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U.S. Malaria Donations Saved Almost 2M African Children
- lucb1e 9y agoNow the devil's question: how are we going to feed all the people that survive because of this? Really, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that lives are being saved. The amount of grief being spared by this, by not losing a child for so many families, is unimaginable. I am just wondering if we are not creating an even bigger problem by solving this problem before the other.
- DenisM 9y agoWhat's with the downvotes? The question is asked in good faith and it produced an interesting discussion. Would y'all prefer for the author to remain silent with his thoughts, and for the opposing arguments to remain untold?
- madiathomas 9y agoIf I had enough clout to downvote, I was going to do so. I was going to do so because the comment is totally ignorant. I don't know who is feeding people around the world this misinformation that African people are all dying of hunger and waiting for food aid.
- lukas099 9y agoI don't know who is either, but how is ignorance going to be fixed if we punish people who ask questions?
- madiathomas 9y agoThe bigger problem isn't ignorance here. Lack of emphathy is the main problem. Parent comment, which people are down-voting, is basically suggesting that those African children which were saved are better off dead.
- srean 9y agoYou are right about questions asked in good faith. Media has gotten us used to assertions and allegations made from behind a question: Is Obama and American citizen ? Is your mother a whore ? etc etc
- ntelson1s 9y agoAnd reactions like yours based off emotion rather than willingness to provide facts or logically argue are what push people away. In the meantime, it is true that Africa's population is going through massive booms artificially propped up through aid, aid which in direct competition with native agriculture, actually even harming their ability to naturally provide their own means of sustainability. And that's before you even consider impacts of things like the tsetse fly which costs African Ag business BILLIONS. http://www.irinnews.org/news/2009/05/12/tsetse-fly-costs-agriculture-billions-every-year http://www.irinnews.org/news/2009/05/12/tsetse-fly-costs-agr... These things are a potential ticking time bomb if not truly considered in the fullest of their implications. The African population, usually dependent on having as many offspring as possible to offset a low survival rate, is set to bring more people into the world than the entirety of Europe in the next 15 years, with arguably little means to account for their well-being.
- sumedh 9y agoTo remove ignorance you need to have a discussion. > I don't know who is feeding people around the world this misinformation that African people are all dying of hunger and waiting for food aid. I guess the "Donate money" for African kids with a pictures/videos of malnourished kids in the background.
- madiathomas 9y agoThey are probably the ones responsible. If those charity organisations can change the message to stop sponsoring wars in Africa, there won't be a need to donate to African kids in less than 5 years. Then again they won't have a job because majority of that money ends up in their pockets.
- pizza 9y agoIt's pretty uninvestigated, as are many responses, I'm not sure what was gained by asking whether people who intend to have children can feed them in a coy manner. I read the first bit as feigning a doubt as to whether expecting parents would be better off with dead children (even with the following disclaimer)
- tptacek 9y agoIt was an extremely poorly-worded question that produced a nightmare of a thread.
- phreeza 9y agoI am not an expert, but I believe malaria is most common in humid areas, where crop failures are rare. edit: not completely disjoint but the overlap is small http://www.traveldoctor.co.uk/images/MalariaMap.jpg http://www.traveldoctor.co.uk/images/MalariaMap.jpg http://vf-tropi.com/vf-kfamn.gif http://vf-tropi.com/vf-kfamn.gif
- pavlov 9y agoImproving women's education and children's health is probably the best way to reduce uncontrolled population growth. Wanted, healthy children are more likely to grow up to be productive adults.
- dmoy 9y agoRIP hans rosling, I still see his bubble charts and excited babbling in my head any time this comes up. Seems like a very reasonable explanation.
- HenryTheHorse 9y ago> Really, don't get me wrong You're offering a most disingenuous argument. Would a pediatric hospital in a relatively poorer town in the US ask the same question while treating a child?
- mrkrab 9y agoMoving food to a poor town in the US from somewhere else is a trivial task. Africa has its own set of problems.
- HenryTheHorse 9y ago> Moving food to a poor town in the US from somewhere else is a trivial task. You're missing the point, but long as we are trivializing complex social issues, let's ask why there are 13 million hungry kids in the US. https://www.nokidhungry.org/problem/hunger-facts https://www.nokidhungry.org/problem/hunger-facts
- mrkrab 9y agoNo need to ask: lack of nutritional education and income inequality.
