the first declarations of the importance of prevention in the health arena.
Gorrie’s motivation for conditioning the air was to eliminate the Yellow Fever and other disease which seemed to strike every summer. He found that although he could get a patent and demonstrate the ice-making machine the society at the time thought his invention bordered on blasphemy (see {44386}) and like many new technologies could simply not comprehend its utility. It was a commercial failure. See {601961}
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was previously Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and the Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III – he changed to his stepfather's name at age 15.