phrostbyte
December 19th, 2007, 05:48 PM
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates16dec16,0,3743924.story
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates16dec16,0,3743924.story)
The article is basically claiming the Gates Foundation methods of spending money are largely not effective. Most of the money apparently is going to pay from AIDS medication. Remember AIDS has no cure, so the current AIDS medication just slows the disease and does not cure it. It's also very expensive, and it doesn't help contain the disease. So basically the article claims that the Gates Foundation helped lower the number of deaths of AIDS but also helped sharply increase the amount of people with AIDS at the same time because they aren't doing enough to educate people to avoid spreading the disease. What this does is sort of a snowball effect, now more people need to be on AIDS medication (for the rest of their lives), and it makes the situation very unmanageable because AIDS medication is very expensive that at some point even Bill Gates won't have enough money to support them all.
Personally if I had billions to spend on Africa I would buy the kids lots and lots of OLPCs. Inexpensive and gives Africa what they really need, education. The way to stop AIDS and other diseases and poverty at this point is to education the population on how to avoid catching them and how to improve their lives. Maybe if we find a real cure for AIDS that may be a real solution but simply distribution of AIDS medication isn't really helping the fundamental problem.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates16dec16,0,3743924.story)
The article is basically claiming the Gates Foundation methods of spending money are largely not effective. Most of the money apparently is going to pay from AIDS medication. Remember AIDS has no cure, so the current AIDS medication just slows the disease and does not cure it. It's also very expensive, and it doesn't help contain the disease. So basically the article claims that the Gates Foundation helped lower the number of deaths of AIDS but also helped sharply increase the amount of people with AIDS at the same time because they aren't doing enough to educate people to avoid spreading the disease. What this does is sort of a snowball effect, now more people need to be on AIDS medication (for the rest of their lives), and it makes the situation very unmanageable because AIDS medication is very expensive that at some point even Bill Gates won't have enough money to support them all.
Personally if I had billions to spend on Africa I would buy the kids lots and lots of OLPCs. Inexpensive and gives Africa what they really need, education. The way to stop AIDS and other diseases and poverty at this point is to education the population on how to avoid catching them and how to improve their lives. Maybe if we find a real cure for AIDS that may be a real solution but simply distribution of AIDS medication isn't really helping the fundamental problem.