U.S. Malaria Donations Saved Almost 2M African Children(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
U.S. Malaria Donations Saved Almost 2M African Children
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/health/us-foreign-aid-malaria.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=6&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F26%2Fhealth%2Fus-foreign-aid-malaria.html&eventName=Watching-article-click
84 comments
I don't know if this is a hard/cold way of looking at things, but I want a bang for my back in donating to charity. I've (almost) exclusively give to malaria foundations.
Even if you don't want to give, set your Amazon to smile.amazon and it will donate a very small portion of your purchases to the charity of your choice. It may add up to $50-$100 in money given on your behalf over time.
Even if you don't want to give, set your Amazon to smile.amazon and it will donate a very small portion of your purchases to the charity of your choice. It may add up to $50-$100 in money given on your behalf over time.
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ is substantially about bang for your buck.
This is basically what the Gates Foundation does. The primarily focus on infectious disease and malaria is a big one (along with HIV, TB and others). They also dabble in charter schools and some other business, but the goal is always bang for buck.
In addition to this article, the profile about Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, the guy heading the effort, is also very interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/science/a-quiet-approach-...
We, as humans, have the capability to eradicate mosquitoes, which would in turn prevent the spread of malaria and other mosquito-Bourne illnesses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_control#Proposals_t...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_control#Proposals_t...
We, as humans, can't even run our own planet. Forget about mosquitoes.
And now they're all coming to Europe. Woo!
lucb1e(16)
i've donated nets in the past, but I wonder if they ended up being used for fishing instead.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/africa/mosquito-net...
I recently made it to (South) Africa for the first time. It was an incredible trip:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVtyKWylFkt/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVtyq0flJvL/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVty4K8FjBG/
I wish they/we could eliminate the malaria problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/world/africa/mosquito-net...
I recently made it to (South) Africa for the first time. It was an incredible trip:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVtyKWylFkt/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVtyq0flJvL/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVty4K8FjBG/
I wish they/we could eliminate the malaria problem.
"The reporting in this case presented an unbalanced view of the magnitudes of the benefits and harms of distributing bed nets" more here:
http://blog.givewell.org/2015/02/05/putting-the-problem-of-b...
Another analysis:
"A comprehensive analysis of 14 surveys in several countries with 14,196 households showed that that the overwhelming majority of nets were used for malaria prevention, and only 255 nets were repurposed (which make up less than 1% overall). Furthermore, the majority of the repurposed nets were already considered too torn, indicating they had already served out their useful life for malaria prevention[62]. The authors conclude that national programmes and donor agencies should remain confident in the appropriate use of bednets." https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/post/2015/04/update-against-...
http://blog.givewell.org/2015/02/05/putting-the-problem-of-b...
Another analysis:
"A comprehensive analysis of 14 surveys in several countries with 14,196 households showed that that the overwhelming majority of nets were used for malaria prevention, and only 255 nets were repurposed (which make up less than 1% overall). Furthermore, the majority of the repurposed nets were already considered too torn, indicating they had already served out their useful life for malaria prevention[62]. The authors conclude that national programmes and donor agencies should remain confident in the appropriate use of bednets." https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/post/2015/04/update-against-...
> I've donated nets in the past, but I wonder if they ended up being used for fishing instead.
If the reason for donating the nets is to save lives, then this is no bad thing, right? Those people are putting the nets to the most effective purpose they can find for them. No problem, I say.
EDIT: OK, maybe these nets are suboptimal for fishing. Fine. If the people the nets are going to are in more desperate need of fishing nets than mosquito nets, and you don't want them to use mosquito nets as fishing nets, then you should be sending fishing nets instead of mosquito nets.
There's no honour in telling a hungry fisherman that the mosquito net he is using to catch fish is harmful to the environment. He doesn't give a shit. He either fishes with the net he has, or he starves.
If the reason for donating the nets is to save lives, then this is no bad thing, right? Those people are putting the nets to the most effective purpose they can find for them. No problem, I say.
EDIT: OK, maybe these nets are suboptimal for fishing. Fine. If the people the nets are going to are in more desperate need of fishing nets than mosquito nets, and you don't want them to use mosquito nets as fishing nets, then you should be sending fishing nets instead of mosquito nets.
