Ready for a war we can win? Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times reported on former President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to combat river blindness in Ethopia (a video is on the Times’ Web site). The disease affects 17.7 million people worldwide and is caused by a microscopic worm transmitted to humans by small black flies that live near fast-moving streams. It causes unbearable itching and eye lesions. Usually, a once-a-year dose of an inexpensive drug called Ivermectin is adequate to prevent the disease.
Millions of people’s lives can be greatly improved, peaceably, at relatively low cost. Doing more to fight this war could do much to improve the U.S. image around the world.
Posted by Patrice Hein
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30 Comments
River blindness has been the subject of many grants, etc. by Lions Club International, and I believe is a project of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The main thing, I believe, our government can do here is to facilitate the transmission of the aid, then get out of the way.
Ivermectin – very widely used as a ‘wormicide’ and so is inexpensive. Sounds like the real key is getting it to people.
Not real surprised about Lions – they have a ‘thing’ about eyesight. :)
Isn’t this another example of Nanny-government? Shouldn’t we allow market forces to correct this problem? If there is money in Ethopians seeing, they will…
Editors?
The 1:50 post is obviously troll based. You know what to do.
I would refrain from calling for editorial censoring of trolls, unless you, JR, would like your uninformed posts stricken as well.
As long as an equal amount of funding is available to fund research on macular degeneration right here at home, I’m all for it.
Wow talk about disgusting. Yes, by all means get this drug out to the people.
I always find it interesting how it makes us so angry when a child is left at home alone for 10 minutes causes such an uproar here, but if the child is living abroad, they can starve, be beaten, raped, mutilated, diseased to death and hey, that’s ok!
PMom: Are you saying we can’t have both? And if one of them has to suffer financially, we should take it on the chin here at home first?
Good for Jimmy.If you want to conquer the world,this is the way you do it.This would be one of the best investments ever made.We’ve tried investing in wars.Ya’ see how that’s working for us.
I do agree we should take care of our own first.
That’s my only point.
I agree,everybody here in the USA with river blindness should be treated first.
I think the Prez needs to be treated for “reality blindness” ASAP!
Good on President Carter for ANOTHER humanitarian effort.
It is STUNNING to me when I hear of these simple yet devastating diseases that remain untreated in the modern world. The cost over runs on ONE defense project could probably address them all.
“Doing more to fight this war could do much to improve the U.S. image around the world.”
Don’t bet on it. We are already giving zillions to fight AIDs is Africa and we can’t even get our own Democrats to give Bush any credit, much less the world.
“The cost over runs on ONE defense project could probably address them all.”
If we aren’t defended, what would it matter?
Carter is just looking for some weird disease so he can get a pat on the back. Maybe he should go to Europe and ask all those countries to contribute to the black fly disease cure funds. You watch everyone will blame the US if they don’t do anything or just do a partial money. When are the Africa nations going to stand on their hind legs and solve their own problems? They got a zillion natural resources and all they do is have their hand out because they can’t get along and kill each other.
Roscoe — that sounds vaguley familiar — we should let the Iraqi’s and Israeli’s fend for themselves too .
2 posts 8 minutes apart using the unusual and juvenile word “zillions”?
Either BDP fleet likes to pretend he’s two people…
….or he just found someone of his intellectual depth to befriend.
bush ok’d 500 million dollars for Afican AIDS assisstance.
The Iraq quagmire is costing 3 times that….per week.
Lot of people use zillion J R , you numbskull. You are so paranoid I bet you check the toliet for snakes every time you sit down to pee!
Improved image? We don’t need no stinking improved image.
Zillions Zillions Zillions
It is a total lost of human priorities to allow suffering when it cost less then one highway project to correct.No matter where the human beings are, a good start is here in the U.S. then solve it through out the world.And yes to improve our image aboard would help our cause, the first way to lose support in a cause is for those involved to come to the believe that we do not care about them. If the majority in Iraq actually believed we were there for their benefit and not for their oil. How much aid could the insurgency find from the general populous?
Fleet, a strong defend is needed, but cost over runs is just thinking that being a Government contractor give them a license to gouged. I met someone that was involved in the construction of a missile silo. The company was paying the workers around seven dollars an hour. But billing the Government for the workers at a rate of twenty dollars an hour on paper. Remember the fifteen hundred dollar hammers? The same hammer that could be bought for eight dollars at any hardware store. Are you saying that cost over runs are right? acceptable use of your tax dollars?
I thought he last called for war on Israel…maybe that was a different book.
What happened to Golden Rice?
I wonder if folks that live near the Arkansas River suffer from blindness too. I think this is possible since they keep electing the same dumb Republicans and expecting different results!
No mrbill – that was just a hallucinaion on your part. Put down the crack pipe.
well, as an incentive I guess that each ethiopian that is cured can be required to perform duties abroad for American Oil Companies for a period of 2 years at very little pay.
An aside, how many zeros does a zillion have? :)http://mistupid.com/math/bignumbers.htm
“The disease affects 17.7 million people worldwide; a once-a-year dose of an inexpensive drug called Ivermectin is adequate to prevent the disease.”
Hence the word “Worldwide”, Ethiopia is not the only place that this disease occurs at.
“Millions of people’s lives can be greatly improved, peaceably, at relatively low cost.”
Hence the word “relatively low cost”, how many times in your daily life that something so simple and low cost could prevent something that can cost you a great deal of money and/or grievances if you procrastinate?
“Doing more to fight this war could do much to improve the U.S. image around the world.”
I am not too sure about that, as we have been doing that for decades.We win some and we lose some, the ideology does not always have a positive influence in foreign relationships, but it is by far the best that we can hope for and so far no one else is coming up with anything better.