Promising New Drug May Cure Malaria

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Promising New Drug May Cure Malaria

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 31, 2012 @12:51AM from the take-that-mosquitoes dept.

Diggester writes "Researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa have developed a pill that can wipe out malaria with a single dose. It's a development that could save millions of lives in Africa alone, not to mention the rest of the world. But there's a teensy weensy little hurdle that must first be overcome: human testing. According to National Geographic, 'Clinical tests are scheduled for the end of 2013. If this tablet is approved in coming years, this achievement will surely usher in a new age for science in Africa. It will save millions upon millions of lives on the continent, helping avoid at least 24 percent of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.'"

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Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 00:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
I do think this is a positive development, but it's going to have to be followed up with some pretty intense education and condom dispersal in order to actually help things.
1. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Erythros · 2012-08-31 00:56 · Score: 1
  
  There are MANY Visitors to Africa that would certainly be pleased to not have to worry so much about Malaria.
2. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Dripdry · 2012-08-31 00:58 · Score: 1
  
  Right, but the actual human toll, the suffering it will cause because Africa is so poor, is that suddenly made alright since tourists have one less deadly disease to worry about?
  
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3. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by jolyonr · 2012-08-31 00:59 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  ... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  Maybe a bit overdramatic - but the truth is that overpopulation is every bit as much of a problem as climate change - if not more so.
  One could argue these two problems may eventually even each other out - but I wouldn't like to think of that as any kind of positive solution.
  
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4. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by jimicus · 2012-08-31 01:07 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  One of the biggest reasons for having lots of children is because so many die in infancy.
  Something similar was the case in the Western world as recently as the late 19th century - while it may be difficult to dig out reliable records, things like old family bibles are a great way to learn about children who only lived maybe a couple of years. If your family has anything like this, you might be surprised how many aunts and uncles you would have if they'd all survived.
5. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Ambassador+Kosh · 2012-08-31 01:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You could even say that they are coupled problems. If our population was not so large we would not have the kinds of climate change problems we are having.
  In many ways I think we (the west) are kind of like the greek gods in many myths. We often intend to help and do try to help but our attempts to help just make the situation worse because of unintended consequences.
  We notice that a country has starving people so we send them food. So then there are more people and their water table and other natural resources start to fail because of increased usage. We also notice more of them die from various diseases so we send cures for that which increases pressure even more.
  The basic problem I see is that you can't use western technology without also having things like western birthrates or you can have some pretty nasty consequences. I think that as we try to help africa all we are really doing right now is increasing how many people will eventually die when they exceed what we can do to try to and an unsustainable situation going.
  I am not saying we can never help people from other cultures but we have to be vastly more careful about it and realize that our technology does not exist in isolation and it is instead part of our culture and often our culture operates as a kind of control on the usage of technology. If you just hand that technology to another culture they may not have the controls for it and it can cause massive damage.
  
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6. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Western technology is what caused western birthrates.
  You have the whole thing backwards.
7. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by higuita · 2012-08-31 01:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Not all African countries have food problems... not all have wars... not all have democratic problems... and finally, malaria isnt restricted to Africa, it exits in south and central america and asia as you can see here. And of course, there are countries where malaria is a higher danger than others.
  Reducing the death rate usually increase the stability of the regions in middle term (people have more to lose) and in a long term, birth rate is also decreased. Europe and North America showed this and right now, Asia is already in that way.
  Either way, this will help all and if sucess, will plug a huge unsolved problem (mostly because first world countries have no malaria, so almost no research is committed to find a cure for it)
  
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  Higuita
8. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by silentcoder · 2012-08-31 01:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  >Right, but the actual human toll, the suffering it will cause because Africa is so poor, is that suddenly made alright since tourists have one less deadly disease to worry about?
  In a round-about way, it actually might be. Tourism is one of the largest single sources of foreign capital in most African countries. Indeed for quite a few it's their single largest export- and creates a market that has among the lowest barriers of entry for some of it (anybody can set up a curio stall with relatively little start-up capital and no need to afford expensive business locales).
  So more tourists would mean less starvation.
  
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9. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Ambassador+Kosh · 2012-08-31 01:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Many parts of western technology caused western birthrates, not taking one or two pieces in isolation.
  It was our food system along with education, the industrial revolution, health care and many other factors that have led to lower birth rates. You can't just take only our food technology and give it to someone else and expect it to work out.
  
  --
  Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
10. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by i+kan+reed · 2012-08-31 01:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Birth control is made widely available in Africa, and population growth there is slowing at what can only be called a reasonable rate(i.e. current population kinda high, first derivative also kinda high, second derivative healthy negative). Your perspective is a common one towards Africa, and, in general, a kind of racist, imperialistic one.
11. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Because malaria does not kill all its victims?
  Or this drug may not even cure malaria in humans.
  Are you this dense or just a big fan of Mengele?
12. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by tverbeek · 2012-08-31 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  In addition to your (probably racist) assumptions about the intelligence and self-restraint of people in sub-Saharan Africa, you apparently don't understand population dynamics. A large part of the reason people in poor countries produce as many children as they do is the high mortality rate. If there's a 1-in-8 chance of each of your children dying before the age of 5, and higher that they'll die before adulthood, you have an incentive to produce more children than you would if they were almost certain to survive. Children aren't just bundles of joy to bring meaning to their lives (like in the post-industrial West), they're also future workers to support the family and take care of them in their old age. Take away one of the leading causes of childhood death, and they'll produce fewer children.
  
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13. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  Soooo dumb. There's a strong correlation between high infant mortality and high fertility rates. There's also a strong correlation between low fertility rates and high GDP per capita. One of the best ways to attack population growth (and boost economic output) is to decrease infant mortality (see here and here for just a couple examples).
  People don't need to have a million babies when the babies don't keep dying. Also having your babies die really sucks. Also when you only have to get pregnant twice to make two new people, instead of 3 or 4 or 6 times, you spend a lot more time working and learning, and a lot less time sitting around pregnant and nursing kids.
  Besides (and I'm just assuming you're from america, maybe not) we aren't exactly a shining example of women's rights and birth control right at the moment, at least not if certain (white, male) parties got their way. So let's not trash talk africa (who we, the west, are mostly responsible for effing up in the first place) until we fix our own crap.
14. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:36 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, which is why adding in this treatment gets them closer no farther away from low birth rates.
  They need more western technology not less.
  They need roads, schools, air conditioning, etc. Much like those places we are fighting in now, making sure those places had comfortable folks working 9-5 would solve a lot of problems for everyone.
15. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:39 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  No, more tourists and less malaria will result in a population exploding until it starts to get slowed down by starvation again.
  Seriously. What is needed is education and control facilities, and a complete reversal of the hilariously ridiculous idea that endless exponential growth is the ideal to strive for (that goes for the entire world, not just Africa).
16. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Ambassador+Kosh · 2012-08-31 01:45 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  That is why I think we should be very careful. We don't want to make problems even worse.
  I would probably give this to them with strings attached like attending school for a year, teaching them about birth control, making it freely available, helping setup sustainable ways they can help themselves etc.
  I am not saying we should not do this. I think we need to be extremely careful and try to think through our decisions not just hand out technology like candy and hope that eventually we hand out enough and the problem finally solves itself.
  
