Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Fiddling while Africa burns

Three million people will die this year of malaria, says economist Jeffrey Sachs. It's a meaningless figure, isn't it, three million? If we made a memorial, it would need to be a city block wide to carry all the names.

Of course, those victims will remain nameless to us.

Sachs thinks it would cost $3 billion a year to control malaria. Controlling Iraq is costing $87 billion. Bush proposed $200 million for infectious diseases.

His AIDS day plan will put a lot of money into the big pharma conglomerates' pockets - no one is fooled that his scheme is anything more than yet one more way to siphon public funds into undeserving pockets - and people will continue to die needlessly as we watch, safe and well.

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