DAVOS, Switzerland -- Bill and Melinda Gates announced today that their foundation will commit $10 billion over the next 10 years to help research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poorest countries. The Gateses said that increased investment in vaccines by governments and the private sector could help developing countries dramatically reduce child mortality by the end of the decade, and they called for others to help fill critical financing gaps in both research funding and childhood immunization programs.
“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” said Bill Gates. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”
Bill and Melinda Gates made their announcement at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting, where they were joined by Julian Lob-Levyt, CEO of the GAVI Alliance.
“Vaccines are a miracle—with just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime,” said Melinda Gates. “We’ve made vaccines our number-one priority at the Gates Foundation because we’ve seen firsthand their incredible impact on children’s lives.”
The foundation used a model developed by a consortium led by the Institute of International Programs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to project the potential impact of vaccines on childhood deaths over the next 10 years.
By significantly scaling up the delivery of life-saving vaccines in developing countries to 90 percent coverage—including new vaccines to prevent severe diarrhea and pneumonia—the model suggests that we could prevent the deaths of some 7.6 million children under 5 from 2010-2019. The foundation also estimates that an additional 1.1 million children could be saved with the rapid introduction of a malaria vaccine beginning in 2014, bringing the total number of potential lives saved to 8.7 million.
If additional vaccines are developed and introduced in this decade—such as for tuberculosis—even more lives could be saved. The new funding announced today is in addition to the $4.5 billion that the Gates Foundation has already committed to vaccine research, development and delivery to date across its entire disease portfolio since its inception.
Public-Private Partnerships Drive Progress in Vaccine Development, Delivery Bill and Melinda Gates said their pledge was inspired by the remarkable progress made on vaccines in recent years. For example:
Record-breaking vaccine access: New WHO data show that global vaccination rates have reached all-time highs, rebounding from years of decline in the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2009, the percentage of children receiving the basic DTP3 vaccine in the poorest countries of the world jumped from 66 percent to 79 percent, the highest on record. The number of people who died of measles worldwide fell by 77 percent between 2000 and 2008, and in Africa, measles deaths fell by 92 percent. Improved routine immunization: Partnerships focused on reducing diseases like polio and measles are also helping build a stronger foundation for the delivery of both new and existing vaccines. Trained health workers, proper cold chain function, and surveillance are all necessary to ensure vaccines reach every child who needs them. New vaccine introduction: Important new vaccines for the two leading causes of global child deaths—severe diarrhea and pneumonia—are becoming available. Research published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that introducing a rotavirus vaccine in South Africa and Malawi reduced severe diarrhea caused by the virus by more than 60 percent. R&D momentum: The vaccine research and development pipeline is more robust than ever. Late-stage trials have begun on a promising vaccine to protect children from malaria, and a new vaccine to prevent meningitis outbreaks in Africa is likely to be introduced this year. Many of the recent advances in vaccine development and delivery have been driven by public-private partnerships such as the GAVI Alliance and the Rotavirus Vaccine Program at PATH, which coordinate the resources and expertise of vaccine companies, donors, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, and developing countries. Mr. Gates said these partnerships are “transforming the business of vaccines.” The GAVI Alliance—launched at the World Economic Forum 10 years ago this week—has reached 257 million additional children with new and underused vaccines, and prevented 5 million future deaths. In the coming years, GAVI will focus on rapidly introducing vaccines to tackle diarrhea and pneumonia.
“Investments in global immunization have yielded an extraordinary return,” said Julian Lob-Levyt. “The GAVI Alliance was founded just 10 years ago and has already saved 5 million lives by increasing access to immunization in the world’s poorest countries. The potential to make bigger strides in the coming decade is even more exciting.”
Increased Commitments Critical to Future Success Today’s commitment will support a broad spectrum of vaccine-related activities, from basic research to innovations in delivery. However, billions more are needed from other donors to achieve the goal of 90 percent coverage of childhood immunization. Critical funding gaps exist at GAVI and in the global polio and measles programs, and more support is needed for the research and development necessary to produce new vaccines.
