Almost all early childhood deaths could be eliminated by 2020, for less than a quarter of the cost of the Olympics

[StealthPolarBear]

That's how they're presenting this and I think it's really interesting.
What are the chances this will happen? I know very little about worldwide child health, but I assume this would be something the WHO would pay for (although from the way it's presented there is obviously a political push to get the UK government to pay which would be fantastic too, assuming throwing the money at it actually did deliver results). How is the WHO funded, and is a paper in the Lancet actually likely to lead to action? Presumably a lot more research would be needed first but it's very promising.

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I read this on FB this morning. Says it all.

From Noam Chomsky Quotes:

“If you go to the Third World, the numbers are fantastic. So for example, another UNESCO report estimated that in Africa about half-a-million children die every year simply from debt service. Not from the whole array of “reforms,” just debt service. About eleven million children are estimated to die every year from easily treatable diseases. Most of them could be overcome by a couple of cents’ worth of materials. But the economists tell us that to do this would be interference with the market system. It’s not new. It’s very reminiscent of British economists during the Irish famine in the mid-nineteenth century, when economic theory dictated that famine-struck Ireland must export food to Britain, which it did, right
through the Irish famine, and should not be given food aid because that would violate the sacred principles of political economy. These principles typically have this curious property of benefiting the wealthy and harming the poor.”
— Keeping the Rabble in Line - Noam Chomsky

Sorry didn't realise it would look so garbled through C&P. will try to sort it and re-post.

“If you go to the Third World, the numbers are fantastic. So for example, another UNESCO report estimated that in Africa about half-a-million children die every year simply from debt service. Not from the whole array of “reforms,” just debt service. About eleven million children are estimated to die every year from easily treatable diseases. Most of them could be overcome by a couple of cents’ worth of materials. But the economists tell us that to do this would be interference with the market system. It’s not new. It’s very reminiscent of British economists during the Irish famine in the mid-nineteenth century, when economic theory dictated that famine-struck Ireland must export food to Britain, which it did, right
through the Irish famine, and should not be given food aid because that would violate the sacred principles of political economy. These principles typically have this curious property of benefiting the wealthy and harming the poor.”
— Keeping the Rabble in Line - Noam Chomsky

Sorry.

It's unbelievable that people die needlessly when we have the means to prevent it.

However, as we given over all our power to capitalists, how do we wrest it back?

I hope there is a change afoot as I feel as though I am living in the opening chapters of a dystopian fantasy.