- madiathomas 9y agoPlease help me understand. Why would Africans need unhealthy, pesticide-infested food from America? Unless it is a country ravaged with wars, sponsored by the same, America? We can grow our own food.
- mrkrab 9y agoNo, Africa can't grow its own food. If they could, they would've, a long time ago.
- madiathomas 9y agoWe are growing our own food and exporting excess food to other countries. What do you think we are doing with our land? Just play on it? Only countries who are unable to grow their own food are those who are at war. War which is started by the very same West who pretend to be feeding us.
- dmingoddd 9y agoWell, we have excess on one side and scarcity on the other side. Not that this can't be solved, it has never been a priority and probably will never be a priority to solve this problem. Please dont equate human life with philosophies of wealth distribution. God forbid, you may never know you may be poor in your country and your life may no longer be worth the medical treatment and maybe captitalism will win in that. So please dont say they can have children cause they dont have money and people were interested more in looting this continents resources and destabilizing it than uplifting it. Dare someone say something to this effect on black Americans and they will be crucified. Because these guys are from poor nations you can contemplate its a good idea millions not be born.
- DanBC 9y ago(I'll ignore the fact that we currently produce more food than the world needs, and much of that food is destroyed. http://www1.wfp.org/zero-hunger http://www1.wfp.org/zero-hunger ) Children who survive can farm the land. Children who die cannot farm the land. Also, because so many of your children will die you have more children. If more of your children survive you'll have fewer children. http://www.irinnews.org/report/94947/lesotho-weather-extremes-threaten-food-security http://www.irinnews.org/report/94947/lesotho-weather-extreme... > In a country where nearly 60 percent of the population live below the poverty line, and some 40 percent live in extreme poverty, such weather extremes are pushing the coping mechanisms of families already devastated by the effects of HIV and AIDS to breaking point. Lesotho has one of the highest prevalences of HIV in the world. The epidemic has created a shortage of farm labour and left 130,000 children orphaned, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). > Malebohang Makhoathi, a 68-year-old widow, has over four hectares of land in Ha Makhoathi, just outside the capital, Maseru - more than enough for her to grow all the food she needs to feed the four grandchildren in her care, but she has not ploughed the fields for the last six years since her son, the family's main breadwinner, passed away. She has neither the money nor the manpower to cultivate the land and is contemplating selling it for short-term relief. > “The money will make some difference in my family, even if it’s for a short period of time,” said Makhoathi, who will have to wait another two years before she qualifies for a government pension
- Shivetya 9y agothe bulk of starvation in many countries is purely political. no personal rights and just as important no private property rights. the latter means you cannot build wealth and improve your position, your families, and your community. nations that don't respect all these rights tend to stagnate or those having lost them spiral down as they burn through accumulated wealth. we one farm a third of the arable land available, so if we want to feed all these people in the world we need to find a carrot to offer their political class, this could even mean buying them off to eventually leave. it can also eventually mean taking the hardest choice and removing those in power but this is not a tenable solution in many cases and should only be last resort. i would prefer to pull up surrounding countries that will play ball and hopefully convert neighboring countries that way.
- empath75 9y agoI imagine they'll feed themselves, like you do. In fact a lot of people in the developing world grow and raise their own food.
- foota 9y agoI know that malaria significantly impacts the ability of a family to be productive, perhaps with decreased malaria rates families will not be knocked out and with decreased child mortality families will shrink in the long term because more children will survive?
- brudgers 9y agoA bigger problem than the children being dead? For whom is this a problem? Why won't the people who didn't die of malaria be capable of feeding themselves? And given that the there are seven billion people in the world, the 0.03% increase in world food supply efficiency seems both possible and worth doing, does it not?
- madiathomas 9y agoNot sure if it is ignorance that is making you to utter such words about Africa. Do you seriously think all African people are dying of hunger and waiting for food aid from your governments? Have you ever been to any African country? Majority of countries with food and hunger problems are those who are at war. Rest of us, citizens pf this wonderful and arable continent, can feed ourselves and don't need any food aid. The only aid we need is for Western countries who sponsor African wars to stay away from Africa. I have been living in Africa since birth(35 years old). I have never seen anyone dying of hunger.