Speakers at the press conference underscored the need for major new funding from donors, governments and the private sector to:
Rapidly scale immunization programs in order to reach all those in need Conduct the laboratory research and clinical trials needed to create new vaccines Introduce life-saving new vaccines for pneumonia and severe diarrhea, as well as other promising vaccines currently in the development pipeline Ensure a steady market for vaccines in developing countries, and an adequate supply from manufacturers Commenting on the announcement, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said, “The Gates Foundation’s commitment to vaccines is unprecedented, but just a small part of what is needed. It’s absolutely crucial that both governments and the private sector step up efforts to provide life-saving vaccines to children who need them most.” ### Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
Mad props and thanks for Bill gates being a real baller and leading the philanthropist movement. With all the tragedy occurring in Haiti he is a great role model to the world and he is raising a fantastic effort and sum here, 10 billion,wow, thats an insane amount of money. 8 million children is just as insane, people like this truly make the world a better place. I can't really comment much on this except this is a really awesome and I hope people are informed on it and hopefully join the cause and charity.
On January 30 2010 06:28 SanguineToss wrote: Bravo.
You beat me to the exact word I was going to use. Bravo.
One of the amazing advances of the modern world is eradicating smallpox and the like through vaccinations. It would be tremendous if the benefits of vaccination were extended to everyone on earth.
It gives me goosebumps how great an effect this will have. It would have been pretty humorous if it was an anonymous gift of $10bil just because of how few people can actually donate that much.
This is going to sound absolutely horrible, but I don't think this is a worthy cause at all. The overpopulation that is already rampant in many areas which have such poor medical conditions will make starvation even more of an issue once less children are dying due to disease. This isn't solving a problem so much as changing it. Overall suffering may even be increased.
bill gates has given away soooooo much money its crazy. I think a while back he pleged to give like half his money away before he died . If more nerds were rich the world would be a better place lol.
I cannot believe the people who are against vaccines. Seriously? And with medical healthcare/sterilization/procedures improving it's even less of an issue. There are some side effects, but it has saved far more lives and increased life expectancy greatly.
Risky move. Seeing how recently WHO has been accused to falsify reports and cooperating with pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines to engineer the avian and swine flus, investigation is still pending though so gotta see how it turns out.
And on top of that, the source of AIDS has been found (it's a cave in Africa, it's also a source of other nasty stuff like Ebola and Marburg, animals carried it to humans).
On January 30 2010 06:28 {88}iNcontroL wrote: Absolutely amazing. Love those 2 people. Really good examples of what people who can SHOULD do.
Also I hope this doesn't degenerate into a "what he should have done with it" thread. That'd be really dumb imo.
On January 30 2010 06:23 CharlieMurphy wrote: shoulda donated it to cancer research or something imo.
Whoops.
Anyway, donating money to vaccinations is a really good idea in my opinion, because on top of saving so many lives from suffering, it will also have the additional benefit of saving a LOT of money on medical treatments.
On January 30 2010 07:45 Manit0u wrote: Risky move. Seeing how recently WHO has been accused to falsify reports and cooperating with pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines to engineer the avian and swine flus, investigation is still pending though so gotta see how it turns out.
And on top of that, the source of AIDS has been found (it's a cave in Africa, it's also a source of other nasty stuff like Ebola and Marburg, animals carried it to humans).
It is HIV not AIDS. There are different strains of Ebola and Marburg virus but they are all completly unrelated with the HIV they are from different virus families Their sources aren't found only in Africa btw.
bill is such a baller. warren buffett is also a pretty cool guy for charity work, hopefully more billionaires will follow in their footsteps. specifically people like larry ellison who is kind of a cock
Despite losing $7 billion in 12 months, software man retains his title as America's richest person for the 16th straight year.....Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated to fighting hunger, improving education in America's high schools, developing vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS... Ramping up personal contributions: donating $3.8 billion this year, $500 million more than in 2008.
So on top of losing $7 billion in 2009, he's donating another $10 billion in 2010, and while we're in a recession. Holy smokes~
On January 30 2010 06:23 CharlieMurphy wrote: shoulda donated it to cancer research or something imo.
haha whaaat cancer research is by far the area that the government is most concentrated on right now, with a huge investment that is far bigger than the amount spent on any other disease or applications of cures for solved diseases the government and market generally see highest long term benefit in investing in very hard to solve but medical field advancing/more nationally relevant research like that instead of pouring money into the application of this research, which saves more lives in the short term and has less uncertainty. especially since the gates foundation has established a reputation for this work, their investment is incredibly effective and does what governments and most private investors cannot do, a true humanitarian act. Fan fucking tastic.
On January 30 2010 06:23 CharlieMurphy wrote: shoulda donated it to cancer research or something imo.
haha whaaat cancer research is by far the area that the government is most concentrated on right now, with a huge investment that is far bigger than the amount spent on any other disease or applications of cures for solved diseases the government and market generally see highest long term benefit in investing in very hard to solve but medical field advancing/more nationally relevant research like that instead of pouring money into the application of this research, which saves more lives in the short term and has less uncertainty. especially since the gates foundation has established a reputation for this work, their investment is incredibly effective and does what governments and most private investors cannot do, a true humanitarian act. Fan fucking tastic.
