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To: GovernmentShrinker
"People all over Africa are dying of easily preventable diseases, from AIDS, which many Africans simply refuse to take any precautions against, to diarrhea in infants, which can be cured in time to save the infant's life with just a few cents worth of medicine that doesn't do one iota of harm to the environment."

I strongly disagree with you. Where it's true that pennies will treat many of these conditions, money alone will not do it. Many of these people don't have pennies, most are uneducated, have never seen a doctor or a pill. And they never will... It would be my guess that many have not made the connection between getting bitten by a mosquito and getting sick and dying.

Thee population as a whole is not educated to the point that they will take preventative measures, even if such measures were available.

Malaria is the biggest killer disease out there, and it can be controlled. But hoping that the people are capable of helping to get it under control is a pipe dream.
5 posted on 12/23/2005 12:39:21 AM PST by babygene (Viable after 87 trimesters)
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To: babygene; binreadin

Money which can found to help Africa would be better spent on working towards fixing the underlying problem, than on saturating the continent with DDT (which is not completely harmless to human health). A major DDT program there now, would only result in slightly larger, but still hopelessly backward and sickly population. Most Africans who would have died of malaria will just die of some other preventable disease a few years later.

I think there's a big danger in making large, fast-growing, backward populations increasingly dependent on handouts from developed countries, of technologies that the recipients can't begin to understand. They need to be taking control of their own lives and communities, and our efforts should be directed towards progress in that area. Teaching them to use nets, and teaching them to teach each other to use nets would be a good start. Today's front page NYT article is a good illustration of how urgently very basic things need to be attended to. Many girls in sub-Saharan Africa don't go to school past puberty, even if they and their parents want to, because there are no latrines, much less sanitary pads. Many of these girls will be married off and pregnant before they're fully grown, and many will die in childbirth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/international/africa/23ethiopia.html?hp&ex=1135400400&en=2e719b5791aa1cec&ei=5094&partner=homepage


9 posted on 12/23/2005 8:11:02 AM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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