TED2009: Bill Gates on eradicating malaria
I'm here in Long Beach, CA, at TED2009, a wonderful gathering of people sharing extraordinary ideas. Bill Gates is speaking.
He's applying his awesome brain power and sizable foundation funding to eradicating childhood disease and improving education. He and his foundation are studying malaria. 200 million people are suffering from it, but more money is put into baldness drugs than malaria. Obviously, that's because malaria affects poor people.
He's funny! Releases mosquitoes into auditorium: "No reason poor people are the the only ones who should experience it."
He says half-hearted attempts to remove malaria makes problem worse. We need to totally focus in local areas to eradicate it from area.
Road map to eradicating malaria involves many things -- communicators to keep funding high, social scientists to get 90% of people to use bed nets, and scientists, drug companies, and government aid. "As the elements come together I'm quite optimistic we will be able to eradicate malaria."
He's also studying education. He says, if you are low income in the United States, you have a better chance of going to jail than graduating from a four year college.
Now he's talking about economy with TED producer Chris Anderson. "No doubt you've got 3-4 years here that are going to be very tough, we'll get past it." Because of innovation. "I hope aid for poorest doesn't get cut, but now that we have a broader constituency I don't think that's going to happen this time."
Read Bill Gates' annual letter here.
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Three simple letters:
DDT.
#1 - you know it's effective if it poisons plants and people, too! Lucky it's only classified as "moderately toxic" to humans.
Is there a way to use DDT that doesn't cause more harm than good?
If it's kept on nets under which people sleep, yeah- DDT can do good. Unfortunately, this then turns into people using the nets for fishing, contaminating the water.
The big problem with DDT is that it doesn't have the knockdown power it used to. There is virtually unlimited capacity for manufacturing it in Mexico, China, and India, but skeeters form resistance- and fast. Resistance was first documented in 1959, and about 1/3 of mosquitoes in India are now resistant to the compound.
DDT is one of those issues that make conservative cranks glow in the dark.
Like mercury pollution. Coal fired power plants can churn out all the mercury they want. Suggest people use compact florescent bulbs, and suddenly there's this contingent of people who never gave a god damn about any environmental toxin issue in their lives come out of the woodwork. (We've had big florescent tube-bulbs in our workplaces, shops, basements and garages for five or six decades . . . have conservatives ever worried about their proper disposal?)
So when conservatives suddenly give a freaking damn about a health issue in the Third World and get into self-righteous apoplectic fits about the DDT ban . . .
. . . please pardon me if I suspect they're all a bunch of useful idiots parroting gossip planted by Dow Chemical.
No, Mark. Insects rapidly develop DDT immunity, so effectiveness drops off pretty quickly.
I am allergic to mosquito venom, and so is one of my children, so I would be very displeased with Mr. Gates' little stunt.
cracking mandorla, bill.
DDT hurtz da burdz
I know this sounds first-world elitist, but I fear for my planet if there is nothing keeping people from occupying the lowlands of Africa and Asia. If it weren't for Malaria, parts of this planet that we depend upon for biodiversity, oxygen production, and all the other products of wilderness would instead be producing humans. I wish there was a disease that kept Americans out of the Sun Belt and away from the coast lines, and if there was I wouldn't want Bill Gates fixing that either. Beware the chain of unintended consequences.
Of course, peak oil is coming and the point is soon going to be moot, but we should think, people, think.
#6, Indeed. I recall a cranky screed from some fellow in Australia (posting on a libertarian website) about the Aussie govt. plans to phase out all incandescent bulbs in the country (save for the obvious incandescent only uses, like inside the oven) over to CF bulbs to conserve energy and reduce the amount of waste that would up in landfills.
Well! You would have thought (from this moron's screed) that the government was forcing him to gay marry a kangaroo! "My rights!" this and "How dare they!" that.
It was all about him and his rights and not one jot or tittle about the rest of the country and the long view. The selfish boob just couldn't comprehend that Australia switching to CF from incandescent would save immense amounts of oil, helping to keep imported oil costs down, saving him money at the gas pump, and save the citizens a LOT of money in reduced electric bills and outlay for bulbs. Nope. Damned Socialists telling him what to do and he was against it.
In other words, a typical libertarian childish tantrum.
@ Victorvodka #10:
Don't worry, there's always AIDS to decimate those places.
Of course if you are really concerned about overpopulation you should try to help lift the world's poor OUT of disease and poverty since birth rates are so much lower in elitist first-world countries.
Victorvodka: No need to worry about the planet. If malaria is the only thing keeping the planet habitable for humans, then once we eradicate it we'll all die off and things will go back to the way they were. Or they'll seek a different equilibrium that's no less harmonious.
On the geologic timescale, we're really only a blip; the worst we can do is eradicate ourselves.
