Injury control in South America: the art and science of disentanglement.

W hile musing upon the request to write an indigenous pediatrician’s perspective of the state of play of injury control in South America, particularly as to why matters remain at a rather primitive level and what could be done to move things along, I was struck by this news item: a newspaper in my hometown in southern Brazil reported that a unidentified motorcyclist had fired two gunshots at a brand new mobile speed camera. This camera had replaced a similar one that had been destroyed a month before by two enraged characters armed with iron bars. w2 This seemingly simple account actually offers insights into a variety of issues: undue weapon carrying, speeding vehicles, novel traffic calming strategies, newish high tech devices, meager safety knowledge discrimination, sheer public unawareness, violence at-large, and—of course—a middle income developing country with mostly inconsistent and inequitable public health priorities. Does this sound too entangled for the ordinary reader’s liking? Well, bienvenido a Sudamérica!