I think it probably has a number of factors, none of which excuse us on a whole for allowing these diseases to earn the adjective "neglected". But it's not har

I think it probably has a number of factors, none of which excuse us on a whole for allowing these diseases to earn the adjective "neglected". But it's not hard for me to imagine that many of the people working on this would like to eliminate malaria today for reasons which are at least partially altruistic. It could be that we've reached a point where the economics, social factors and technology of the present day mean that people have identified that CRISPR provides a more efficient and effective means of relieving the issue than anything we've tried (and people have) before, and in my eyes the fact that this method would use CRISPR instead of spraying and widely-distributed pesticide-coated nets, for example, doesn't make it morally or environmentally worse in any definite way which doesn't need constant reassessment as our technology and understanding improves. Besides all of that though, and you touched on it in your first comment, it's just not particularly valuable for us to sit and criticize ourselves for not doing better in the past when faced with new technologies which may help us start to make up for our mistakes.