Yeah especially if the money goes into things like malaria vaccination efforts which would save millions of lives with a relatively high success rate whereas cancer research has little guarantee of being as effective
Makes you wonder why all billionaires don't follow suit. I don't really know how any one person could ever manage to spend $1 billion on just themselves even if they tried. It's got to be a lot more emotionally fulfilling to keep enough to stay rich, but donate the excess to charities.
On January 30 2010 07:59 Boblion wrote: There are different strains of Ebola and Marburg virus but they are all completly unrelated with the HIV they are from different virus families Their sources aren't found only in Africa btw.
On January 30 2010 06:24 Amber[LighT] wrote: wow hes rich and has no problem using that checkbook
Really? Bill Gates has made tons of strides towards reforming education and improving healthcare. It's not that he's just rich he devotes his time to the his foundation.
It's really sad how people can still be cynical about such a great thing.
until today bill gates has donated about 40 Billion dollars to charity, which is almost two thirds of his current fortune, had he not donated this money, he would be about three times as rich as the second richest person in the world. I can just image the look on the researcher's faces when they found out they would receive that much money.
"No Charles, we can NOT afford another of those machines, they cost almost 500 grand and we are already 200 grand in debt. Oh, look, another donation...."
Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Guess what kids: he can afford it. I for one am not going to pay obeisance over such an ostentatious act of "generosity" by any goddamn multi-billionaire.
On January 30 2010 23:47 HnR)hT wrote: Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Guess what kids: he can afford it. I for one am not going to pay obeisance over such an ostentatious act of "generosity" by any goddamn multi-billionaire.
It's all relative.
You don't see billionaires jumping to give away money.
On January 30 2010 06:45 ShcShc wrote: I think its a bit stupid to give it solely to one charity. I would personally like it if it was more diversified.
But then again, I didn't make 10 billion $ so what the hell do I know. Thanks Bill nonetheless : )
You have no idea how much the Gates Foundation donates out to charity. Bill and Melinda gates are known for being very generous philanthropists.
On January 30 2010 06:24 Amber[LighT] wrote: wow hes rich and has no problem using that checkbook
Really? Bill Gates has made tons of strides towards reforming education and improving healthcare. It's not that he's just rich he devotes his time to the his foundation.
It's really sad how people can still be cynical about such a great thing.
On February 03 2010 08:26 MamiyaOtaru wrote: In Greg Palast's super lefty worldview Bill Gates is a terrible man who kills Africans: http://www.bigeye.com/billgates.htm
lawl, is that website from 1995? how "current" could it be, it looks like i did it for a computer class in 7th grade and got an F- on the project.
its bad enough the guy is spewing hate about an awesome man, its even worse he writes for the shittiest news website of all time, well, maybe not as shitty as http://www.foxnews.com/
Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
On January 30 2010 06:23 CharlieMurphy wrote: shoulda donated it to cancer research or something imo.
Cancer research is hugely inefficient and expensive. Say you cure a 50 year old man of cancer, he has 20-30 more years max. Plus research and development is really expensive and offers no promises of results.
We have the cures for the biggest killers in the third world. No research and development costs, we already did all that when we cured them in the west. It's simply a question of money. And if you vaccinate a baby you get a lifetime out of them.
I suspect you only made that post out of ignorance but whatever. Cancer is pretty much irrelevant on a global scale. The only reason we care about it is because we're so well off that we don't get any of the other shit we can cure. Bill Gates is saving as many lives per dollar as he can and that should not be criticised, especially with some bullshit about cancer.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
This kind of stupidity won't just kill your children but may also kill other people's. Humans require herd immunity to prevent epidemics.
It is for this reason I am glad that you pretty much cannot attend school in Britain without having your key vaccines. I can't even begin to understand the level of ignorance required to ignore the facts that vaccines predate pharmaceutical companies, can be seen in nature with related diseases, conform with everything we know about how antibodies work and can (and are) proved on a daily basis.
There was a MMR vaccine scare in Britain a few years ago. The doctor in question has been discredited but the vaccinated population rate went down. Guess what, the disease incidence rose.
It disappoints me to conclude that some people are simply too stupid to exist within a society. Too utterly dense to understand the basics of how the world works. Fortunately my Government has accepted that on a bell curve there will always be those on the retarded fringe and has acted to keep their disease ridden children away from the herd.