  --
  Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
17. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by kenorland · 2012-08-31 01:49 · Score: 1
  
  And along the way to our wealth and low birthrates, a lot of people died of starvation, wars, and disease. Europe was in the grip of these evils well into the 20th century.
  Horrible as what is happening in Africa may seem, Western societies went through worse. It's nice that we're trying to help them, and I think it is having a positive impact, but it's naive to think that we can ever make development happen without also incurring great loss and sacrifice.
18. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by bluefoxlucid · 2012-08-31 01:49 · Score: 1
  
  We have a profile for a large number of victims that die from a disease. Young children, elderly, other weak people.
  We can get stats here. Does this kill 80% of children under 5 years of age? Then we're 80% likely to do no damage; or rather, with a sample of say 100 for testing, we're likely to cause 20 deaths. A sample of 100 trials seems useful; 20 deaths seems not so great. If we're talking on the scale of tens of thousands per year, or hundreds of thousands, 20 deaths isn't a big deal. That assumes 100% ineffective treatment and 100% fatality from a bad drug, which is a large assumption; if it's 50% effective and 50% fatal, you actually get a net gain: 10 inappropriate deaths (effectiveness doesn't save those who would live anyway), 20 survivors who would live anyway (50% die from the drug, 50% of those who don't die get cured, that's 25% of 80 which is 20), overall 10 more people alive BUT this treatment is no good because it's poisonous.
  If you miss totally on this 5 times, you might cause 100 deaths. Big deal, even for 1 year. If you've got a cure that's flaky, it's russian roulette with magic healing bullets alternating with the real bullets. If you eventually clear out the "kills people sometimes" part, suddenly it's worth just handing out to everybody en masse. If you actually make it highly effective from further tests ... well, ok, that's just "an improvement," but we've already got something that's giving us a net return on investment in human life.
  In this scenario, where a disease has a high mortality rate amongst a specific population, human testing costs very little in human lives yet allows more rapid assessment of the effects of the drug. It allows us to stop worrying about whether it's "safe" and skip the part where we spend years testing on rats and gerbils and clumps of cells in petri dishes and just bite the bullet and let a few volunteers risk it. If a few volunteers get bad juju, and we fix it, then the cost is minimal and the return is we save millions of people who would otherwise have died.
  Of course, ETHICALLY, it's much more HUMAN to let millions of people die than sacrifice ten or fifteen along the way that would have probably died horribly anyway. It's just not right to let people die like that, better to let a hundred thousand times as many people die and protect your feelings of self-righteousness. Feelings of self-righteousness are far more valuable than human life.
  
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19. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Perfection is the enemy of good. We can do this, we cannot reasonably do what you suggest.
  Birth control is already widely available in Africa, most African nations have some form of public education and many are working towards sustainability. Within 50 years they will have negative population growth.
  Your entire set of comments sounds like "White Man's Burden" to me. I suggest you study the continent and the problems it faces before suggesting the world treat them like savages.
20. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2012-08-31 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  intense education and condom dispersal
  
  You'd need a religion eradication procedure/pill to precede that.
  
  --
  Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
21. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Joce640k · 2012-08-31 01:54 · Score: 1, Offtopic
  
  There are MANY Visitors to Africa that would certainly be pleased to not have to worry so much about Malaria.
  All we need now is a pill to wipe out the TSA...
  
  --
  No sig today...
22. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2012-08-31 01:57 · Score: 2
  
  Western way of life caused western birthrates.
  
  --
  Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
23. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  I would probably give this to them with strings attached
  Wow! So you would give them life-saving medicine only on the condition that they take birth control classes?
  Would you propose similar restrictions on medical care in the West?
24. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2012-08-31 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  Are you this dense or just a big fan of Mengele?
  Oh I think he just appeals to corporate tradition.
  
  --
  Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
25. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  Western birth rates are a consequence of western technology. As technology increased lifetime security, people needed fewer children to look after them in old age. As technology reduced child death rates, people needed to make fewer children to get an adult child. The same logic is already driving down birth rates in less developed nations. An end to malaria would make a short term boom in population, but would go a long way to causing a long term collapse in birth rates.
26. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by jandersen · 2012-08-31 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  ... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  One of the reasons why people in the developing world get so many children is the high child mortatlity. I doubt any family (outside certain religious circles) actually wants to shoulder the very significant burden of bringing up many children to adulthood. If you are confident that your children will survive, then it makes much more sense to invest your efforts in just a few.
27. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by the+gnat · 2012-08-31 02:10 · Score: 2
  
  Birth control is made widely available in Africa, and population growth there is slowing at what can only be called a reasonable rate(i.e. current population kinda high, first derivative also kinda high, second derivative healthy negative). Your perspective is a common one towards Africa, and, in general, a kind of racist, imperialistic one.
  Every time I read comments like the GP, I wonder if the same people would also have objected to distributing the smallpox vaccine in Africa.
28. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by wbr1 · 2012-08-31 02:12 · Score: 2
  
  Western technology is what caused western birthrates.
  You have the whole thing backwards.
  Wrong punchy.
  Education lowers birthrates. Not western tech. You can feed, cure, and entertain to your hearts content, but it is teaching people, particularly girls and women, that causes them not to pop out 20 babies.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence
  http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13
  http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/07/from_the_cuttin_2.html
  
  --
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29. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 02:15 · Score: 1
  
  You cannot have education until you have the free time for that.
30. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Garridan · 2012-08-31 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  Naw... white couples never have more than 2 babies, 'cause we're all rational scientists that understand the fundamental problem of exponential population growth in a 3D reality with a universal speed limit. If we kill off all the off-white folk who think and behave differently, the only rational scientists will survive. Why did the eugenics fad die out, anyway? I can't quite recall, and I'm too lazy to lmgtfy it.
31. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:32 · Score: 2
  
  haha, not unless there culture undergoes a massive shift it it's very core.
  Birth control is available, but there is s stigma. We are talking about places where anytime a something comes up to give women power over reproduction.
  And of course the Chinese are buying them up like crazy, so I expect they will soon be under paid miners and farmers.
  ". I suggest you study the continent and the problems it faces"
  right back at you.
  
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32. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Hatta · 2012-08-31 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  Increasing the health and productivity of the African workforce is going to cause suffering how exactly?
  
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33. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:39 · Score: 1
  
  So you make up figures and then base it off your made up figures.
  Science Fail.
  "Feelings of self-righteousness are far more valuable than human life."\
  No. without proper science you may end up in a place where you are not SURE if it works, so you have people spending their money on an ineffective treatment instead of finding an effective treatment.
  Using you(gross) example. What if during handing this out in uncontrolled condition 55% of the children die? did it help? was it something else? was it a statistical anomaly? what other variable are there?
  What if 95% of the children? same questions.
  Lets do the science so we are reasonably sure.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
34. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  Stop. Stop turning into a race thing. The poster just has no clue of science, the actually reasons for controlled trials. There is nothing there to indicate otherwise. Don't bring in topics that aren't part of the discussion. You look like a jerk who has to rely on making up emotional statements instead of facts and logic.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
35. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, but I actually think the poster is both ignorant and a racist. As racists often are.
  These articles about Africa bring them out of the wood work. Half the posts on this article might as well be quoting White Man's Burden.
36. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:49 · Score: 1
  
  "the reason people in poor countries produce as many children as they do is the high mortality rate. "
  no. It's high buy US standards, but it's not so high as to need to have 8 kids.
  There is a culture issue about having kids, and women in Africa have it really hard when it comes to controlling their reproduction.
  FYI infant mortality in Sub saharan region is 80 per 1000 as of Jan '08
  
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37. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by dywolf · 2012-08-31 02:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "Here's a pill that can save your life Jonny...but first you have to promise to be good! Otherwise you can go die like all the rest."
  Seriously dude. WTF. Save the lives first. The rest comes naturally. The tighter you try to control it, the worse it will be. Just save the lives first. Then out of neccesity things start happening. So many of Africa's problems simply stem from lack of hope, lack of value of existence cause so many people simply expect to die by age 20. This is the first step to breaking that chain, and to place conditions upon it is unbelievably stupid, even evil.
  
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38. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:05 · Score: 2
  
  As long as the fundamentalist Protestant preachers and wacky Catholic missionaries from America and Europe get the fuck out of Africa and leave people alone with their stupid ideas about contraception being a sin and abstinence being the only way.
  Those guys should go to jail. Their stupid ideas have probably killed millions of people already. They like to preach in Africa because nobody listens to them in their home countries (well, maybe in the USA).
39. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  You have a promising future in the American health insurance industry.
40. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by JustNiz · 2012-08-31 03:21 · Score: 1
  