There's no honour in telling a hungry fisherman that the mosquito net he is using to catch fish is harmful to the environment. He doesn't give a shit. He either fishes with the net he has, or he starves.
I'll save you the reading:
- Mosquito nets have much smaller holes than normal fishing nets, so they trap almost all living organism, which is bad.
- The nets are treated with toxic chemicals which kills the fish in the ponds/rivers, and might be dangerous for humans who drink the water.
I would say it's bad.
- Mosquito nets have much smaller holes than normal fishing nets, so they trap almost all living organism, which is bad.
- The nets are treated with toxic chemicals which kills the fish in the ponds/rivers, and might be dangerous for humans who drink the water.
I would say it's bad.
> The nets are treated with toxic chemicals which kills the fish in the ponds/rivers, and might be dangerous for humans who drink the water.
Are we at fault for handing them out without proper education? Do they know that these nets are laced with poison? I mean if it only hurt the people who are fishing, maybe I could live with it but it hurts everyone (kind of makes me think of second hand smoke but worse).
Something they didn't bring up in the video is that a lot of fish (the net is indiscriminate) can help keep mosquito population in check. Just another thing to pile on the list.
Maybe we need to stop sending nets treating with toxic chemicals to that part of the world. This just looks like a road paved with good intentions.
Are we at fault for handing them out without proper education? Do they know that these nets are laced with poison? I mean if it only hurt the people who are fishing, maybe I could live with it but it hurts everyone (kind of makes me think of second hand smoke but worse).
Something they didn't bring up in the video is that a lot of fish (the net is indiscriminate) can help keep mosquito population in check. Just another thing to pile on the list.
Maybe we need to stop sending nets treating with toxic chemicals to that part of the world. This just looks like a road paved with good intentions.
No, it's a sensible trade off.
Go look up pyrethroid insecticides and malaria and then contemplate whether you'd rather risk sleeping in a treated net all the time or be sickened at length or maybe dead.
Go look up pyrethroid insecticides and malaria and then contemplate whether you'd rather risk sleeping in a treated net all the time or be sickened at length or maybe dead.
Mosquito nets make poor fishing nets. Maybe a few fishermen have tried, failed, and passed that bit of knowledge along to other fishermen.
For the same reason no one uses rubbing alcohol in an automobile. Technically it's a hydrocarbon but using it in a ICE will lead to poor results.
For the same reason no one uses rubbing alcohol in an automobile. Technically it's a hydrocarbon but using it in a ICE will lead to poor results.
According to the article, the main problem is an unclear environmental impact. Those nets are treated with insecticides, which are washed into the water when used for fishing. They also have much smaller holes than actual fishing nets, which leads to potential overfishing (because fish can be caught before adulthood).
It's good to see such progress against a major disease. With this, the Gate's programs and others maybe we can hope for the near elimination of malaria in our lifetimes.
Fortunately Republican Congress members seem likely to reject[1] Trump's proposed 11% cut to the program[2], even if it seems mostly because it was setup under Bush, not because it is effective.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-foreign-aid-idU...
[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/25/52987343...
Fortunately Republican Congress members seem likely to reject[1] Trump's proposed 11% cut to the program[2], even if it seems mostly because it was setup under Bush, not because it is effective.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-foreign-aid-idU...
[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/25/52987343...
You're suggesting they would have cut that because it was effective...?
This will kill the rainforrest in Africa. Because the survivors will use it for bushmeat, wood, jobs, fields for cows, ...
Ignorance on this comment is on another level. Please find some time and visit Africa. Stop learning about Africa from charity organisations who want to swindle you of your hard-earned cash. Obviously they will portray a bleak picture so that you can donate. We don't live in bushes. We have cities and some of us have a better quality of life than most people in the Western countries.
Where did you get the idea about what I know and what I don't know about Africa? Is Malaria really mainly a problem for the city dwellers with high living standards? Brasil is destroying their rain forrest. And one reason why they can is because they don't have the same problem with Malaria.
A friend of mine once retitled a similar headline "U.S. Malaria Donations create an additional 2M starving Africans". I'll not add _my_ opinion of the matter, but I would love to see intelligent discussion on the matter. Is saving lives from disease just putting these same people on the path to starvation?