I fear that no vaccine will ever be effective enough to contain the spread of HIV. The mutability of all known antigenic targets makes it A. impossible for your body to defeat HIV. B. production of a vaccine effective against all strains impossible due to their continually evolving nature. The only way we will ever eliminate HIV is prevention.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
The last pockets of smallpox were wiped out through vaccinations in 1977. Why don't you go to sub-Saharan Africa and ask them how their better sanitation, clean drinking water and sewers are working out for them? After all, if the disease is gone then the conditions that cause it must be gone. They're probably just spending all that aid money on drugs.
God, humanity just makes me so angry sometimes. Seriously, I'm embarassed by genetic association with things like you. If it were up to me you'd be on one of the trains headed east into Poland.
On February 03 2010 09:53 aRod wrote: I fear that no vaccine will ever be effective enough to contain the spread of HIV. The mutability of all known antigenic targets makes it A. impossible for your body to defeat HIV. B. production of a vaccine effective against all strains impossible due to their continually evolving nature. The only way we will ever eliminate HIV is prevention.
Or by the generation of an artificial immune system through the biotechnology or nanotechnology. Humans are slowly replacing evolved weaknesses with technological solutions. The basic example would be clothes for cold weather, it seems odd but its technological evolution. Whereas in the past we'd wait for a specific genetic mutation to create an AIDs resistant immune system and then let everyone else die out it's possible that in the future relying on your natural immune system would be as strange as relying on lots of food and a high metabolism to keep warm in winter.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA,
and yeah i'd have to agree with kwark, if you get cancer you've probably lived a good life.
Hopefully evolution will grant us some sort of natural immunity to annoying things like cancer one day.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
Yep, Big Pharma has me by the balls and I don't even know it! They have almost every other health professional in the country brainwashed too! Oh yeah, and we never landed on the moon.
On February 03 2010 09:29 HowitZer wrote: Vaccines are nothing but poisen and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Don't take them and don't give them to your kids. Better sanitation. cleaner drinking water and better sewage systems are what eradicated the old diseases. Vaccines are stupid little jabs of poisen injected, bypassing your whole immune system, going straight into your blood stream. It's a fear mongering technique to keep people in line with the status quo.
On February 03 2010 09:53 aRod wrote: I fear that no vaccine will ever be effective enough to contain the spread of HIV. The mutability of all known antigenic targets makes it A. impossible for your body to defeat HIV. B. production of a vaccine effective against all strains impossible due to their continually evolving nature. The only way we will ever eliminate HIV is prevention.
Or by the generation of an artificial immune system through the biotechnology or nanotechnology. Humans are slowly replacing evolved weaknesses with technological solutions. The basic example would be clothes for cold weather, it seems odd but its technological evolution. Whereas in the past we'd wait for a specific genetic mutation to create an AIDs resistant immune system and then let everyone else die out it's possible that in the future relying on your natural immune system would be as strange as relying on lots of food and a high metabolism to keep warm in winter.
You just tripled posted then double posted... and they were all good posts
naw I said cancer research instead of vaccines because there are too many people in the world already. Vaccines for the newcomers is arguably counter productive
On February 03 2010 11:14 CharlieMurphy wrote: naw I said cancer research instead of vaccines because there are too many people in the world already. Vaccines for the newcomers is arguably counter productive
You need big families when infant mortality is so high. The problems of poverty, infant mortality, overpopulation and disease are all interrelated. You have as many children as possible because they're your retirement, your bank etc... But every time one dies that's like having your house robbed. It's not just a personal tragedy, it's an investment destroyed. And it's not simply the food and time involved in raising a child either. When you have high birth rates and poor hygiene you also get hit with extremely high rates of mothers dying during childbirth. And they have significant value too.
If you look at it from an economic perspective the way the third world functions at the moment is like pailing water from a leaky boat. There are fundamental problems (ie the leaks) but the short term solutions (like pailing) do nothing to solve them long term. The short term solution to poverty, short lifespans and high mortality through large families is self destructive and wasteful.
What Bill Gates is doing here is plugging a leak. He's not just giving them food. He's not making their life easier for today with a quick cash injection. He's rectifying a fundamental flaw so one day the boat will float.
More Bill goodness here (old though) an email rant after stepping down as CEO + Show Spoiler +
From: Bill Gates Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM To: Jim Allchin Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH) Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame
I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.
Let me give you my experience from yesterday.
I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.
The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.
This site is so slow it is unusable.