  >> One could argue these two problems may eventually even each other out -
  Nope because the west will respond with food aid.
41. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by JustNiz · 2012-08-31 03:27 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  >> Take away one of the leading causes of childhood death, and they'll produce fewer children.
  Umm nope. They have large numbers of kids as their "pension plan" and for cultural reasons, such as religious, to attain more respect and power in the tribe (i.e. elders of larger families are more likely to become village elders), and to appear "prosperous". None of those will change just because malaria goes away.
42. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by PCM2 · 2012-08-31 03:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  People in this thread need to understand a few things about malaria. For starters, malaria isn't AIDS, so there's no reason to have the same prejudices about it. You don't get malaria because you're ignorant, or stupid, or religious, or poor, or you have bad morals, or you don't believe in medicine. You get it because one time, a mosquito landed on you and bit you. That's all it takes. It could happen when you're outside working in the fields or it could happen when you're indoors, in bed, asleep.
  Second, unlike AIDS, malaria doesn't go around killing everybody who gets it. In fact, a lot of people who get malaria get better. The problem is, while you're suffering from it, you are very ill. It's not, "Hey Bob, you were looking pretty rough during that PowerPoint presentation, is everything OK at home?" "Aw, well you know I got this malaria, it's really kicking my ass..." No, you are at home, in bed, covered with sweat, feeling miserable.
  Third, malaria is not chicken pox. When you get better from malaria, you don't now have immunity against malaria. There are also two forms of malaria. One form, you get better and you're fine. The other form, you only seem to be fine, but the malaria will actually come back, again and again. So people in high risk areas sometimes get sick with malaria for a two-digit percentage of their adult lives.
  So what we're talking about when we talk about curing malaria in Africa is improving the overall productivity of an entire region, not just increasing the population. Imagine what happens when you're a subsistence farmer who feeds your family by growing crops on your own land, but every 18 months you fall ill with malaria. Simple: You and your whole family starve.
  Now imagine your chances of completing a college education if you live in a malaria-stricken area. Or finishing the third grade. One Laptop Per Child won't help you if you can't get out of bed.
  People being healthy and productive isn't what causes widespread poverty and starvation. People being alive, yet unable to do even the most low-level agricultural work, let alone some kind of entrepreneurial work that can advance their community, is what causes it.
  And you know what else it causes? High birth rates. When whole communities have been reduced to poverty because of disease (among other factors), most families there will support themselves through pure physical labor. What do you need to do physical labor? Hands and strong backs. One hedge against your crops failing because you come down with malaria in harvest season is to have some children who can take over the work for you. Maybe the more the better, since children aren't adults. Also, children are more vulnerable to actually die of malaria, and it's always heartbreaking to be left childless, so more people might be disinclined to stop at one.
  Given all this, I can't imagine a single argument that would justify prolonging the suffering of Africa from malaria, in an age when we know exactly what causes it and we have the technology to prevent it. That's like saying the buildings keep burning down, but starting a fire department would be too expensive.
  Malaria was once highly prevalent in the southern United States. We mainly used civics projects to combat it -- draining swamps and the like -- and now it's all but eradicated here. Those same methods might be impractical in Africa -- medicine is probably necessary -- but the fact that no living American remembers a time when malaria was a commonplace disease in the U.S. proves that although malaria has been with mankind since the dawn of recorded history, it doesn't need to be. Like smallpox, it may be possible to eradicate it completely. Anybody who thinks that's a bad thing needs to have their head examined.
  
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43. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by djmartins · 2012-08-31 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Your entire set of comments sounds like "White Man's Burden" to me. I suggest you study the continent and the problems it faces before suggesting the world treat them like savages.
  I have and I find it difficult to see how anyone could come to any other conclusion than they ARE savages.....
44. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by bluefoxlucid · 2012-08-31 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  While you execute your testing protocols to delay life-saving medical care for years or decades, millions of people die. But feel good about yourself because you saved hundreds of people from dying at the cost of mere millions.
  
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45. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by DigiShaman · 2012-08-31 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  Overpopulation correlates with poverty and a high mortality rate. That seems like a contradiction, but it's not. What you want in a society is quality, not quantity in a society. Keep them safe and educated with a high standard of living and watch the population rate drop.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
46. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by surd1618 · 2012-08-31 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Savages who have among them researchers who may have invented a medicine that may end up ranking near penicillin in greatness... Every single major problem in Africa took root from colonialism IMO.
47. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by TubeSteak · 2012-08-31 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  teaching them about birth control,
  
  There are religious fundamentalists, both in the USA and Africa, who are against this.
  And even if you could get programs started, there are significant cultural hurdles to overcome before anyone will actually use birth control.
  
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  o0t!
48. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by djmartins · 2012-08-31 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  Savages who have among them researchers who may have invented a medicine that may end up ranking near penicillin in greatness... Every single major problem in Africa took root from colonialism IMO.
  Yes, because Africa was a pure Garden of Eden before the white man! LMFAO!
49. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by eriks · 2012-08-31 05:46 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Your take is a generalization, and overly simplistic, though so is the idea that simply reducing the death rate will curb population growth. The facts are totally uncontroversial. Girls education:
  http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/womens-empowerment/girls-education/
  is the main way that the birth rate declines, that and access to family planning, for those women once they understand what the options are.
  We're going to be 10 billion humans by 2050, and most of the population models predict a stable population after that. Provided we can hold it all together that long... Our systems for production, government and education will need to change quite a bit to work in a world with a steady-state population. (read: a steady-state economy)
  Here's a fantastic explanation of the current models on population:
  http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html
50. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Byrel · 2012-08-31 05:48 · Score: 2
  
  Every single major problem in Africa took root from colonialism IMO.
  Right. So you blame the prevalence of malarial mosquitoes on colonialism? Or perhaps the large tracts of non-arable land tied up in jungles and desert? Maybe all the barriers to transportation in the interior were due to a largely coastal colonial occupation?
  Even moderating the claim from "every single" to "most" problems, still leaves a lot of factors out of the equation. Very few previously colonized countries have as many problem as sub-Saharan Africa. Take India. I doubt anyone would call the British occupation benign, but India has not suffered from it in the long-term. Instead it opened up knowledge and trade routes, drastically improving the lot of the average Indian. Australia was a prison colony for crying out loud. I don't think the Brits had much interest in improving the lot of Australians, but their colonization eventually had that effect. Take a look at the Ottoman occupation of , say Cyprus. Or Morocco. The Spanish colonization of Mexico.
  The general rule for colonization with a massive tech imbalance is: inequality, misery, discrimination, and increased prosperity. I'm not justifying colonization, or any particular colonial practices. But it is counter productive to claim that it's the cause of all problems a colonized nation faces. It isn't; no single factor is the cause of all problems ANY country faces. In the end, any external perterbation will stop, the transient, post-colonial upheavals will die out, and the intransient response will be primarily due to how that people, and that culture chose to respond.
51. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by DesScorp · 2012-08-31 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  ... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  This is silly and absolute Malthusian nonsense. It's not how many kids a country or region has, but how well they support themselves and use their resources and grow their economies. Some parts of Africa are doing quite well, thanks, feeding growing populations as they learn modern agricultural techniques and develop markets for foodstuffs that increase production and efficiency and lower costs. The United States went from a population of around 15 million to over 300 million in just over two hundred years. And even our poor people are fat. More people does not necessarily equal starvation. In free economies, it's actually the opposite case. Instead of handing out condoms, you'd be better off teaching modern agriculture and encouraging development. Economies and wealth (and food production is very much a part of wealth) are not a zero sum game.
  
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52. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Jesus, God in flesh, healed the sick without any promise that they'd "be good." He healed, them, then told them to sin no more, or not to tell anyone about it because it would cause unnecessary problems, and they often didn't do as he commanded. His gifts were not contingent upon their behavior, just their faith. So why should we, mere men, withhold healing unless someone behaves a certain way?
53. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Darktan · 2012-08-31 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  They like to preach in Africa because nobody listens to them in their home countries (well, maybe in the USA).
  I have missionaries in my family. After 20 years in Africa, they report that nobody listens to the there, either.
54. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by pnutjam · 2012-08-31 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  How colonial of you. This has been tried and does not work.
  
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55. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by pnutjam · 2012-08-31 07:23 · Score: 2
  
  I don't think British colonialism improved things for Australians. But if you don't believe me, ask the 2.2% of the population that is indigenous how they feel about the 97.8% that have taken over their country.
  
  Killing off is not improving...
  
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  Cheap storage VM.
56. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by amorsen · 2012-08-31 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  Improvements in child mortality lead to falling birth rates. Also, most of Africa is very sparsely populated. Africa could feed 10 times the current population if they industrialized to the level of China or India.
  
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57. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by amorsen · 2012-08-31 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe a bit overdramatic - but the truth is that overpopulation is every bit as much of a problem as climate change - if not more so.
  World population is growing at 1% a year, and the rate is slowing down. Overpopulation is a solved problem. Population density in Africa is very low on average.
  Climate change on the other hand is far from a solved problem, and killing people is unlikely to help anything. The people who die are the people who do not contribute to the climate change.
  
