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It's probably shipping $20,000 of iodized salt to the developing world: Iodine deficiency is a leading cause of preventable mental impairment, as iodine is a m
by z3ugma 11y ago
It's probably shipping $20,000 of iodized salt to the developing world:
Iodine deficiency is a leading cause of preventable mental impairment, as iodine is a micronutrient crucial to brain development. An estimated 2 billion people-- almost a third of the earth’s population--have low iodine intake and are at risk for suffering from the complications of iodine deficiency.
Eradication of iodine deficiency is highly cost-effective— worldwide, the cost of salt iodization per year is estimated at $0.02-0.05 per child covered, and the cost per child's death averted is $1000 and per disability-adjusted life year gained is $34-36.
- 77ko 11y agoWhat about delivery? Without a delivery mechanism to those who need it this would be a well meaning but not very useful.
- knodi123 11y agohaha, well I think that was implied. It's not as if you can literally write "the developing world" on a shipping label and just pour in a ton of morton's. I agree that the advice given is overly vague. GP should list an actionable way to to give iodized salt.
- jqm 11y agoHow about just sending the iodine and let them iodize their existing salt supplies?
- knodi123 11y agoflaws: 1. same 'who do I write on the shipping label' concern 2. assumes a sufficient existing salt supply (perhaps these people already needed salt, so this aid healed two birds with one bandaid) 3. assumes knowledge about proper iodization (ratios, sanitation, etc)
- aaron695 11y ago> What about delivery? Without a delivery mechanism to those who need it this would be a well meaning but not very useful. It doesn't, which is why it's a really bad idea, there exist charities that can deliver it already just give them the money. Even if you could get it to people they possibly won't use it without the complex knowledge of local issues. Similar - http://www.luckyironfish.com/ http://www.luckyironfish.com/
- BenjaminTodd 11y agoI agree micronutrients are a very promising intervention, along with some other cheap, proven health interventions like malaria nets (I mention Against Malaria Foundation in the post). Here's a list: http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/2012-version http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/201... You also need to find a competent group to implement the intervention. That's basically what the charity evaluators GiveWell and Giving What We Can do. Here's a promising group specialising in micronutrient supplementation in particular: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/top-charities/project-healthy-children https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/top-charities/project-health...
- mwsherman 11y agoYup. Now, logistically, how hard is this? It seems promising. Let’s assume to do this we’d want to dedicate at least one person full-time to this. There’s the sourcing of the iodized salt, determining how one ships such a thing (presumably overseas), and to what specific place it should go. I assume there’s customs to get the shipment across. Then, once it’s there, how it should be distributed. Phew, that’s sounds like more than one person’s worth of work, and that’s just the first shipment. We need to repeat the process – including raising more funds. I assume this person that’s hired is desirable for their logistical skills. Let’s imagine they already have money in the bank, and so will work for less than the market would otherwise pay them. How about $60K/year? Add supplies, taxes and benefits to that, I can see $100K per year for this rare value of an employee. How far did our $20K go? Not very. Everyone is skilled and honest and working hard, but we find that $20K doesn’t supply $20K of iodized salt to people in need. In fact, it mostly went to the salary of the skilled Westerner who is our organization. Now we see why people create charities, but also why it’s hard for charities to meet their mission even when things like malaria netting are cheap. To be clear, this is not cynicism. It’s just that if it were a simply problem of multiplying dollars times cheap-but-effective product, it would already be solved.
- Retric 11y agoShipping salt is less effective than adding iodine to salt that's already being shipped. Paying someone to make these connections is expensive, but directly lowers costs over just shipping iodized salt. In the end you might average spending 50:50 on manpower vs materials but get 10x value in iodized salt shipped vs cost of said salt. http://www.saltinstitute.org/news-articles/iodized-salt/ http://www.saltinstitute.org/news-articles/iodized-salt/
- alphakappa 11y agoDepending on where in the developing world this is, it might be more helpful to buy the salt locally than to ship it from outside.
- nnain 11y agoDon't take this wrongly, but this suggestion seemingly has cognitive bias; you're too focused on one issue. Even if you're really concerned about this particular issue, than helping the existing production/Logistics chain of salt manufacturing to add Iodine is a better spend than shipping $20,000 worth of iodized salt.