It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.
These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.
They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.
I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.
They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.
In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.
This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.
Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.
This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.
What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?
So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.
So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.
So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.
What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.
So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.
At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.
So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.
The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.
So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess.
Moviemaker is just not there at all.
So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.
I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.
I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.
I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.
So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)
When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
I doubt the US has sufficient budget surplus to cover a rebate for the $40b Gates has given away so far in his life. I also doubt he's that cynical. And even if he is, he's still spending it a lot more profitably than the Government would if they taxed it off him.
On February 03 2010 11:14 CharlieMurphy wrote: naw I said cancer research instead of vaccines because there are too many people in the world already. Vaccines for the newcomers is arguably counter productive
You need big families when infant mortality is so high. The problems of poverty, infant mortality, overpopulation and disease are all interrelated. You have as many children as possible because they're your retirement, your bank etc... But every time one dies that's like having your house robbed. It's not just a personal tragedy, it's an investment destroyed. And it's not simply the food and time involved in raising a child either. When you have high birth rates and poor hygiene you also get hit with extremely high rates of mothers dying during childbirth. And they have significant value too.
If you look at it from an economic perspective the way the third world functions at the moment is like pailing water from a leaky boat. There are fundamental problems (ie the leaks) but the short term solutions (like pailing) do nothing to solve them long term. The short term solution to poverty, short lifespans and high mortality through large families is self destructive and wasteful.
What Bill Gates is doing here is plugging a leak. He's not just giving them food. He's not making their life easier for today with a quick cash injection. He's rectifying a fundamental flaw so one day the boat will float.
I like this way of thinking. Where can I learn more?
On January 30 2010 11:45 mrgerry wrote: 2013 Bill Gates pays off National Debt (Just dreaming dont mind me)
Haha he's rich but not that rich. Anyway vast US national debt is essential to destabilise their economy so that wealth can be redistributed to others.
On February 03 2010 11:14 CharlieMurphy wrote: naw I said cancer research instead of vaccines because there are too many people in the world already. Vaccines for the newcomers is arguably counter productive
You need big families when infant mortality is so high. The problems of poverty, infant mortality, overpopulation and disease are all interrelated. You have as many children as possible because they're your retirement, your bank etc... But every time one dies that's like having your house robbed. It's not just a personal tragedy, it's an investment destroyed. And it's not simply the food and time involved in raising a child either. When you have high birth rates and poor hygiene you also get hit with extremely high rates of mothers dying during childbirth. And they have significant value too.
If you look at it from an economic perspective the way the third world functions at the moment is like pailing water from a leaky boat. There are fundamental problems (ie the leaks) but the short term solutions (like pailing) do nothing to solve them long term. The short term solution to poverty, short lifespans and high mortality through large families is self destructive and wasteful.
What Bill Gates is doing here is plugging a leak. He's not just giving them food. He's not making their life easier for today with a quick cash injection. He's rectifying a fundamental flaw so one day the boat will float.
You seem to be going on the assumption that productivity in the 3rd world is dictated by manpower. We've evolved past this point in the 1st world (productivity is dictated primarily by demand), but I believe that a lack of resources and infrastructure holds back the vast majority of the countries that will receive this aid. Labor is bountiful, which is why sweat shops can get away with paying subsistence wages. By inflating the population of a country with massive unemployment and poverty, starvation will likely take most of the lives that the vaccines have saved (and these deaths will be much, much slower).
We obviously want to achieve the same ends, but until economic development evolves to the point where the populations primary needs of food and shelter are being met, fighting disease seems to me like a massively inefficient form of aid.
On February 03 2010 11:14 CharlieMurphy wrote: naw I said cancer research instead of vaccines because there are too many people in the world already. Vaccines for the newcomers is arguably counter productive
You need big families when infant mortality is so high. The problems of poverty, infant mortality, overpopulation and disease are all interrelated. You have as many children as possible because they're your retirement, your bank etc... But every time one dies that's like having your house robbed. It's not just a personal tragedy, it's an investment destroyed. And it's not simply the food and time involved in raising a child either. When you have high birth rates and poor hygiene you also get hit with extremely high rates of mothers dying during childbirth. And they have significant value too.
If you look at it from an economic perspective the way the third world functions at the moment is like pailing water from a leaky boat. There are fundamental problems (ie the leaks) but the short term solutions (like pailing) do nothing to solve them long term. The short term solution to poverty, short lifespans and high mortality through large families is self destructive and wasteful.
