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

nytimes.com

61–70 of 85 posts

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

#61
post #28
post #10

Now the devil's question: how are we going to feed all the people that survive because of this? Really, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that lives are being saved. The amount of grief being spared by this, by not losing a child for so many families, is unimaginable. I am just wondering if we are not creating an even bigger problem by solving this problem before the other.

What's with the downvotes? The question is asked in good faith and it produced an interesting discussion. Would y'all prefer for the author to remain silent with his thoughts, and for the opposing arguments to remain untold?

It's pretty uninvestigated, as are many responses, I'm not sure what was gained by asking whether people who intend to have children can feed them in a coy manner. I read the first bit as feigning a doubt as to whether expecting parents would be better off with dead children (even with the following disclaimer)

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

#62
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

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

#63
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why must Africa receive millions in aid from the West every single year? Why can't they help themselves? http://www.chronicle.co.zw/one-million-receive-food-aid In 2015, the U.S. provided more than $8 billion in assistance to 47 sub-Saharan countries; and USAID maintains 27 regional and bilateral missions in Africa. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/323198-...

Wait til you hear how much Israel gets alone. Aid isn't a no-strings attached handout, it's policy in dollar units.

To Israel it's military spending.

https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/ISR

It's not a secret.

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

#64
post #10

Now the devil's question: how are we going to feed all the people that survive because of this? Really, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that lives are being saved. The amount of grief being spared by this, by not losing a child for so many families, is unimaginable. I am just wondering if we are not creating an even bigger problem by solving this problem before the other.

[deleted]

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

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why must Africa receive millions in aid from the West every single year? Why can't they help themselves? http://www.chronicle.co.zw/one-million-receive-food-aid In 2015, the U.S. provided more than $8 billion in assistance to 47 sub-Saharan countries; and USAID maintains 27 regional and bilateral missions in Africa. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/323198-...

Because West is stealing gazillion times more from Africa in return. When you refuse, war and/or sanctions follow to cripple your country. Then they can loot in peace. You seriously think USA is just helping out of their good hearts?

Alas, if only it was even a zero-sum game were eg Africa only loses what the USA steals from them.

The reality is far bleaker---but also more hopeful: rich countries don't benefit from (causing) bad conditions in poor countries, at least nearly not as much as the bad conditions cost the poor countries.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why must Africa receive millions in aid from the West every single year? Why can't they help themselves? http://www.chronicle.co.zw/one-million-receive-food-aid In 2015, the U.S. provided more than $8 billion in assistance to 47 sub-Saharan countries; and USAID maintains 27 regional and bilateral missions in Africa. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/323198-...

USAID "assistance" to Africa and other countries is more of a gimme to the US big agriculture lobby than to Africa. The US pays big agriculture to send food and agriculture equipment to Africa and other countries. The temporary food abundance often destroys the country's ability to build up its agriculture. Also, it comes with strings attached where the country has to use patented seeds in order to get the aid, makin…

Majority is truly just that, benevolent aid. You want to spin some tall tales conspiracy then let's see some citation on the matter.

http://www.care.org/our-impact/usaid-technical-project-brief...

Sure American companies benefit, sure there's some fraud, sure some of it is a foreign policy decision in the US best interests. But a lot of good is done.

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

#67
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

Please take family planning into account: empirically parents aim for a specific number of offspring. Infant mortality does not usually change that target much, but it changes how many pregnancies are needed to reach it.

Thus: two million children saved, is two million pregnancies less. (To a first order approximation. As people get richer, all kinds of things change over time.) You are right in some sense: people are replaceable, and they will be replaced. But at a cost in resources and of course emotions.

Even if you only cared about the rainforest, and not about people at all, the smaller ecological footprint should warm your heart.

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

#69

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...

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

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

#70
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please take family planning into account: empirically parents aim for a specific number of offspring. Infant mortality does not usually change that target much, but it changes how many pregnancies are needed to reach it. Thus: two million children saved, is two million pregnancies less. (To a first order approximation. As people get richer, all kinds of things change over time.) You are right in some sense: people ar…

>> parents aim for a specific number of offspring

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...

"women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11."

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