Why not advance medicine in general, moving civilization quicker up the technology curve? Won't more people benefit in the long run? Medicine doesn't advance at an exponential rate, but progress can be made more quickly.
What I think Gates is rightly targeting with his organization in a broader sense is that no matter how high the technology curve extends on the ceiling side the floor remains unaffected.
Or, to put it another way, third world countries are too poor to buy newer medical technology, and relatively few people are financially-interested in making older medical technology cheaper.
Iow, the faster/cheaper options on what to do with semiconductor process improvements.
Additionally in this case, eradication does provide a number of benefits to the global community. Even in countries with top-tier health care systems.
Letting an effective virus / bacteria / micro-organism fester in any human population isn't that different than playing Russian roulette. You may get lucky, but far better to scrub that genetic code off the face of the planet and reset the clock back to the beginning of its evolution.
Bill believes that in a couple decades there won't be many "poor" countries remaining.
Also, consider that as technology advances, prices tend to drop. For instance, it cost billions of dollars to sequence the first human genome. It will probably cost $10 in 20 years. Hopefully everyone will be able to get designer drugs.
Few people might be interested in making medical technology cheaper, but some people are trying:
I think what he wants to do is bring the afflicted regions up to par with what one expects from life in the western world, in terms of health. That's very important.
Well, the trick there is to create a better economy, right? The standard of living will increase then. What are the most effective ways to prevent malaria is to give people $20 nets.
Turns out... one of the easiest ways to create a better economy is to eliminate malaria. It's that bad of a disease, that it contributes to poverty at the national level.
It's more difficult to expand and modernize your economy when a significant fraction of your population contracted mild brain damage from preventable infections.
But his goal is to eradicate it, not only prevent it. Preventing is a step towards his goal.
I'm not at all convinced that a higher standard of living inevitably leads to lower malaria infections. I actually think the correlation is rather weak, at least in the initial part of eradicating/battling the disease.
I agree with you that controlling the disease by having a stable, efficient and proactive health care system requires a solid economy. I just don't think that's where the problem lies for the moment.
I think big, specific challenges are often the best way to move useful knowledge forward. They can be enormously motivating, and they very often have positive side effects in seemingly unrelated areas.
For example, consider the Manhattan Project and the U.S. efforts to get people to the Moon. Both of these were highly focused projects. But they resulted in advancements in computing, materials science (e.g., plastics), fail-safe engineering, etc.
Or consider all the money poured into AIDS research in the past couple of decades. Results have been somewhat disappointing, but OTOH we now know a lot now about the human immune system, etc.
I would expect that a global effort to eradicate malaria would have similar wide-ranging benefits.
I agree with your points in general, but I think your point on AIDS is off. In the developed world, AIDS can be treated and managed effectively at this point to where it is essentially a long term chronic illness like diabetes. This is a huge departure from the terrifying death sentence it was in the 80s. Of course, these treatments are not accessible enough yet...
All true, but whether something is "somewhat disappointing" does depend on what expectations were. I think expectations were often pretty high in the past; however we still have no vaccine, etc.
But, yes, compared to what, in retrospect, we might call "reasonable expectations", amazing things have occurred. Around the time AIDS was first noticed, the treatment for all viral diseases was essentially do your best to keep 'em alive long enough for the immune system to fight it off. And we've certainly gone 'way beyond that with AIDS.
