Scourges of the Gods The World's Eight Most Devastating Diseases
and their social impacts (8 x 30 minutes) There are news items that never get reported... In many places diseases are not only killers, they are the life-blood of legends and religious cults. Many passions, beliefs, and rites are born out of disease. Some cults assert that diseases are a divine punishment; others declare their ability to cure them. Diseases have become not only a
vehicle for cults, but also a piece in the political game. These diseases have an overwhelming impact on poor societies. They kill, impoverish, take away human dignity, create superstitious fears and hate, produce great suffering, and largely prevent the affected societies from developing. Education, infrastructure, the economy, the environment, public attitudes, and equality are all adversely
affected or destroyed under the diseases’ onslaught. Improvements in this area would have dramatic effects on social and economic growth. The world's most devastating diseases, those presented in "Scourges of the Gods", take 55,000 human lives more or less silently each and every day, and every three seconds a child dies from one of them. An estimated 20 million
lives lost every year. The eight mass-killers are: pneumonia, malaria, tuberculosis, measles, bilharzia, meningitis, diarrhoeal diseases such as dysentery and cholera, and of course AIDS. This documentary series goes into the field, using personal interviews to explore the suffering,
the ruinous social implications, and the popular beliefs that these scourges bring about and
create. The camera crews will work in around
20 countries.
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