Bill Gates and Africa

[andyfox]

There's a good article in the October 24th edition of the New Yorker about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and what the Foundation is trying to do to fight disease in Africa. The following quotation from the article reminded me of David's threads about helping (or not helping) people in Africa. [I made a long post in the Politics thread detailing some of the things the Foundation has done and the incredible amounts of money it is devoting to its causes.]

"It just blows my mind how little money has been spent on malaria research. What has prevented the rich world from attempting this? I jsut keep asking myself, Do we really not care becasue it doesnt' affect us? Is that what it is?"

I assume David would say, yes, that's exactly what it is.

[Zygote]

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"...do we really not care becasue it doesnt' affect us? Is that what it is?"

I assume David would say, yes, that's exactly what it is.

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I would say that's exactly what it is as well. Also, one can justifiably not care and is by no means obligated to care/help.

[Jim T]

It's beyond benign neglect. Policies followed by many Western people and governments have directly lead to incredible human suffering and death in Africa. And the consequences of these policies were (and are) obvious. These policies are, by and large, still ongoing.

How about the environmental lobby which has caused the deaths of millions of Africans due to their efforts to ban DDT? How about the attempts to restrict genetically engineered crops - the "green revolution"? There are other examples.

Sending money or food is just a stopgap, and may very well do more harm than good in the long run. It props up corrupt regimes, who steal most of it anyway. It can also cut the legs out from under the local farmers. If donated food actually DOES manage to get distributed, who's going to buy the local product when they can get the foreign aid for free?

[DougShrapnel]

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"It just blows my mind how little money has been spent on malaria research. What has prevented the rich world from attempting this? I jsut keep asking myself, Do we really not care becasue it doesnt' affect us? Is that what it is?"


[/ QUOTE ]This is a lie. There is zero chance that Bill Gates doesn't understand that there is no money involved in malaria research. Who does he think is to do this malaria research, anyone qualified to do such has huge students debts to pay off. It's not that people don't care, it's that most people care much more about other things. And those that do care about africa haven't the skills to research malaria, the money to do so, or aren't close enough to get much positive reinforcement to continue to do so.

The richest man in the world making such statements is insulting, not to me, and not to the intended rich, but to his own character, and intelligence.

[scrub]

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Who does he think is to do this malaria research, anyone qualified to do such has huge students debts to pay off.

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Don't know anything about how research science works, huh?

scrub

[chezlaw]

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"It just blows my mind how little money has been spent on malaria research. What has prevented the rich world from attempting this? I jsut keep asking myself, Do we really not care becasue it doesnt' affect us? Is that what it is?"


[/ QUOTE ]This is a lie. There is zero chance that Bill Gates doesn't understand that there is no money involved in malaria research. Who does he think is to do this malaria research, anyone qualified to do such has huge students debts to pay off. It's not that people don't care, it's that most people care much more about other things. And those that do care about africa haven't the skills to research malaria, the money to do so, or aren't close enough to get much positive reinforcement to continue to do so.

The richest man in the world making such statements is insulting, not to me, and not to the intended rich, but to his own character, and intelligence.

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I see it very differently. Many scientists care and would love to work on problems like this. Its not that they neccasarily care more about other things but the system puts them in a position where they have little choice but to work in areas that offer short term rewards.

10 years ago I could have been superior about how much better it was in the uk where universities/students worked on problems that they felt most important. Sadly since then we've gone down the student loan/big business route.

Bill Gates may be guilty of a bit of exaggeration but I think his dead right.

chez

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How about the environmental lobby which has caused the deaths of millions of Africans due to their efforts to ban DDT?

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So, a company in the US makes DDT when there was no DDT before. The environmental lobby convinces US govt to stop this production. So then, this lobby has just murdered millions of Africans who relied on a product that wasn't developed by them, wasn't produced by them, and wasn't banned by them?

Nice logic.

[A_C_Slater]

Even if a cure for Malaria was found and sent to Africa it would only fall into the hands of local warlords, thus increasing their power. And the warlord's ain't gonna give out the vaccine for free.

No help can be given to anyone there until they all have stable governments.

[DougShrapnel]

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Who does he think is to do this malaria research, anyone qualified to do such has huge students debts to pay off.

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Don't know anything about how research science works, huh?

scrub

[/ QUOTE ]All I know, is I have a 4 hour erection. I'm sure the money spent on ED makes Bills donation look like paultry.

Please explain to me what I'm missing about research science, in regards to malaria.

[andyfox]

Pharmaceutical companies, like any business, concentrate on creating products that people will buy. There is almost no financial incentive to make a vaccine for malaria; the West doesn't need it. African children don't lobby Congress; they have no money, and neither do the countries they live in.

[andyfox]

"No help can be given to anyone there until they all have stable governments."

Yes, bad government hurts. But Gates gave a big chunk of money to the U.N.'s Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization, and 42,000,000 million children were vaccinated agaisnt hepatitis B. The Gates foundation has the power of a government without actually being bound by a nation's political or economic constraints.

[DougShrapnel]

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Pharmaceutical companies, like any business, concentrate on creating products that people will buy. There is almost no financial incentive to make a vaccine for malaria; the West doesn't need it. African children don't lobby Congress; they have no money, and neither do the countries they live in.

[/ QUOTE ]Well stated. Am I to believe that bill was shocked by the lack of malaria research? I just don't see how Bill could be shocked by the lack of research.

Even if someone where to cure malaria, how much of a quality of life improvement would be made. There are many injustices in the world, is malaria research the best way to go about fixing the injustices in africa? Poverty is the problem in Africa not malaria.

An interesting note is that sickle cell anemia can help to make someone immune to malaria.

[gumpzilla]

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An interesting note is that sickle cell anemia can help to make someone immune to malaria.

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I'm not sure this is quite right. The way I had understood it was that sickle cell anemia is caused by having two copies of the recessive allele for the disease; a single copy provides malaria resistance. So you don't actually need the disease, or at least that's my understanding; I'm too lazy to Google it in this case, because where's the fun in that?

[DougShrapnel]

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An interesting note is that sickle cell anemia can help to make someone immune to malaria.

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I'm not sure this is quite right. The way I had understood it was that sickle cell anemia is caused by having two copies of the recessive allele for the disease; a single copy provides malaria resistance. So you don't actually need the disease, or at least that's my understanding; I'm too lazy to Google it in this case, because where's the fun in that?

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, that's how I understand it as well.