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58. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by PCM2 · 2012-08-31 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  How about, "DDT might be harmful to birds' eggs?"
  Might be, but it's actually still used in Africa, where it can be very effective. DDT remains potent a long time, so you can spray it around the surfaces of the interior of a hut (say) and it will keep killing mosquitoes whenever they land, and it also acts as an insect repellent to some degree. Its use was discouraged in Africa for a long time, the same way it was elsewhere, but the fact that it's again being used despite all of the opposition should demonstrate just how bad the malaria problem in some parts of Africa really is.
  
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59. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by amorsen · 2012-08-31 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  Gifts with strings attached are part of what made Africa the mess that (som of it) is.
  
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60. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by amorsen · 2012-08-31 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think the Brits had much interest in improving the lot of Australians, but their colonization eventually had that effect.
  
  Did it though? Are there even any left?
  
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61. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by amorsen · 2012-08-31 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  They changed in Europe, as little as 3 generations ago. They will change in Africa too, for the same reason.
  Religion rarely beats prosperity, except in a minority of the population.
  
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  Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
62. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by amorsen · 2012-08-31 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  How about, "DDT might be harmful to birds' eggs?"
  How about, "DDT is causing birth defects in Greenland"? (And no, Greenland doesn't use DDT itself)
  Since there are fewer people on Greenland than people who suffer from malaria, it is still worth it to use DDT. Don't say that causing one baby in Greenland to live with deformity in order to save a hundred babies in Africa is a morally easy choice to make. Pure utilitarianism is scary.
  
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63. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by erice · 2012-08-31 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  Western technology is what caused western birthrates.
  No. Western economies and social services caused western birthrates.
  In an industrial economy children don't work so they provide no contemporary economic benefit to their parents. In a prosperous industrial economy, children aren't needed to support their parents when the parents are no longer able to work. Children are economic liabilities to their parents so not so many are born.
  In an agrarian economy, children help work the fields. When they grow up, they support their parents because no-one else will. It is advantagous to have many children so that the fields are taken care of and there will always be someone to take care of you when you are old.
  If you people in an agrarian economy western technology, they will still have an agrarian economy. They will still have many children but those children will survive the periodic collapses that would have kept the population in check without western help.
64. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Ambassador+Kosh · 2012-08-31 09:58 · Score: 1
  
  I don't actually believe in White Man's Burden. I think damage would occur anytime one culture adopts bits and pieces of technology from another culture, the greater the average technology difference the greater the damage.
  The people in africa are definitely not savages and there are probably some types of technology they use that we don't that would cause damage if we applied it here.
  
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65. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by sjames · 2012-08-31 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  "They" invented the thing!
  Note that humans, like many animals, tend to reproduce more when mortality is high and expand the population. Reduce mortality and you shut down one of the biological driving factors for an expanding population.
66. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by mcswell · 2012-08-31 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  You obviously don't know what you're talking about. To paraphrase Dr. Henry Jones, Sr., it tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading the Bible instead of spouting off in your ignorance.
  Ok, that's not a very good paraphrase. But still, the OP's religion says no such thing as you claim, nor did Jesus threaten anyone in the way you claim.
67. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-31 19:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's kinda hit and miss. You can also ask Filipinos how they feel about American colonialism in the first half of last century. Or, say, Tajiks on how they feel about Russian colonialism. It doesn't always have to be the "wipe out the natives and take their land" kind, and sometimes it wasn't.
68. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-31 19:06 · Score: 1
  
  Yes; about 50 thousand out of the 500 thousand that were there before the Brits came.
  That said, those that survived are kinda better off, given that their ancestors were stuck in Neolithic (and Tasmanians, regressing all the way down to Paleolithic after getting isolated)
69. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-31 19:07 · Score: 1
  
  How well has that been working so far?
70. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-31 19:09 · Score: 1
  
  Africa is not the only place where colonialism was widely practiced. And many other former colonies have actually taken what their former metropolies have left them after independence, and used it to make their lives much better, even if not quite reaching the level of First World countries.
71. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-31 19:11 · Score: 1
  
  The truth is that western society has different problems but is not necessarily better.
  It's just all you know, so you assume it is better.
  What I know is that people don't die from starvation or disease by the thousands in my society. So I have some pretty strong evidence to reasonably conclude that it's better.
  If some people believe that it's not, that's fine by me, but then why are they asking that not-really-better society for help?
72. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Byrel · 2012-09-01 00:48 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think British colonialism improved things for Australians. But if you don't believe me, ask the 2.2% of the population that is indigenous how they feel about the 97.8% that have taken over their country.
  Killing off is not improving...
  That's a bit of a false comparison isn't it? I mean, when we talk about African issues, we're not just talking about indigenous Africans. We're talking about everyone who lives in those polities, as a whole. There are loads of Africans with French, British and Dutch ancestry. Like I said, I'm not justifying colonialism, or some of the atrocities committed under some colonial governments. I'm refuting the idea that colonialism is (primarily) responsible for the mess African countries are in.
  So far as British colonialism in Australia, I'd compare their current lot to countries with similar natural resources, etc. but without (much) colonization. Like Indonesia. Now, to be sure, Indonesia is a lot better than a lot of countries out there. But it doesn't hold a candle to Australia. Why? Lots of different reasons, but one of them is that they missed out on the blursing of colonization.
73. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by RockDoctor · 2012-09-01 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  For most tourists (or workers ; I've worked quite a bit in Africa in the last couple of years, but I'd barely consider it as a tourist location. Too fucking hot, on average.), malaria is an inconvenience, but not deadly. Typhoid and other food-poisonings, on the other hand ... rabies from the mangy mutts all over the place ... traffic accidents ...various aggressive invertebrate wildlife ... are all more important for the average traveller. TBH, some of the anti-malarial drugs are comparably dangerous to the disease itself ; one of my colleagues discovered that he couldn't get Malarone in his country (obviously it's a waste of time buying it in Africa - too many counterfeiters) but could only get Larium ; he refused to take this, having seen it's effects on other people. So he got moved from the lucrative Africa job to a shit-hole job without the malaria.
  Then there is the most dangerous species on the continent : an extremely aggressive, inventive anthropoid ape. You need to watch those motherfuckers every second of the day.
  
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74. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by hicksw · 2012-09-01 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  Unless you can give everyone birth control they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  We already have a pretty good idea of how to treat starvation, so it sounds like a step in the right direction.
  --
  Does that make you feel better? No, didn't think so.
75. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by SurlyJest · 2012-09-01 11:11 · Score: 1
  
  Bravo - no points to offer, but this is the only intelligent and humane post on this topic I've seen so far. Just had to say it.
76. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by HArchH · 2012-09-01 11:48 · Score: 1
  
  Don't worry. The ultimate population control system will always be available. It is called "war".
77. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by cybernanga · 2012-09-04 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  You do realise that one of the main reasons people in third world countries have many children, is that they know that there is a very high infant mortality rate, coupled with the fact that ones children are the only social security they will have in later life, as children will assist in growing food, and look after their parents when they themselves become adults.
  If you know that 4 out of 5 babies die before they are 5 years old, (often due to malaria, as it hits children a lot harder than adults) then aiming for 10 children will mean that hopefully 2 survive to look after you when you get old.
  A lot of work has been done in the last 2 to 3 decades to educate africans about birth-control, and they know about it, but still choose to have large families because of the high infant mortality. Access to condoms, (both male and female) is pretty widespread due to HIV/AIDS awareness programmes.
  If you knew that 80% of any money/assets you saved for retirement had a very good chance of disappearing in a puff of smoke, you'd save a heck of a lot more than you do now.
  
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78. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by robsku · 2012-09-06 01:21 · Score: 1
  
  I agree on that colonization is not cause of all problems of colonized nations, but other than that - man you paint a rosy picture of colonizations effect, it just doesn't fit the before/after situations... And Africa is far worse case than any other of colonization in name of ripping off the land, the people, etc. and total destruction of original culture and civilization. There used to be some awesome civilizations there that were totally wiped away - wiped away like no other place, including those in Mexico.
  There is quite a load of sh*t that can be blamed on colonization, including long-term suffering still affecting people today - in India.
  You should learn more detailed information on history before, during and after colonization of these places - it's not pretty, and it paints it loud and clear that the suffering it has caused has been very long lasting. Sure, some places can't claim long-term suffering - in the same way that people of Hiroshima can't claim long term suffering.
  