What Bill Gates is doing here is plugging a leak. He's not just giving them food. He's not making their life easier for today with a quick cash injection. He's rectifying a fundamental flaw so one day the boat will float.
You seem to be going on the assumption that productivity in the 3rd world is dictated by manpower. We've evolved past this point in the 1st world (productivity is dictated primarily by demand), but I believe that a lack of resources and infrastructure holds back the vast majority of the countries that will receive this aid. Labor is bountiful, which is why sweat shops can get away with paying subsistence wages. By inflating the population of a country with massive unemployment and poverty, starvation will likely take most of the lives that the vaccines have saved (and these deaths will be much, much slower).
We obviously want to achieve the same ends, but until economic development evolves to the point where the populations primary needs of food and shelter are being met, fighting disease seems to me like a massively inefficient form of aid.
There's no lack of resources in the third world. Look at DRC, it's basically a layer of gold covered with a layer of diamonds covered with a layer of coal covered with a layer of coltan buried under highly fertile jungle.
On the coltan note, the DRC contains 80% of the worlds coltan and coltan is a vital component in all mobile phone technology. DRC are sitting upon a near geographic monopoly on the core resource of the next technological revolution.
If you deal with the high mortality rates in children through something like vaccination (which costs very little per child) then the birth rates should go down. Children are expensive, if they don't die half the time you'd end up with way more than you can afford. We're talking exposure/infanticide in the really backwards areas but tbh I don't have a huge problem with that if the family in question can't afford to raise a child. Education rates should go up because it makes more sense for a government to invest in education when the guy they're teaching won't die of curable diseases and correspondingly the amount of competiton between children for education should go down (simply as a result of the lower birth rate). A knockon effect is more advanced skillsets, higher productivity etc...
Disease isn't simply a limitation on labour. It doesn't simply stop population growth because the short term solution to disease is to have more children. What it does do is make the population very high in the unproductive areas (the young and the sick) who consume the resources (and for the young the investment) of the productive while the productive part of the population remains stable in numbers. You may see a brief population boom as an entire generation reaches adulthood but that should self correct if the resources don't exist to sustain that higher population. But the point of combatting disease isn't to create increased labour (although I conceed that is a short term result), it's to increase productivity. It's to stop the wasted investment in children who get hundreds of dollars in skill training throughout their brief lifetime and then die because they didn't get a series of shots worth only cents. Those resources can then be allocated elsewhere.
Is it just me, or is 8 million kinda low for 10 billion dollars? That's like... $1250 per child. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great effort, but 10 billion is a LOT of money... Just a little confused.
On February 03 2010 23:28 Archaic wrote: Is it just me, or is 8 million kinda low for 10 billion dollars? That's like... $1250 per child. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great effort, but 10 billion is a LOT of money... Just a little confused.
I was confused about that too. Best answer I came with from the op was
The GAVI Alliance—launched at the World Economic Forum 10 years ago this week—has reached 257 million additional children with new and underused vaccines, and prevented 5 million future deaths.
That suggests that vaccines save the life of 1 in 50 of the people who recieve them. So there's only like a 2% chance that measles will be the specific disease that kills an individual for example so a universal measles vaccine would only stop 2% of the deaths. If the same statistics used in the op are typical then 8 million deaths stopped = 400 million children vaccinated which comes in at $25 each. Still pretty pricey but most diseases tend to cripple rather than kill. Also remember the vaccines are comboed with a bunch of other stuff to stop preventable deaths like mosquito nets. The combined package as a whole probably saves more lives but it's difficult to quantify exactly how many people a disease didn't kill.
On February 03 2010 23:58 J1.au wrote: Just what the world needs, more people.
That explains the high birthrates in Europe where vaccines are most prevalent. Thanks for your well thought out contribution. Now if only we could explain the facts suggesting the opposite we'd be fine.
Yes, but vaccines don't make a country more stable and affluent. All they do is increase the population. That money would make a better difference if it was invested into education throughout the Third World. However, even then it would probably just end up in the hands of the rich elite who control those countries.
Bill Gates should've spent the money on research into an elevator to space.
On February 04 2010 00:38 J1.au wrote: Yes, but vaccines don't make a country more stable and affluent. All they do is increase the population. That money would make a better difference if it was invested into education throughout the Third World. However, even then it would probably just end up in the hands of the rich elite who control those countries.
Bill Gates should've spent the money on research into an elevator to space.
Seriously, you have to read the thread. Kwark covered this ON THIS VERY PAGE.
