Malarial Mary

Malaria Information Week
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

In theory, marking Malaria Information Week with an educational display in the Atrium of the New Building should only be a good thing.

Malaria kills more people than AIDS, and while a very different disease it does have some parallels: it's hard to get rid of, it kills poor people but not rich people, prevention is more likely to be effective than cure.

We had an interesting set of display boards with photos and captions, plus some leaflets and handouts to give us more information. The vast majority of British people never have this level of exposure to malaria itself, never mind to educational material about malaria. I should salute my employer.

But what's with Malarial Mary? Clearly on loan from Matalan down the road, she sat there all week with her full make up, 'am I bovvered?' posture and protruding joints - in fact you could probably sell those oversized rubber gloves and perspex face masks as eating disorder fetish kit.

We asked ourselves - how significant a role do anorexic white female mannequins usually play in public health initiatives to overcome global scourges? Answer: Um, none. We asked ourselves - is there a good reason for this? Answer: Um, probably.

joella