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79. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by robsku · 2012-09-06 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  None of them, no matter how horrible things happened in pretty much all of them, comes even close to exploitation and destruction of life and culture which happened in Africa - it's a very dark and brutal history even from the views of places like India or Mexico in time of colonization.
  In many places nothing was ever given or left behind either, only destroyed. Now an average Somalian, for example, would have zero clue where even to begin with changing things for better, what having never even seen a newspaper, let alone being able to read it - and the war lords stealing from what little people have, they have more pressing things, like staying alive today, than better future of the country to think about.
  We 1st world people have it good and can easily blame them for not making their now independent countries better - it's hard for us to understand that most of them have zero means to do so.
  
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80. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Byrel · 2012-09-06 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, there's lots of stuff that CAN be blamed on colonization. The problem is that most of it isn't true of all colonized countries, which tends to indicate it's due either to a difference in original culture or a difference in colonial technique. Either way, it's really hard to nail down what is caused by colonization and what isn't. And blaming colonization is rarely helpful for overcoming current issues in post-colonial societies. Even granting that a given social ill was caused primarily by colonization, how does it matter? If the same social ill were caused by, say, domestic unrest, would it change the steps needed to overcome the problem? Not much.
  The best recipe for curing these problems is an internal cultural locus of control. A society needs to own its problems before it can fix them. Americans didn't expand the franchise by blaming it on a bigoted colonizing nation; it happened through the society being internally convicted of error. This is why raising awareness of injustice is critical. It isn't Britain's fault we had slavery in 1800. It was America's. The very second we assumed "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God [entitled us]", we also assumed the responsibility for our own errors. From that day forth, the mistakes we had, whether inherited or not, became ours, even as our successes became ours. The same holds true for any post-colonial nation. Sure, they may well have inherited problems they didn't cause. But by claiming independence, they claimed responsibility for dealing with those problems as well. If they've failed, then the responsibility for that is on their own heads, even as the responsibility for American slavery was on ours.
  On a matter of fact though, I must disagree with you as well.
  
  And Africa is far worse case than any other of colonization in name of ripping off the land, the people, etc. and total destruction of original culture and civilization. There used to be some awesome civilizations there that were totally wiped away - wiped away like no other place, including those in Mexico.
  Bah. And again I say, Bah. Africa is an entire continent. It was colonized (neglecting the earlier, Ottoman conquest) by seven different European countries, with seven different colonial policies. Parts of it have never been colonized (like Somalia for instance.) It's a bunch of malarkey to claim that all the colonization, of all the areas, including those left uncolonized, is "far worse" than any other. Far worse than the Spanish colonization of Inca? Can you find any traces of Incan civilization left? I think we can all agree the Incans were pretty spectacular too. How can this universally horrible African colonization be worse than the utter destruction and wholesale cultural jihad the Spanish and Catholic church wrought on the Incans? So far as Mexico goes, I have a little less sympathy for the Aztecs. Human sacrifices are one of those cultural trappings which I would embrace obliterating.
  Regardless of who, exactly, got the rawest deal out of colonization, my original point stands. You cannot blame all your problems on colonization. Colonization isn't pretty. It's destructive, it's divisive, and it can be evil. But fifty years later, your problems are your problems. No matter who caused them.
A great step forward by GeekWithAKnife · 2012-08-31 01:00 · Score: 1, Troll

An even greater step forward would be to stem the violence, ignorance about birth control, contraceptives and STDs/STIs. Saving lives is great, it would be even better if those lives are not condemned from the start. Well, I guess we'll sort out Africa one step at a time...for today, I'll drink to this cure and all the people it will help.

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1. Re:A great step forward by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:12 · Score: 1
  
  Saving lives will help with all of that.
  My reducing infant mortality, less children will be born. This means more access to resources for each child that is born.
2. Re:A great step forward by bluefoxlucid · 2012-08-31 01:37 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Holy shit there's a huge logical disconnect here. You seem to be assuming family planning--people have children because they want children, rather than because they want sex and children happen. Sex is a great way for poor people to get the things they need, children just come out of women somehow afterwards. Also people have the impulse to just ... have sex. Are these people really family planning, or is this all unplanned pregnancy? By saving lives, maybe we're creating an even bigger resource drain.
  
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3. Re:A great step forward by Laglorden · 2012-08-31 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yes they are (family planning). Maybe you shouldn't think most people are as dumb as you are?
  The "if we cure [disease] then more people are going to survive more people will be exist" is false and have proven to be false again and again in reality. It's only true for real stone-age condtions. The number of people living in those conditions today are 100.000 in total and not statistically significant.
  The reality today are are that the more people we save and the more people that get access to medicin, helth care and so on the LESS people will be born and this will REDUCE total population, not the other way around.
  In the same way, wars also increase population.
  For more on this search for examples of Hans Rosling speeches.
4. Re:A great step forward by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  There is no logical disconnect, only reality and history proving me right.
  Not everyone is as dumb as you, and the fact that you think poor people are like that tells me far more about you.
5. Re:A great step forward by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:55 · Score: 2
  
  "Yes they are (family planning)."
  HAHAHAHA.. mostly.. no.
  " to be false again and again in reality. "
  nope. There are places whose population continue to grow as there infant mortality rate decrease..sub Saharan area come ti mind.
  The BIGGEST reason western country birth rate drops is a culture where women have a say in reproduction. That is not the case in a lot of sub Saharan
  TO not take in the cultures, woman's rights, distractions into account so, quite frankly, stupid.
  
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6. Re:A great step forward by geekoid · 2012-08-31 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  Then why has removing other disease from the sub Saharan region not lowered birth rate?
  You are looking at a single correlating fact and determining a causal relationship.
  It's about women rights over reproduction, it's about distractions(TV, et. al), and, yes improved health.
  AS long as a women can't say no, or is shunned for using birth control, birthrate will remain high. It's almost like its a messy human condition or something.
  
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7. Re:A great step forward by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  Have you ever been in Africa?
  I have a clue for you, it's not in the Stone Age, and it's inhabited by homo sapiens, you know, that same species you belong to (I guess).
8. Re:A great step forward by Laglorden · 2012-08-31 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, you're just wrong. Look at the statistics again. This is true for all countries and all cultures for the last hundred years.
  "Culture" can have a .1 or .2 margin of effect on this. If chjld mortality decreases, 10-20 years after that
  First infant mortality drops, then the number of children per women.
  www.gapminder.org. Show me a case where this isn't true.
  The only way to stop world population increasing exponentially is to give health care, medicin and prosperity to all the world, not the other way around.
9. Re:A great step forward by bluefoxlucid · 2012-08-31 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  Yes and I live in a region in a third world country (called the United States of America, one of the poorest nations in the world with ridiculously high debt and out of control government spending, as well as failing social services) in which people get pregnant all the time when they don't want to. Why just last week some woman was complaining she can't afford an abortion and needs one badly 'cause she skipped a period last month, although she's not sure who the father is (there's a dozen candidates).
  Do they have abortion in Africa?
  There are developed nations in Africa, and there are barely post-tribal nations in Africa. There's both. There's even places like Egypt, trying to show how advanced they are but really they're barely post-tribal (the giant dam Mubarak had built has destroyed Egypt's viability, making the land infertile and devastating the fish population in the Nile--but it shows they're a big, powerful, technologically advanced nation that can command Nature and cease the periodic flooding of the lands around the Nile!). There's places like Nigeria that have running water, electricity, huge concrete-and-steel buildings, and even super highways. There's also places where they barely have schools, places like Uganda where a month's pay may save up enough to buy a small portion of meat in the poor areas, where people walk 9 miles a day to collect fresh water.
  Places with running water, super highways, and health care probably count less when it comes to devastating disease and birth rates.
  
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10. Re:A great step forward by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Yes and I live in a region in a third world country (called the United States of America, one of the poorest nations in the world with ridiculously high debt and out of control government spending, as well as failing social services) in which people get pregnant all the time when they don't want to. Why just last week some woman was complaining she can't afford an abortion and needs one badly 'cause she skipped a period last month, although she's not sure who the father is (there's a dozen candidates).
  Abortion is available for free in public hospitals in my country, and most other developed countries. We also have emergency pills freely sold in any pharmacy.
  You could easily solve that problem in the US. And don't even start about the costs. An abortion is infinitely cheaper for the taxpayer than an unwanted child.
  You have a serious teenage pregnancy problem in the US, which is quite worse than the other developed countries. You beat my country, Portugal, which already ranks pretty bad. Too much religious conservatism and lack of sexual education may be the causes. In my country, they definitely are.
  