On January 30 2010 11:45 mrgerry wrote: 2013 Bill Gates pays off National Debt (Just dreaming dont mind me)
Haha he's rich but not that rich. Anyway vast US national debt is essential to destabilise their economy so that wealth can be redistributed to others.
On February 03 2010 22:49 KwarK wrote: What it does do is make the population very high in the unproductive areas (the young and the sick) who consume the resources (and for the young the investment) of the productive while the productive part of the population remains stable in numbers. You may see a brief population boom as an entire generation reaches adulthood but that should self correct if the resources don't exist to sustain that higher population. But the point of combatting disease isn't to create increased labour (although I conceed that is a short term result), it's to increase productivity. It's to stop the wasted investment in children who get hundreds of dollars in skill training throughout their brief lifetime and then die because they didn't get a series of shots worth only cents. Those resources can then be allocated elsewhere.
I started going through your response and making my rebuttal, but when I read over the end a couple times I realized that you had a damn good point. I'm still weary of the short term population growth, but the benefits do seem to outweigh the disadvantages. I concede the argument.
But I'm still going to post all the shit I wrote up because of the time I invested in typing it.
On February 03 2010 22:49 KwarK wrote: There's no lack of resources in the third world. Look at DRC, it's basically a layer of gold covered with a layer of diamonds covered with a layer of coal covered with a layer of coltan buried under highly fertile jungle.
Even if this were true in every case, the state of their economies and infrastructure are too undeveloped at this point to take advantage of it. They lack trade infrastructure, extraction infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, and many even lack the state of urban development to support a higher population in anything other than shanty-towns. There's quite a transition period between agrarian farming and industrialization.
On February 03 2010 22:49 KwarK wrote: If you deal with the high mortality rates in children through something like vaccination (which costs very little per child) then the birth rates should go down. Children are expensive, if they don't die half the time you'd end up with way more than you can afford.
So you are basically stating that fertility should fall in line with infant mortality to maintain a stable population? This almost sounds reasonable, but you are relying on many assumptions:
1. That some families would not produce offspring indefinitely. You stated yourself in a previous post that the underlying logic of large families is often to support the mother and father through old age. Classic prisoner's dilemma; even though this is detrimental to the country as a whole, the individual units of the mother and father will usually benefit from another child.
2. That, if they do not wish to inflate the size of their family further, the populous behaves rationally and instantly adjusts their mating practices in light of the vaccines they are getting. Seems dubious in light of the lack of basic education, which brings me to my next point.
3. You must omit the number or births due to rape or simple recreational sex resulting in unplanned pregnancies. Sex education and contraceptives are sorely lacking in many of these regions, and decreased infant mortality rates should have no effect at all on these pregnancies.
Even if all of these factors are satisfied, you would still likely see a small, short term population jump.
On February 03 2010 22:49 KwarK wrote: Education rates should go up because it makes more sense for a government to invest in education when the guy they're teaching won't die of curable diseases
I think this assumption is a bit of a stretch, but I can agree to the underlying logic if the country in question is not run by an absurdly corrupt administration (this excludes a many).
On February 03 2010 22:49 KwarK wrote: and correspondingly the amount of competiton between children for education should go down (simply as a result of the lower birth rate).
wait, wait, wait...
Please explain your rationale here. The argument for the population stabilizing I can at least understand, but why would the population decrease without the influence of any other social or economic shifts? The utility-maximizing behavior of large peasant families would still exist.
Nice. I wish more rich people would do the same, but they won't. Most of the rich people around the world would rather buy 5 new cars, 2 private jets and 3 houses for no reason than to donate money to starving children, cancer research or stem cell research...
Bill gates has always been donating, he just writes if off on his taxes at the end of the year. But this time he actually paid 10 billion, man he's generous.
On February 04 2010 04:31 hey88 wrote: Bill gates has always been donating, he just writes if off on his taxes at the end of the year. But this time he actually paid 10 billion, man he's generous.
It's surprising anyone that rich actually has to pay taxes. Usually they dodge out of that shit just because they can, even when they don't need the money. It takes a lot of integrity to choose to pay taxes, especially when your income has that many zeros on the end. Although he's so rich he won't notice a billion paid in tax that generally doesn't stop the endless greed of the superrich.
On February 04 2010 03:10 MuffinDude wrote: 10 billion, thats like 20% of his original net worth and like 100 times greater than any other donations made in the history.
errr...
no it isn't.
Warren Buffett in 2006 pledged a then 37 billion dollars to the gates charitable foundation ... no idea how much it is worth now.
