U.S. Malaria Donations Saved Almost 2M African Children

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/health/us-foreign-aid-malaria.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=6&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F26%2Fhealth%2Fus-foreign-aid-malaria.html&eventName=Watching-article-click

by robertwiblin • 9 years ago

99 36 9 years ago

nytimes.com

melling• 9 years ago

i'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-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/BVtyq0flJvL/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVty4K8FjBG/

I wish they/we could eliminate the malaria problem.

jstanley• 9 years 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.

alain_gilbert• 9 years ago

I'll save you the reading:

- Mosquito nets have much smaller holes than normal fishing nets, so they trap almost all living organism, which is bad.

- The nets are treated with toxic chemicals which kills the fish in the ponds/rivers, and might be dangerous for humans who drink the water.

I would say it's bad.

dguo• 9 years ago

According to the article, the main problem is an unclear environmental impact. Those nets are treated with insecticides, which are washed into the water when used for fishing. They also have much smaller holes than actual fishing nets, which leads to potential overfishing (because fish can be caught before adulthood).

miscur• 9 years 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-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-...

nl2• 9 years ago

It'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-idU...

[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/25/52987343...

artursapek• 9 years ago

You're suggesting they would have cut that because it was effective...?

rfrey• 9 years ago

I think the suggestion is that cuts are largely determined by the regime that instituted the program, independent of effectiveness.

someSven2• 9 years ago

This will kill the rainforrest in Africa. Because the survivors will use it for bushmeat, wood, jobs, fields for cows, ...

dotancohen• 9 years ago

A 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• 9 years ago

No, 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• 9 years ago

No, saving lives from disease is removing obstacles to their survival.

tomjen3• 9 years ago

That is not true, but even if it were: fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children.

kodfodrasz• 9 years 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.

NiklasMort2• 9 years ago

Obviously 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.

madiathomas• 9 years ago

Ignorance on this comment is on another level. Please find some time and visit Africa. Stop learning about Africa from charity organisations who want to swindle you of your hard-earned cash. Obviously they will portray a bleak picture so that you can donate. We don't live in bushes. We have cities and some of us have a better quality of life than most people in the Western countries.

someSven2• 9 years ago

Where did you get the idea about what I know and what I don't know about Africa? Is Malaria really mainly a problem for the city dwellers with high living standards? Brasil is destroying their rain forrest. And one reason why they can is because they don't have the same problem with Malaria.

exhilaration• 9 years ago

In 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-...

jonathanjaeger• 9 years ago

I 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• 9 years ago

This 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-• 9 years ago

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ is substantially about bang for your buck.

nolepointer2• 9 years ago

And now they're all coming to Europe. Woo!

sumedh• 9 years ago

All of them?

nolepointer2• 9 years ago

Probably. Progress, right?!

yourapostasy• 9 years ago

Lest 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))...

[2] https://www.pmi.gov/about

hamandcheese• 9 years ago

We, 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_t...

oliv__• 9 years ago

We, as humans, can't even run our own planet. Forget about mosquitoes.

U.S. Malaria Donations Saved Almost 2M African Children

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