  Do they have abortion in Africa?
  Most of Africa is pretty conservative about abortion. But they beat the rest of the world in illegal abortions, which is kind of ironic, in a sad way.
  
  places like Uganda where a month's pay may save up enough to buy a small portion of meat in the poor areas, where people walk 9 miles a day to collect fresh water.
  Which is quite good for malaria, since mosquitoes breed in water. No water, no malaria.
  
  Places with running water, super highways, and health care probably count less when it comes to devastating disease and birth rates.
  What is your point, then? Villagers must continue to suffer from this terrible disease so their populations don't grow, while city people can live happy? Do you realise how evil that is? Malaria is a major cause for poverty, since it's very debilitating. Sick people can't work and people with sick children have to skip work to take care of their children. Eliminating malaria would be the best thing to take these people out of poverty. Development leads to having less children.
  Why don't you try to educate yourself before posting mindless rants like that?
11. Re:A great step forward by bluefoxlucid · 2012-08-31 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  You can't have it both ways, man. Don't make the argument that Africa is "very developed," then try to keep hold on your self-righteousness with the "poor villagers are suffering why do you only care about rich city folk" argument. The logical disconnect is amazing but the trick doesn't work when someone runs a short line between both ends. (Yes, that's actually a documented logical fallacy, but I don't recall which ... basically it involves making one statement, babbling for a while, then making a conflicting statement and hoping nobody notices)
  
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12. Re:A great step forward by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  You can't have it both ways, man. Don't make the argument that Africa is "very developed,"
  Straw man. When did I exactly did say that?
  
  then try to keep hold on your self-righteousness with the "poor villagers are suffering why do you only care about rich city folk" argument.
  I'm sorry you didn't understand my original post. I'll try to dumb it down a little bit for you:
  Your point was that Africa is full of poor people who can't do planned parenthood. I wrote that Africa is not in the Stone Age, implying that they have contraceptives just like the rest of the world. I also made a remark about Africans being homo sapiens which means that they're perfectly able to reason, just like anybody else. If they are able to reason, they are able to give planned parenthood a try. Also, they are as much capable of being civilised as any other human beings and deserve a little more respect from you.
  Now, about the other post, the most part of it you conveniently ignored because it doesn't suit your trolling intents:
  In response to your rant about the lack of planned parenthood in the USA (ignoring the offtopic stuff) I wrote that it's possible to implement effective public policies to prevent unwanted births. People are not condemned to have children as you seem to imply all the time. And I proved that, contrary to your claims, people in Africa have the desire to not have so many children, as can be seen by the huge abortion rate. Given appropriate public policies, people would have less children.
  Then, given another (mostly offtpic) rant you wrote about there being big cities in Africa along with rural places, I failed to understand what exactly you propose to tackle the problems in Africa. I got the impression that your whole point was that malaria is only a problem in the rural areas where we shouldn't end it because it would cause overpopulation, because peasants will always be too stupid to control the number of births. This seems outrageous to me, and I pointed it out to you.
  And then proceeded to explain pretty reasonably why the claim you made about ending malaria causing overpopulation is fallacious. But you conveniently ignored this part.
  
  The logical disconnect is amazing but the trick doesn't work when someone runs a short line between both ends. (Yes, that's actually a documented logical fallacy, but I don't recall which ... basically it involves making one statement, babbling for a while, then making a conflicting statement and hoping nobody notices)
  Babbling is pretty much all you do, not only in this thread, but all over the entire discussion of the story, as can be seen by your comments in other threads. You're an aggressive blabbering troll. Go get a cold shower.
13. Re:A great step forward by bluefoxlucid · 2012-09-04 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  So you think that being human and having fire automatically means that they have access to the same health care services as the rest of the world, even when they're in like Uganda carrying water back and forth several miles because running water isn't a thing and people are basically worse off than serfs?
  You complain about villagers versus city folk and then continue to try to talk about how villagers have access to healthcare services like abortion clinics. The logical disconnect is amazing. If the money is/was there to give villagers access to healthcare clinics, maybe we shouldn't bother and should get them some damn running water first; you'd be amazed at the impact BATHING has on public health.
  
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Not so fast by Chrisq · 2012-08-31 01:01 · Score: 3, Funny

I here apple has a patent on round edible things.
Promising New Drug May Cure Malaria by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:01 · Score: 1

Nah, I promise new drugs all the time without curing malaria. Must be something else that does it.
Tonic water? by scubamage · 2012-08-31 01:06 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Seriously, can't we just ship a few pallets of tonic water over? It's an effective treatment, and as a bonus healthcare workers can take some beefeater and have a lovely after-work nightcap.
1. Re:Tonic water? by boristdog · 2012-08-31 01:16 · Score: 1
  
  This is why my nightly G&T is so important. I'm helping prevent malaria. It shows I'm a good person.
2. Re:Tonic water? by scubamage · 2012-08-31 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, I got modded down for mentioning tonic water? Apparently one of the mods has never heard of quanine.
3. Re:Tonic water? by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  So you want to ship them terrible tasting water and Gin only fit for cleaning?
  What do you have against africans?
  They can wash down this pill with some club soda and Hendrick's.
4. Re:Tonic water? by scubamage · 2012-08-31 01:26 · Score: 1
  
  It is the reason they taste like Christmas!
5. Re:Tonic water? by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:38 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  No, you got modded down for suggesting such a terrible Gin.
Great! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:08 · Score: 1

Now all those newly saved millions have left to do is to try to avoid dying of famine, AIDS, tribal wars, collateral damage in targeted attacks, etc, etc, etc.
What does it cost? by tverbeek · 2012-08-31 01:09 · Score: 2

There's one other "teensy weensy little hurdle": the cost. Or more precisely: the price. If this is something that WHO or other health agencies can purchase and dispense for a few cents per dose, it could revolutionize life in sub-Saharan Africa. If it's patent-protected and expensive... not so much.

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http://alternatives.rzero.com/
1. Re:What does it cost? by Brucelet · 2012-08-31 01:21 · Score: 1
  
  If it's not patent-protected, will anyone take the financial risk to produce it in large quantities?
2. Re:What does it cost? by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  Traditionally if it is not pantent protected and it is this kind of need there is no financial risk at all. The WHO or some other body goes to the pharma company and negotiates a price that covers manufacture and some guaranteed profit. Much like how you get your water and sewage assuming you live in a town or city.
3. Re:What does it cost? by tverbeek · 2012-08-31 01:44 · Score: 1
  
  "Hello, pharmaceutical manufacturing firm. I'm from the United Nations, and I would like to purchase a billion little pills from you over the next 10 years, at say, twice the cost of manufacturing them. Interested?"
  That's not a risk; it's a windfall.
  The one value that patents have in the pharmaceutical industry is to encourage private companies to invest the substantial money required to develop new drugs. Few drugs are really very expensive to manufacture; the high price on some drugs is justified (when/if it actually is justified) to pay off that investment. In this case we have a drug that has already been developed, and while human trials are no trivial matter in terms of cost, they aren't going to require the kind of huge investment that would make the drug too expensive to widely deploy.
  
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  http://alternatives.rzero.com/
4. Re:What does it cost? by Frankie70 · 2012-08-31 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  Manufacturing medicines is very cheap. It's developing a drug and testing it which is expensive. Most medicines can be manufactured for a few cents per dose.
Re:Whack-a-mole by CrankyFool · 2012-08-31 01:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

The slashdot audience is sometimes incredibly cynical. "Oh, sure, cure Malaria, but I'll bet you all those people will just die of something else!"
Yes, true. If there's one thing we can probably all agree on is that in the long run, no one will be saved. Everyone will die. That's what happens to people.
The answer is either to give up and do nothing about it, or start doing something about it, knowing that even solving a part of the problem (Malaria) isn't solving the whole problem. Do you want to move the ball forward or sit back and snipe at those who do?
Personally -- speaking as someone who saw his father almost die of Malaria in the early 80's after returning from a trip to Kenya -- I can't see this as anything but a good thing.
Re:So, millions will die without the drug by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

What if it kills 90% of the people who take it?
Human trials find that drugs either work as expected, not at expected or there are serious complications from the drug that might even be worse than what it cures.
Kill the profit motive by smooth+wombat · 2012-08-31 01:18 · Score: 2

As certain folks on here will tell you, this is just a money grab by evil pharmaceutical companies. These poor souls in Africa will be forced to take these tablets simply so the evil companies can make a profit.
This could have been done a long time ago, and without companies making a profit, but it's been put off because of the conspiracy between government and evil corporations to keep the man down by making him pay for medications which can wipe out a disease/affliction/whatever.
As this is purely a profit-driven exercise, it must be shouted down and demonstrations made to prevent this tablet from being used.
Oh, and since this involves use of evolutionary doctrine, we need to get the Christian community in an uproar because this goes against the Almighty's will. If he didn't want malaria to exist, he wouldn't have created it to torment humans. Trying to find a way to prevent/cure malaria is an assault on religion and must be stopped.
Did I cover everything?