Seriously though I am happy these people are giving away their money when they don't have to, but when you still have 10 billion dollars + at the end of the day after these donations you cannot really get all happy spastic that these people are great.
A bum giving away half a sandwich to his mate is more generous.
On February 04 2010 03:10 MuffinDude wrote: 10 billion, thats like 20% of his original net worth and like 100 times greater than any other donations made in the history.
errr...
no it isn't.
Warren Buffett in 2006 pledged a then 37 billion dollars to the gates charitable foundation ... no idea how much it is worth now.
Seriously though I am happy these people are giving away their money when they don't have to, but when you still have 10 billion dollars + at the end of the day after these donations you cannot really get all happy spastic that these people are great.
A bum giving away half a sandwich to his mate is more generous.
In proportion to what he has, yes. In proportion to what he can attain, no. The bum could find food fairly easily elsewhere, or even steal it and not get into that much shit. $10b is slightly harder to come by,
As a cynic, I find all of these "only $10 billion" posts to be incredibly stupid. Seriously, stop being tools, Mr. Gates is more generous than you will ever be, I guarantee it. The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is designed to cease to exist after a set amount of time after its namesakes' deaths so that all of the money in its coffers actually goes to charitable causes instead of being wasted on administration and upkeep. It is pretty much the perfect charitable foundation, working on general welfare as well as education both locally and abroad. That they are choosing to spend the money intelligently and diversely (also a complaint, that they aren't diversifying, just as ridiculous) is a very good thing, instead of throwing away money that could potentially pay huge dividends in the betterment of the common welfare.
Also: Biologist here, anti-vax cranks would be hilarious if they didn't cause deaths. Your ten minute Google University research is not a substitute for actually knowing what you're talking about, take off the tin foil hat and stop spreading dangerous ideas.
I just read now , hahaha , the latest thing poor and developing countries need is new vaccines against severe diarhea and pneumonia , not mentioning testing the "other promising vaccines currently in the development pipeline" . They should start vaccinate the people from Gaza , they are full of diseases and without everything ,even materials to build their houses.
On February 05 2010 18:18 GigelPintea wrote: I just read now , hahaha , the latest thing poor and developing countries need is new vaccines against severe diarhea and pneumonia , not mentioning testing the "other promising vaccines currently in the development pipeline" . They should start vaccinate the people from Gaza , they are full of diseases and without everything ,even materials to build their houses.
This is actually fairly true. What Gates does is fantastic, but the development model based on the sentiments of celebrity philanthropists is a terrible one that largely squanders money and in some senses can actually be harmful.
Easterly is a realist, and I don't agree with all of his points, but I think he's mostly right in his book and his basic point is as true today just as it was in the 1980s. AIDs pulls on our heart strings because of the way it's transmitted and how it destroys people - anyone can be susceptible to it - but it takes draws attention and funding away from bigger problems, especially ones that can be solved more easily. I don't normally lean towards utilitarianism, but I think it's important here.
In the 1980s, after the ultraconservative/Reagan backlash died down, HIV research received huge amounts of attention when it still afflicted only a vast, vast minority of the population; breast cancer was still affecting 1/3 women. Today, most aid money goes towards treatment in Africa, where it actually isn't that effective and there are other problems to deal with. Sorry to say it, but there's often not enough infrastructure (for social, political, whatever reasons) in place to effectively administer treatment of the cocktails and partially administering it actually makes the problem worse. Even when they do, the medicine we have simply isn't that effective once someone has contracted AIDs - what we have is mostly based around extending the HIV period.
More money for research is a good thing, but AIDs receives the vast majority of attention and money, over diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera, measles, etc. which also kill millions of people each year AND are easily treatable. We know how to deal with those, yet we don't. Bill Gates is a wonderful man, but he needs to prioritize how he uses his money if he wants to help the world as best he can.
On February 08 2010 04:51 Jibba wrote: More money for research is a good thing, but AIDs receives the vast majority of attention and money, over diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera, measles, etc. which also kill millions of people each year AND are easily treatable. We know how to deal with those, yet we don't. Bill Gates is a wonderful man, but he needs to prioritize how he uses his money if he wants to help the world as best he can.
Sorry but that is the entire point of the Gates foundation. They're not investing in expensive R&D for high profile diseases. They're using the simple, cheap and effective treatments we already have to combat the diseases that have already been wiped out in the West. I agree with your point in general but Bill Gates is the example of someone who understands that and is taking a businesslike approach to making the world a better place.
EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Bill_og_Melinda_Gates_2009-06-03_%28bilde_01%29.JPG)