No, because at the same time, starvation is decreasing even though population is increasing. It's not a problem of too many people.
You don't create a self-sustainable economy by destroying human capital.
You don't create a self-sustainable economy by destroying human capital.
No, saving lives from disease is removing obstacles to their survival.
That is not true, but even if it were: fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children.
Obviously logic is not part of your thought process. If we continue to populate the earth, which has limited local resources with more and more people nobody is helped!
Fuck the rain forest? Really? The Rain forest is more worth than a few billion people.
People are not worth anything. Everybody is replaceable, there are nearly 8 billion of us. Stop being so arrogant and anthropocentric.
@Thread: 2 million saved are 2 million more living shitty lives and potentially suffer from starvation, malnutrition, civil wars etc. If you want to help the people make sure there are less of them! Spending money on mosquito nets...seriously people, just saying that makes it ridiculous.
Please take family planning into account: empirically parents aim for a specific number of offspring. Infant mortality does not usually change that target much, but it changes how many pregnancies are needed to reach it.
Thus: two million children saved, is two million pregnancies less. (To a first order approximation. As people get richer, all kinds of things change over time.) You are right in some sense: people are replaceable, and they will be replaced. But at a cost in resources and of course emotions.
Even if you only cared about the rainforest, and not about people at all, the smaller ecological footprint should warm your heart.
Thus: two million children saved, is two million pregnancies less. (To a first order approximation. As people get richer, all kinds of things change over time.) You are right in some sense: people are replaceable, and they will be replaced. But at a cost in resources and of course emotions.
Even if you only cared about the rainforest, and not about people at all, the smaller ecological footprint should warm your heart.
Trust me I am not a hardhearted bastard but from what I have seen in the world, despite being absolute subjective ,I can tell you that the biggest problem with population is caused by religion and old beliefs. And this ain't specific to third world countries, there are enough big families (4+ kids) from certain ethnic groups in Europe/US.
Your pregnancy point is wrong though, so you say you save resources due to not having them start another pregnancy? Well the kid uses resources too and it does that at a increasing rate throughout the years. Once that kid has its own kids....you get the idea.
Unfortunately there never will be a global population control so all is left is this: upon a certain number we'll have a massive humanitarian catastrophe, most likely ending in the death of hundreds of millions due to starvation or wars. Not only will the environment suffer heavily, but once again humanity takes a step backwards towards becoming brutes again.
Your pregnancy point is wrong though, so you say you save resources due to not having them start another pregnancy? Well the kid uses resources too and it does that at a increasing rate throughout the years. Once that kid has its own kids....you get the idea.
Unfortunately there never will be a global population control so all is left is this: upon a certain number we'll have a massive humanitarian catastrophe, most likely ending in the death of hundreds of millions due to starvation or wars. Not only will the environment suffer heavily, but once again humanity takes a step backwards towards becoming brutes again.
I am saying that people choose a target number of offspring that make it to adulthood. If more kids die in infancy, they'll have more babies to make up the difference.
If less kids die in infancy, they will have less babies to make up the (negative) difference.
By the way, please have a look at http://economics.ucdavis.edu/events/papers/WuLeminJMPMalthus... and tell me what you think.
If less kids die in infancy, they will have less babies to make up the (negative) difference.
By the way, please have a look at http://economics.ucdavis.edu/events/papers/WuLeminJMPMalthus... and tell me what you think.
>> parents aim for a specific number of offspring
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
"women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11."
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
"women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11."
That's interesting! Most of the rest of the world (even poor countries) operate differently. Will investigate.
> fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children.
tell this to those whose children die of hunger because of climate change.
tell this to those whose children die of hunger because of climate change.
The President's Malaria Initiative web site's About page [2] shows the extent of their program's impact upon lives protected by various measures they introduced. I imagine there might be manifold beneficial impacts upon the developed world as well, because the anti-mosquito-oriented measures do not distinguish between malarial versus Zika-bearing mosquitoes, and Zika is particularly economically debilitating in the developed nations.
[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(500000000*(2017-2010))...
[2] https://www.pmi.gov/about