--
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1. Re:Kill the profit motive by i+kan+reed · 2012-08-31 01:31 · Score: 1
  
  You missed the chance to suggest that the pharmas would crush the cure in order to sell continuing treatments.
2. Re:Kill the profit motive by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:25 · Score: 2
  
  No problem. It's a medicine, not a vaccine. We don't want all those poor Africans suffering from autism, do we?
Re:Whack-a-mole by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

These are the same morons who try to hinder nearly all human progress, they fail to realize "Perfect is the enemy of good".
In their other forms they claim electric cars will never get better, wind power kills birds, solar power takes land and that fracking can never be done. They never consider that perfection will never be reached, but each step towards a better answer is a worthwhile step.
What about the cost to produce the drug? by Eloking · 2012-08-31 01:23 · Score: 1

This look great and all but...how much will it cost?
We can already cure Malaria but the best antibiotic cost a fortune and is the reason Africa still have the disease.
Of course, curing every form of Malaria with a single dose is good, but to be viable for Africa and other poor country, the real question is...how much does it cost?

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Elok
1. Re:What about the cost to produce the drug? by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  It will cost whatever a third of them can pay.
2. Re:What about the cost to produce the drug? by geekoid · 2012-08-31 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  well, we will see. Probably not that much per pill. There target demographic is the poor, so I don't think they would have gone forward to human trials if they used an ingredient or process that was expensive.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
3. Re:What about the cost to produce the drug? by Frankie70 · 2012-08-31 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  It costs whatever the patent holder wants to sell it for.
Cheaply bought cynicism by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:31 · Score: 1

Listen to all these comfortable, white, Western cynics. Any point you may have, any criticism you might bring to bear, should be measured against the litmus of millions dead, or millions more suffering irrevocable harm to their childhood development (disease plays a statistically larger role in this than any other, at least in sub-saharan Africa).
Yes: starvation remains a problem. Yes: tribal warfare and corrupt political systems remain a problem. Yes: someone will make money off all this.
If these are the criteria by which you spoiled children support or oppose change in Africa, replete with all the indignant and self-righteous offense that only such children can summon, then you are in fact supporting some asinine Zeno's paradox in which Africa is stuck in misery and never able to leap out it in the 'one fell swoop' you seem to require. Change come at a pace, and it comes at a price.
I doubt any of you are affecting the former, or even paying the latter. You should be ashamed of your willingness to reduce the suffering of strangers to a non-issue.
Too early to rejoice by Wdi · 2012-08-31 01:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Note that there has been *zero* human testing yet, not even phase 1 tests on healthy human subjects. From among the compounds that make it to that stage, maybe one in 50 or 100 (!) really makes it to market.
Aminopyridines (the class this new compound is from) have known pharmaceutical uses - and some compounds of this class have severe side effects, such as causing epileptic seizures that are difficult to reproduce in animals. .And its pretty reactive amino group is a general red flag.
But of course I wish the researchers luck with their tests.
1. Re:Too early to rejoice by geekoid · 2012-08-31 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  Have there been in of those issue that weren't the result of overdose?
  
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  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
2. Re:Too early to rejoice by nbauman · 2012-08-31 03:42 · Score: 2
  
  Humans are just big mice, right?
  These guys deserve kudos for drug discovery, but as you say it's a long way from animals to humans. They don't even know whether it's safe in humans. Another big question is, how fast will the parasites develop resistance?
  They would be doing pretty well if it turns into another artemisinin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisinin and if it does, they deserve a Lasker too. But even artemisin can't be used as monotherapy, because it can develop resistance.
3. Re:Too early to rejoice by Bowling+Moses · 2012-08-31 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  The lack of human testing is a pretty big issue. I went to an early stages of drug discovery conference last year and remember one of the speakers referring to clinical trials as "the place where drug candidates go to die." However the articles linked to in TFA are very light on details so we don't really know what they have tested at all.
  
  There are five different plasmodium species that can infect and cause disease in humans and we don't know which one(s) this group looked into. Probably P. malariae, and if effective on just one of the species it would still be wonderful news, but we don't know from TFA. The other problem is that the drug "killed resistant parasites instantly." What does that mean? Do they maintain drug resistant plasmodium strains in their lab and when you have them in some petri dish with tissue culture medium that you can instantly kill them by adding the compound? If that's all they've got then it's not nearly as impressive as the article lets on. Malarial pathogens spend a lot of time inside of cells, both inside of red blood cells and also inside of cells in the liver, hiding from the host immune system and any anti-malarial drugs. The life cycle inside the host is fairly complex with different malarial stages having different responses to any drug administered. This is why traditional malaria treatments are multiple doses over at least several days. The other problem is that the animal model for malaria disease isn't very good. Again, we don't know from the articles linked in TFA exactly what animal model they used, but it's probably a mouse model. In that case, it's already known to be easier to kill malarial infections in the model than in an actual infection in humans.
  
  I share your wish that the research group has lots of luck in their upcoming clinical trials; it sounds like they've gone about as far as they can without testing on the actual disease in human patients. I'm just not optimistic as clinical trials are difficult to pass, a one pill cure just sounds too good to be true, and then your comments about the drug class itself.
Re:Oh good by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:34 · Score: 1

The continent that birthed all human life cannot support any?
Low population growth rates are a function of being comfortable. If infant mortality is high humans will have far more offspring.
Just being realistic here, slashmydots, you might want to think before typing.
Re:Oh good by u38cg · 2012-08-31 01:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

Let's just leave them to die of unpleasant diseases. Oh good. What a super human being you are. Did it ever occur to you that there are links between these things? Like, you know, that healthier people are richer and thus have less children? Not that that's really the point. Also, that climate is where your ancestors evolved, so your first world superiority is perhaps a little misplaced. Just being realistic here.

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[FUCK BETA]
Re:ZOMBIES!!!!! by ciderbrew · 2012-08-31 01:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

When they "cure" 95% of the Malaria. It does leave room for the drug resistant strain to thrive. Not that it is a problem as the 95% is killing the poor people regardless. I hope BIll get to spend his Billions buying up the world supply and giving out if it works. Good legacy to go out with.
Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2012-08-31 01:42 · Score: 1

Submitted for your serious consideration: For years I've been harping on this. How many lives will be lost delaying this drug 1 year, much less 3-5?
How many would be lost introducing a bad drug prematurely?
Of course, the former millions a year don't show up in front of the cameras as well as a politician with the latter and some (admittedly) horriffic sob stories.
There are gigatons of snake oil fraud to root out. Still, nobody runs the relative numbers of fraud deaths vs. deaths due to delays proving things work to government agencies.

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I just hope by Vinegar+Joe · 2012-08-31 01:52 · Score: 1

It works a lot better than Lariam/Mefloquine.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500164_162-538144.html

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"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
1. Re:I just hope by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 03:01 · Score: 1
  
  I can attest to problems with Lariam.
  On holiday in Thailand, after having taking Lariam for about a week, during the night I had an attack of paranoia and ran out of the hotel on the street and tried to steal a motorcycle to just flee away. I was convinced "they" were after me and I had to get out of there pronto.
  I was lucky the locals seemed to recognize what was going on and they shooed me away without getting angry at me. (hindsight, fragmented memories)
  I sort of drifted through the town after that, and eventually sat down somewhere for an hour (I think) not knowing where I was or what was going on, just knowing something was very wrong and I had to pull myself together.
  In the end I used my cellphone to call one of my friends who was also at the hotel, and he tried to talk me down.
  He asked me where I was, and only then did I realize I was about 50 meters away from the hotel entrance, facing it.
  Weirdest thing that ever happened to me.
  I've never had any paranoid delusions or hallucinations, before or after.
  Never touching Lariam again.
ague by SgtChaireBourne · 2012-08-31 02:02 · Score: 2

Actually it used to be quite common in parts of the US as well. It used to be called ague. I'm not sure of it's original range, but I think it was even as far north as Ohio. There are variants like avian malaria which have been a barrier to reintroducing eagles and other species.