- buckbova 9y agoThen why must Africa receive millions in aid from the West every single year? Why can't they help themselves? http://www.chronicle.co.zw/one-million-receive-food-aid http://www.chronicle.co.zw/one-million-receive-food-aid In 2015, the U.S. provided more than $8 billion in assistance to 47 sub-Saharan countries; and USAID maintains 27 regional and bilateral missions in Africa. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/323198-trumps-suspicion-of-foreign-aid-to-africa-is-right-on-the http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/323198-...
- madiathomas 9y agoBecause West is stealing gazillion times more from Africa in return. When you refuse, war and/or sanctions follow to cripple your country. Then they can loot in peace. You seriously think USA is just helping out of their good hearts?
- eru 9y agoAlas, if only it was even a zero-sum game were eg Africa only loses what the USA steals from them. The reality is far bleaker---but also more hopeful: rich countries don't benefit from (causing) bad conditions in poor countries, at least nearly not as much as the bad conditions cost the poor countries.
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- tomjen3 9y agoWe are going to feed them with part of the work of two million children who will grow up to be farmers, artisans, cooks, bakers, school teachers, doctors, etc. Humans are (on average) a net plus to society. Feeding them is not an issue, we already have the technology.
- ntelson1s 9y agoIt is true that Africa's population is going through massive booms artificially propped up through aid, aid which in direct competition with native agriculture, actually even harming their ability to naturally provide their own means of sustainability. And that's before you even consider impacts of things like the tsetse fly which costs African Ag business BILLIONS. http://www.irinnews.org/news/2009/05/12/tsetse-fly-costs-agriculture-billions-every-year http://www.irinnews.org/news/2009/05/12/tsetse-fly-costs-agr... These things are a potential ticking time bomb if not truly considered in the fullest of their implications. The African population, usually dependent on having as many offspring as possible to offset a low survival rate, is set to bring more people into the world than the entirety of Europe in the next 15 years, with arguably little means to account for their well-being.
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- tptacek 9y agoI don't think you can possibly mean what the black-letter words of your comment say, which is that people should be allowed to die of treatable diseases until such time as the West is convinced of the stability of their food supply.
- someSven 9y agoThis will kill the rainforrest in Africa. Because the survivors will use it for bushmeat, wood, jobs, fields for cows, ...
- dotancohen 9y agoA 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?
- ckarmann 9y agoNo, 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.
- ksangeelee 9y agoNo, saving lives from disease is removing obstacles to their survival.
- tomjen3 9y agoThat is not true, but even if it were: fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children.
- kodfodrasz 9y ago> 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.
- NiklasMort 9y agoObviously 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.
- exhilaration 9y agoIn 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-to-bringing-down-malaria.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/science/a-quiet-approach-...
- jonathanjaeger 9y agoI 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.
- tootie 9y agoThis 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.
- pseudonom- 9y agohttps://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ is substantially about bang for your buck.
- nolepointer 9y agoAnd now they're all coming to Europe. Woo!
- sumedh 9y agoAll of them?
- nolepointer 9y agoProbably. Progress, right?!
- yourapostasy 9y agoLest anyone think to run the headline numbers in the article [1] and think each child was saved at the cost of $2,058.82 USD across 7 years, the study cited in the article only looked at the 0-5 years cohort, and did not examine any other age cohorts. 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))%2F1700000 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(500000000*(2017-2010))... [2] https://www.pmi.gov/about https://www.pmi.gov/about
- hamandcheese 9y agoWe, 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_to_eradicate_mosquitos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_control#Proposals_t...
- oliv__ 9y agoWe, as humans, can't even run our own planet. Forget about mosquitoes.
- melling 9y agoi'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-nets-for-malaria-spawn-new-epidemic-overfishing.html 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/BVtyKWylFkt/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVtyq0flJvL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVtyq0flJvL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVty4K8FjBG/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVty4K8FjBG/ I wish they/we could eliminate the malaria problem.
- miscur 9y ago"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-bed-nets-used-for-fishing-in-perspective/ 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-malaria-foundation/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/post/2015/04/update-against-...
- jstanley 9y ago> 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.
- nl 9y agoIt'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-idUSKBN18J2DC http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-foreign-aid-idU... [2] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/25/529873431/trumps-proposed-budget-would-cut-2-2-billion-from-global-health-spending http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/25/52987343...
- artursapek 9y agoYou're suggesting they would have cut that because it was effective...?