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Bill Gates Gives $750M To AIDS Fund
redletterdave writes "Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged $750 million to the troubled global AIDS fund on Thursday and urged governments to continue their support to save lives. Since the fund was launched 10 years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $1.4 billion to the charity, having already contributed $650 million prior to the latest donation. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria accounts for around a quarter of international financing to fight HIV and AIDS, as well as the majority of funds to fight TB and malaria."
Even the general Slashdot feeling towards Microsoft, it is true that his (and Melinda's) work is great. Let's hope he keeps it up!
steve jobs doesn't donate to charity, dies of cancer
...this still doesn't make up for IE6.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Unless you're raped, or your spouse cheats, or you live in a part of the world where people of your gender don't have much control over that and other aspects of their life.
You're a fucking idiot who knows nothing about how pervasive HIV is in parts of the Third World.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Where very unlucky is a great part of Africa's population and other countries?
Some people are born with aids.
Even the general Slashdot feeling towards Microsoft, it is true that his (and Melinda's) work is great. Let's hope he keeps it up!
Well, I have an issue with this. From the article:
While that will give an immediate boost, more is needed from governments, which have provided the bulk of the $22.6 billion that has been raised by the Geneva-based organization to date for its work in 150 countries.
The commitment of governments was shaken last year when the fund reported "grave misuse of funds" in four recipient nations, prompting some donors such as Germany and Sweden to freeze their donations.
Why do coutnries pay into this foundation that invests primarily in American funds and stocks? Why do they not setup their own charities that invest in their own stocks or -- better yet -- give it directly to the institutions of medical research?
This perplexes me to no end. This foundation is at the mercy of the stock market and rely on money managers to post returns every year so that it can give those returns to the targeted countries and research -- right up until a crisis causes those funds to greatly shrink.
I have complained about this before and been called "full of bullshit" and I guess this is just one thing that my opinion and concern diverges on from the rest of the readers here. This is charity in the form of keeping the capital inside America's border and shaving off returns. The money stays at work in America and no such stock or company or infrastructure is built up in the countries that could truly use it and truly need it.
When you're talking billions of dollars, you're talking enough money to start internal institutions and programs that could create jobs or better education as well as do medical research. Instead this money stays in the coffers of rich Western companies and even after the returns are "given" to the countries, it is given in the form of purchased medicines often made by American companies. And that strategy of deciding where your donations gets spent doesn't always work out like you would expect.
It's great he donates all that money but that method is never going to change anything. The real winners here are the companies that get huge cash infusions from the foundation in the form of investment (like Monsanto) and Big Pharma who gets the revenue from all the AIDS medicine that is bought and shipped. Exactly why are foreign governments investing in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead of finding a better solution?
Bring on the "look a gift horse in the mouth" posts. They may be right but there has to be a better way to use this money to accomplish these goals. It's almost designed to be a perpetual medicine exporting machine.
My work here is dung.
In all fairness, and despite this being wildly off topic, Jobs died of cancer because he refused treatment.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
It may be easy to avoid in first world countries, but that's not always the case in third world countries. Lack of sanitary conditions in medical facilities, and lack of education can be major contributing factors. But what about transfer of HIV from mother to infant at birth? What about rape? What about a complete lack of publicly available HIV tests, so it's not known who is infected and who isn't?
A thousand children are born every day with HIV. There 2.5 million children with AIDS at the end of 2009. How easy was it for them to avoid it?
Your attitude isn't far wrong as a Western perspective, but the truth is AIDS is pretty rampant in other parts of the world (particularly Africa). Over there, culture & religion are huge roadblocks to stopping the spread, which means there is a great deal of 'collateral damage' to people who you'd think would be safe (children, spouses, etc.).
Whatever you think, 1.9 million people died in 2009 from AIDS, while 1.7 million died from tuberculosis. Not that tuberculosis isn't a fine target for money too, I just think its too facile to dismiss AIDS as 'easy to avoid' and therefore not worth pursuing.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
Bill Gates could literally cure cancer, eradicate AIDS and make Malaria piss itself and people would still be giving him grief about Windows, IE6 or ripping off Apple.
I think you miss the benefit of the "tax shelter" if the money you wish to "shelter" doesn't belong to you anymore.
THL phish sticks
If, by "refuse treatment" you mean he had multiple surgeries including a transplant, and flying to mysterious locations for exotic treatments, then yeah. That.
I thought the guy (and all Apple people) was a douche, but he did have a pretty crappy deal and fought it as well as most people could. Money-for-liver controversy notwithstanding.
THL phish sticks
I thought some surgeon came out and said that he had a highly treatable form or cancer but decided to do the alternative treatments first instead of the more scientifically based ones and it got worse.
Admittedly it's not completely clear-cut, but he didn't exactly do as much as he could have. Observe:
Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for mainstream medical intervention for nine months,[103] instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet in an attempt to thwart the disease. According to Harvard researcher Dr. Ramzi Amir, his choice of alternative treatment "led to an unnecessarily early death".[136] According to Jobs's biographer, Walter Isaacson, "for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined."[139] "Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004."[140] He eventually underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004, that appeared to successfully remove the tumor.[141][142][143] Jobs apparently did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.[137][144] During Jobs's absence, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.[137]
So sayeth Wikipedia. The "flying to mysterious locations for exotic treatments" part did not work out so well.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
The Gates Foundation is about making a real and immediate difference in people's lives - giving existing cures to existing people, not research scams. As a result it has likely saved more lives than any other charity effort in history. But feel free to start your own charity foundation if you'd like to do things differently.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
In South Africa (Where a lot of these funds will be used) 30% of pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in 2010 were HIV+. A lot of those children will be HIV positive. Even more of them would have been if not for the treatments and funding from organizations like the AIDS fund.
In 2008, almost six hundred thousand people died from AIDS in South Africa (That's 1% of the population, by the way, _in a single year_). The year before that? The same. And the year before that? Also the same.
(I was in the first responder community in south africa many years ago, and the only statistic more scary than the HIV+ rate among people admitted to one very large hospital was it's corresponding Hepatitus B rate)
With that in mind, do you see why I find your flippant comment just a little annoying and condescending?
From: http://www.avert.org/south-africa-hiv-aids-statistics.htm