Why does Bill have a glorious halo?
Ernunnos:
Years of CRT radiation.
#10: I'm glad someone is considering the population cost.
#12: Does it really seem likely that we'll be able to lift the entire human race out of poverty before we make the planet nightmarishly crowded and picked clean?
#13: I'd really prefer we killed ourselves off later, rather than sooner, though.
Can malaria really be eradicated? If education, nets, and drugs can keep humans from catching malaria, will the mosquito population continue to carry the disease forever? Will people eventually be able to throw off their mosquito nets?
@ Brianary #16:
Bringing people out of poverty is the best way to AVOID making the planet nightmarishly crowded (unless you're a fan of forced sterilization or genocide, anyway).
When women have options in life other than full-time motherhood they tend to have fewer children. This has been borne out in worldwide population growth rates.
#18: The trick is bringing them out of poverty w/o out turning 3/4 of the biomass of the planet into corn, humans, cows, and chickens.
@Victorvodka: Without malaria keeping them in check, the damned poor people might wreck your bioversity! Don't worry, you don't sound elitist. You sound sociopathic.
Reminds me of some great lyrics by Bad Religion: "I don't need to be a global citizen/Because I blessed by nationality." - From "American Jesus"
Anyone else notice the startling lack of compassion seen in some of the comment threads here on BB? The trend seems to be getting worse.
I keep telling myself it is because these trying times. But, people, during a crisis is precisely when we need to help each other.
#18: The key word there is "before". There is a race condition built in.
#20: So, there's no *pragmatic* or *rational* need to pay any attention to overpopulation? This concern isn't *against* a cure, just for considering how we'll reduce the birthrate as the death rate slows, before we're swimming in people. Also, can you provide more examples of comments lacking compassion, or are you overgeneralizing?
@#17 / coldspell: Humans are the "sinks" or resevoirs for malaria. When we wipe it out in humans, we wipe it out period.
Much like with polio :)
Insects rapidly develop DDT immunity, so effectiveness drops off pretty quickly.
I am allergic to mosquito venom, and so is one of my children, so I would be very displeased with Mr. Gates' little stunt.
Just to clarify, Ito: Gates isn't advocating the use of DDT.
Just to clarify, Ito: Gates isn't advocating the use of DDT.
Just to clarify, Spazzm: I think she is referring to the part about releasing mosquitoes into the auditorium.
interesting. the first thing that came to my mind was "12 monkeys". here is mr gates releasing a potential biological threat against what is arguably the most prestigious gathering of innovative thinkers in the world.
now i doubt the mosquitoes were actually malaria flavored. but if so - wouldn't this be considered an act of biological terrorism? where was homeland security?
an even as a graphic demonstration isn't this the biological equivalent prank of crying "fire" in a crowded room?
gates is a good guy
RationalPragmatist "Anyone else notice the startling lack of compassion seen in some of the comment threads here on BB? The trend seems to be getting worse."
Remember that in any population, some people will be jerks. Even here. Jerks are our mine canaries. When their asshattery stops, you know that the podpeople have taken over.
No DDT. Joni Mitchell said it long ago:
"Hey farmer farmer
Put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!"
I think she is referring to the part about releasing mosquitoes into the auditorium.
Ah.
*slaps forehead*
Isn't it ironic that Gates is helping fight a disease spread by bugs? And then you have Windows which is still so buggy?
@26
Fantastic contribution!
--
In regards to #10 posted by victorvodka. Whilst I find this post utterly disgusting I do think some of the responses haven't made too much sense.
I think if you bring a population out of poverty then disease will follow suite. However I think if bring the population out of disease, poverty will remain and instead they will die of starvation (or some other disease).
Eradicating disease will not eradicate poverty and therefore population control will become an issue.
Just to clarify: Plasmodium sp. (the parasite which causes Malaria) needs to live in two hosts during its life cycle: mosquito and a mammal (and some have adapted to humans). If you can keep either host from getting infected for a few years (either by killing off the mosquitos, destroying their habitats or protecting people by bed-nets), it should lead to a great reduction in number of new malaria cases. This is exactly what happened in Sri Lanka in the 1960s - the number of new cases was reduced from several hundred thousand - to less then a 100. However, use was discontinued, and the mosquito population bounced back, usually with some form of resistance to DDT.
@victorvodka:
As for the rather strange and short-sighted overpopulation comments - malaria generally doesn't kill people very quickly (apart from children, pregnant women or otherwise immunocompromised individuals). Of about half a billion cases, malaria actually kills 'only' a few million every year. The people who suffer from it represent a major economic burden, much more so than if they were healthy. If overpopulation and limited resources have you so worried, I suggest trying to cure Malaria is more helpful than advocating letting Africans suffer and die.