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Predictable negativity from the comments here ignores that over one million people die of malaria per year. Not using what we can against something this horrib
by throwaway13337 7y ago
Predictable negativity from the comments here ignores that over one million people die of malaria per year.
Not using what we can against something this horrible is a choice, too. And one that has the greater of consequences.
It's easy to poke holes in things from the sidelines. That action is actively causing us to drag our feet and kill a lot of people.
It should also be noted that mosquitoes are not depended on as a basis for any known food chain.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoThe article says 400,000 people per year die from Malaria. Regardless, it’s a lot.
- throwaway13337 7y agoMy mistake. It looks like my information is old. https://ourworldindata.org/malaria https://ourworldindata.org/malaria It's gone down a lot recently due, I'm sure, to a lot of effort on this front.
- lkbm 7y agoI pay some attention to malaria rates, partly because I like to donate to the Against Malaria Fund[0], and these charts are fascinating to me because I usually just see the UN charts (the first chart in your link[1]). All the other charts on that page show deaths increasing until 2003, and then dropping. They're using IHME data. Further down, at [2], they discuss why these charts are so different, pointing out that IHME was estimating roughly double the rates as the UN in Nigeria, DRC, and India due to "differences in methodology, data coverage and sourcing". Cool, that's nice. But what happened in 2003 to turn this all around? According to the IHME itself, "One of the biggest forces in the decline in malaria deaths was the advent of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), which provided 40% of development assistance for health targeted toward malaria from 2003 to 2008."[3] So that's neat. It's important for us to keep in mind that while aid often messed up terribly (especially in the late 20th Century), a lot of aid has been working really well for decades now. We figured out, for the most part, how to provide aid without it all going to funding corrupt governments, or destroying local agricultural economies. Here's where I do a quick shill for The Against Malaria Foundation. They're very well-rated by Givewell[4], so if you want to stop malaria, I highly recommend giving them money. :-) [0] https://www.againstmalaria.com/ https://www.againstmalaria.com/ [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-malaria-deaths-by-world-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-malaria-deaths-by-... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/malaria#data-quality-definitions https://ourworldindata.org/malaria#data-quality-definitions [3] http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-malaria-mortality-between-1980-and-2010-systematic-analysis http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-malaria-mo... [4] https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ [5] Also, the mentioned GFATM: https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/ https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/
- learnstats2 7y agoIn the research as described, the mosquito nets they used work more effectively than the proposed solution.
- ghostDancer 7y agoWe have to take into account that with climate change the area where the mosquitoes live will probably be wider affecting more people so extending malaria to bigger populations. IMHO, can be wrong , that we have not made a lot against malaria because till now it affected only poor countries but from now on it will probably arrive to richer ones.
- Udik 7y ago- with climate change the area where the mosquitoes live will probably be wider Malaria used to be widespread in Italy. It was causing 15000 deaths/ year in the 19th century. It's nowhere to be found now thanks to insecticides and soil drainage. So I'm a bit sceptical when I hear that climate change will widen the range of malaria. The range already included the first world, we eradicated it.
- ghostDancer 7y agoI hope so. Obviously I'm not an expert.
- YokoZar 7y agoThe rich countries drained their swamps to end malaria starting in the 19th century. It was one of the first major public works projects.
- keyfl 7y agoWhat exactly is stopping 3rd world countries from doing that?
- zapita 7y agoThird world countries have already financed the draining of European swamps. It’s the wealth stolen in Asia, Africa and America that made those public works projects possible in the first place. The reason former colonies haven’t been able to do the same at home is because their society and economy are permanently crippled by colonization.
- gdy 7y agoIt's worrying that you had to use a throwaway account to write this comment. Something very bad is happening to the freedom of speech.
- ashildr 7y ago- Something has to be done. - This is something. - Therefore it has to be done.
- smilbandit 7y agoit should be noted that only 3 out of ~3,000 mosquito species are responsible for the spread of disease in humans and just 1 transfers malaria.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoThere are others (Aedes aegypti) that spread Dengue and Zika.
- foobiekr 7y agoAre you familiar with the concept of downside risk?
- outside1234 7y agoI think you are missing the point that we risk releasing a fungi that kills billions of us as a result.
- jfoster 7y agoWhat if existing fungi mutate and kill a billion of us? Is it actually likely, or are we just being afraid of taking any action?
- koodiorja 7y agoAreas worst affected by Malaria mostly happen to be the ones also suffering from unsustainable population growth. I'm not sure whether fighting malaria should be the first priority if people potentially saved are likely to end up having miserable lives anyway? If there's any risk that that this might hurt the already harmed biodiversity, then it's clearly not worth it.
- joshypants 7y agoComments like these are completely unacceptable.
- fouric 7y agoHow exactly does the parent comment violate HN guidelines?
- Kliment 7y agoIt is literally advocating killing millions of people "because their lives will be miserable anyway". That's how you get genocides.
- koodiorja 7y agoI'm not advocating killing of anyone, all I'm saying that getting rid of Malaria is not worth it if the damage done to the nature outweigh the humanitarian gains. I believe that environmental degradation is the number one enemy of our specie's survival, nothing else comes even close. Any form activity to improve people's lives that isn't environmentally sustainable is frankly speaking waste of time, someone will eventually suffer the consequences of such actions in the future. Possibility of driving entire species extinct to protect humans definitely doesn't sound sustainable to me. Perhaps "because their lives will be miserable" argument was indeed dumb though. I wouldn't support environmentally unsustainable actions in any highly developed nation either, no matter how many lives it could save on short-term. Long-term we have no hope if environmental factors aren't taken seriously. As far as most African countries goes, reducing birth rate through any humane means possible should be the primary goal, together with building economic growth on renewables rather than fossil fuels. I would imagine that developing environmentally sustainable ways to fight malaria shouldn't be so hard if Western countries actually bothered to properly fund such research. Too bad our priorities are elsewhere, like developing more effective weapons. That's the attitude which actually creates genocide, not the idea of long-term sustainable development which I tried to promote with my comment but clearly failed.