The Global Health Council, in its article Infectious Diseases cites “poverty, lack of access to healthcare, antibiotic resistance, evolving human migration patterns, new infectious agents and environmental changes and development activities” as factors contributing to the spread of diseases within third world countries. While these agents are indisputable in themselves, it is necessary to add to their ranks another agent, which may possibly be derived from the above agents. This agent is the lack of trust in the Western medical system by third world countries. Medicine (or medical systems) in developing countries is a second-rate affair (lacking the efficacy found in first world nations) which, rather than diminishing, reinforces a lack of faith and trust in Western medical practices . success; millions of people live relatively disease-free lives. Developing an idea that Bradley Lewis presents in The New Global Health Movement: Rx for the World? – that “health systems are becoming similar” – many people see the success of medicine in the West and want to replicate it in third world countries. These people, and/or organizations, establish hospitals and clinics that are direct replicas of those seen in countries like the United States, without realizing (or ignoring) that many developing nations cannot afford the costs of maintaining hospitals or of clinics. Maintaining the healthcare system in the United States is partly paid for by doctor visits, which average about five hundred dollars per visit. In third world countries many people simply cannot afford such costs. In Zimbabwe in 2008 the GDP per capita was two hundred dollars; in Liberia last year (2009) there were five hundred dolls... half of paper... not, or almost nothing, for a medical examination. By being free, or almost free, more people will visit these medical systems, becoming familiar with them and building greater trust in Western models (medicine, education, life, etc.). Furthermore, by being free, more people will have more money with which they can stimulate the economy and afford better living conditions. Of course, if this solution seems too altruistic you can simply choose to see it as the article Making world health the new Marshall plan. intends to see it; as a foreign policy with the goal of national security. Poverty, poor living conditions, overreach and the like are often the causes attributed to the progression of treatable diseases in third world countries. One cause that is almost never considered, but actually needs to be considered, is mistrust in Western medicine or Western medical practice.