4 ms·

I have a friend who was one of the last few cases in the 60's to get polio. It's something that I wouldn't wish on anyone. So the downside of not spending the

I have a friend who was one of the last few cases in the 60's to get polio. It's something that I wouldn't wish on anyone. So the downside of not spending the effort to eradicate it is that someone's child will get it. I'd hate to think that some Billionaire like Larry Ellison would get to pick another mega yacht, rather than doing this.

StavrosK 7y ago
You're thinking about it the wrong way. Why spend $X saving ten polio children and not the same amount to save a hundred dengue fever (or whatnot) children? At some point, you get diminishing returns, and the amount of lives saved per dollar drops below some other cure's.
- refurb 7y ago
  This is the key. We have limited resources, so any decision is always a trade-off. If you do X it means you can’t do Y. A big killer of children is diarrhea. 800,000 die each year and treating it cheap and preventing it is just access to clean water. You can get a huge bang for your buck by spending money on it.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - refurb 7y ago
    You’d be surprised. Even digging a well (as opposed to surface water) is very possible for not a lot of money. And as a result, an entire community can have access to clean water.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > Even digging a well (as opposed to surface water) is very possible for not a lot of money. > And as a result, an entire community can have access to clean water. Well, no. All communities have water sources. Where digging a well is cheap, the community will have one or more. The problem digging a well solves is that there wasn't enough water. That's not the problem a community with endemic diarrhea has. Their problem is that they're not keeping their water clean. The new well is unlikely to be different.
      - refurb 7y ago
        That’s not entirely true. A well (if deep enough) won’t be contaminated by surface pollution. So a community could significantly benefit from moving from surface water to a well or a shallow well to a deep well. And that’s not to mention other techniques that can create a safer water supply. Many of them are quite cheap.
- fiblye 7y ago
  Because diseases aren’t some static thing that we can keep in a definite state of low infection forever. Letting it exist allows it to evolve. Ten polio children today could easily become ten thousand polio children tomorrow. We know we can eliminate it, which is more than we can say for most diseases. Pumping cash into other disease treatments doesn’t have that same guarantee.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > Letting it exist allows it to evolve. Ten polio children today could easily become ten thousand polio children tomorrow. I know nothing about polio, but is this demonstrably true, is polio seen to be mutating, and it is considered a real risk by scientists that a strain could emerge that is invulnerable to vaccines?
    - mikeyouse 7y ago
      Polio can definitely mutate to forms resistant to the vaccine. An outbreak in the Congo in 2010 resulted in 450 infections with a nearly 50% mortality rate. When scientists tested the strain on samples, they estimated that ~20+% of the population would still be susceptible in a fully vaccinated group. Not good.. https://en.ird.fr/the-media-centre/scientific-newssheets/464-a-vaccine-resistant-polio-strain-discovered https://en.ird.fr/the-media-centre/scientific-newssheets/464...
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Does your point change the economics of lives saved per dollar?
yostrovs 7y ago
Ellison will buy another yacht regardless of polio eradication status. He'll either want the yacht or want to be charitable. And if polio is gone, he can fight malaria, dengue,etc.

StavrosK 7y ago

You're thinking about it the wrong way. Why spend $X saving ten polio children and not the same amount to save a hundred dengue fever (or whatnot) children? At some point, you get diminishing returns, and the amount of lives saved per dollar drops below some other cure's.

refurb 7y ago
This is the key. We have limited resources, so any decision is always a trade-off. If you do X it means you can’t do Y. A big killer of children is diarrhea. 800,000 die each year and treating it cheap and preventing it is just access to clean water. You can get a huge bang for your buck by spending money on it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 7y ago
  You’d be surprised. Even digging a well (as opposed to surface water) is very possible for not a lot of money. And as a result, an entire community can have access to clean water.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > Even digging a well (as opposed to surface water) is very possible for not a lot of money. > And as a result, an entire community can have access to clean water. Well, no. All communities have water sources. Where digging a well is cheap, the community will have one or more. The problem digging a well solves is that there wasn't enough water. That's not the problem a community with endemic diarrhea has. Their problem is that they're not keeping their water clean. The new well is unlikely to be different.
    - refurb 7y ago
      That’s not entirely true. A well (if deep enough) won’t be contaminated by surface pollution. So a community could significantly benefit from moving from surface water to a well or a shallow well to a deep well. And that’s not to mention other techniques that can create a safer water supply. Many of them are quite cheap.
fiblye 7y ago
Because diseases aren’t some static thing that we can keep in a definite state of low infection forever. Letting it exist allows it to evolve. Ten polio children today could easily become ten thousand polio children tomorrow. We know we can eliminate it, which is more than we can say for most diseases. Pumping cash into other disease treatments doesn’t have that same guarantee.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > Letting it exist allows it to evolve. Ten polio children today could easily become ten thousand polio children tomorrow. I know nothing about polio, but is this demonstrably true, is polio seen to be mutating, and it is considered a real risk by scientists that a strain could emerge that is invulnerable to vaccines?
  - mikeyouse 7y ago
    Polio can definitely mutate to forms resistant to the vaccine. An outbreak in the Congo in 2010 resulted in 450 infections with a nearly 50% mortality rate. When scientists tested the strain on samples, they estimated that ~20+% of the population would still be susceptible in a fully vaccinated group. Not good.. https://en.ird.fr/the-media-centre/scientific-newssheets/464-a-vaccine-resistant-polio-strain-discovered https://en.ird.fr/the-media-centre/scientific-newssheets/464...
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Does your point change the economics of lives saved per dollar?

yostrovs 7y ago

Ellison will buy another yacht regardless of polio eradication status. He'll either want the yacht or want to be charitable. And if polio is gone, he can fight malaria, dengue,etc.