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Before the DDT Derp Brigade shows up by L.+J.+Beauregard · 2012-08-31 02:10 · Score: 1

like they did in TFA: No, No, DDT isn't banned when used to combat malaria.

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Re:Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by u38cg · 2012-08-31 02:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

The drug testing regime we have was built incrementally to deal with flaws that existed in the previous setup. Remember Thalidomide?

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[FUCK BETA]
Re:So, millions will die without the drug by plover · 2012-08-31 02:34 · Score: 2

I remember reading about clinical trials for some lifesaving drug a while ago. As they were going through the trials, they realized that the drug group was experiencing a very high survival rate, something like 90%+ cured, while the control group continued to experience mortality at the expected rates. They suspended the trials early, and provided the control group with the actual drug, citing humanitarian reasons.
It's possible that they could do the same for this drug. More likely, really, as South Africa probably doesn't have the same requirements as the US FDA for approving new drugs.

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Re:Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by Hatta · 2012-08-31 02:38 · Score: 2

How many lives will be lost due to distrust of western medical science if they push forward prematurely and find serious side effects?

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Al Gore will not be happy by Quila · 2012-08-31 02:56 · Score: 2

He wants population control, and here we are working to eliminate a major natural population control mechanism.
Millions of dead kids = good for the environment.
I hope this doesn't sound offensive but... by Cute+Fuzzy+Bunny · 2012-08-31 02:58 · Score: 1

...I hope they also figured out how to increase the food supply by 25%, if we're going to cut the mortality rate.
1. Re:I hope this doesn't sound offensive but... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  When people have a greater expectation that their children will grow up, they have fewer children, especially if their religion doesn't forbid birth control.
Re:Whack-a-mole by geekoid · 2012-08-31 03:03 · Score: 1

" Everyone will die. "
every one who is dead, has died. That's all you can really say.

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Drug the water! by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 03:06 · Score: 1

Can we give it to the mosquitos?
Re:I want a pill that makes my blood poisonous... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-31 03:10 · Score: 1

There are such pills but you won't survive taking one.
Re:So, millions will die without the drug by geekoid · 2012-08-31 03:10 · Score: 1

Please make some sort of effort to understand science.
They need to determine if it work. The statistics of who dies isn't really a constant number. Maybe you give the pill to 1000 people in the field, and 75% die. IS it because of the pill? IS it just a statistical dip? If it does drop, and it turns out to be a statistical dip then what? What about the money they wasted? what about people who don't understand statistics think that's proof it does work when ti doesn't? What if the pill does harm, but it's hidden inside of a statistical dip?
I could go only but if you haven't gotten the point by now, your just too damn stupid to ever understand why.

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Africa's population less the India's by Jeff1946 · 2012-08-31 03:11 · Score: 1

If you are concerned about population consider India, more people than Africa and 1/15 the area.
Re:TEENSY WEENSY teensy weensy TEENSY WEENSY????!! by Intropy · 2012-08-31 03:13 · Score: 1

Yes, civilization has degraded to the point where people will ignore any and all data in an article and instead complain about its diction.
Re:Whack-a-mole by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:21 · Score: 2

You are right. We shouldn't have invented antibiotics. Now we have all these people in the developed countries dying from old age. What a fucking tragedy.
Re:Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by geekoid · 2012-08-31 03:23 · Score: 1

Yes,they do run those numbers. Instead of ranting and displaying your ignorance, maybe you should research.
Maybe you should make an attempt to understand that ti's more complex then comparing lives lost, like determining effect?
Fuck, you people are short sighted, ignorant and have the ego to say you must know everything. twads.

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Productivity boom by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 03:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

Beyond the savings in human lives, there should be a productivity boom. Malaria is contracted periodically in adulthood by people in an environment where it is prevalent, and it can wipe out an individual's productivity for a couple weeks at a time, several times a year. In some areas, it can be contracted with the same frequency with which westerners are used to the common cold. So, you're looking at perhaps a 10% increase in productivity just from keeping adults at work instead of in their sickbed or tending sick children.
Re:Oh good by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:40 · Score: 1

It's hard to provide food and shelter when a significant part of the population is in bed with terrible pain and extreme fever and unable to work. Or their children are, which leads to the same result because they have to stay home to take care of them.
What makes you think you are in any way superior to others? What's about African climate that makes it unfit for human life? Are you really that stupid or you just get off on trolling?
Africa could easily feed itself by SuperKendall · 2012-08-31 04:02 · Score: 1

... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
The thing is, Africa is an amazingly fertile country. If farmers could just farm, they would easily be able to feed Africa and the children therein.
The great thing about a malaria cure is it takes one huge load of population control, meaning that going forward there will be more and more people - until the countries to inept to let farmers farm are overthrown and Africa becomes the land of plenty it once was.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are already many drugs that can cure malaria by brainzach · 2012-08-31 04:12 · Score: 1

Malaria is so common in Africa that most Africans don't consider it to be that big of a deal. You get malaria, go to the doctor and take some medication and then get better. Over time, your immune system will be more resistant to malaria so you don't get as sick.
Malaria is a serious disease for those who don't have access to medicine and is left untreated for a period of time. A new medication is not going to help much if people don't have access to it.
South African FDA? by J'raxis · 2012-08-31 04:26 · Score: 1

Sounds like South Africa has their own version of the FDA. Millions will die while they wait for the bureaucrats, but at least they die safely!

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Liberty in your lifetime
Re:I want a pill that makes my blood poisonous... by deimtee · 2012-08-31 04:27 · Score: 1

I remember seeing a program a long time ago on an experiment where they were inoculating cows in Queensland to produce antibodies to ticks. The tick would bite the cow and suck out a heap of blood and the antibodies would then weaken or kill the tick.
They had some example ticks, and they looked pretty sick, but I never heard any more about it, so I don't know if it went anywhere.
I'm not sure, but I think the antibody attacked chitin, which meant that there was no way the ticks could develop an immunity. If it was chitin, it probably wasn't too healthy for fleas and mozzies either.

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I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Wow by ThatsNotPudding · 2012-08-31 05:33 · Score: 1

Unless you can give everyone birth control they'll all die of starvation anyway.
One of the more effective forms of birth control is lowering infant and child mortality - like, ya know from malaria.

But, don't let me stop your subtle dismissal of the behaviours of an entire continent. Have fun at the Klan rally.

It's in Tampa this year, isn't it?
Re:So, millions will die without the drug by Byrel · 2012-08-31 06:12 · Score: 1

Human trials find that drugs either work as expected, not at expected or there are serious complications from the drug that might even be worse than what it cures.
I would note that the complications would have to be pretty bad for it to be worse than malaria. In particularly severe malarial infections, the death rate can be as high as 20%, with intensive treatments. In the general population. Very few drugs work harmlessly on animals, but have a one-in-five death rate for humans. It seems there might well be a point to expediting the test process for a disease with such high fatality and incidence rates.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if the time were needed for setting up mass-production at any rate. In which case, you might as well know as much about the side effects, etc. as possible before deployment.
cure?!? by syntaxterror7 · 2012-08-31 06:19 · Score: 1

A cure. I forgot that sometimes happens when US drug companies that would rather treat are involved
Re:Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by avandesande · 2012-08-31 06:40 · Score: 1

True, but because this is a single dose drug it is quite a lot less complicated to test.

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love is just extroverted narcissism
3,5-Diaryl-2-aminopyridines as Antimalarials by dgharmon · 2012-08-31 11:49 · Score: 1

"A novel class of orally active antimalarial 3,5-diaryl-2-aminopyridines has been identified from phenotypic whole cell high-throughput screening of a commercially available SoftFocus kinase library."

"One of these frontrunner compounds, 15, was equipotent across the two strains .. and superior to chloroquine in the K1 strain .. Compound 15 completely cured Plasmodium berghei-infected mice with a single oral dose of 30 mg/kg." link

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