Gates spreads malaria message with mosquitoes
Bill Gates opened a jar of mosquitoes on stage at an elite tech conference Wednesday to draw attention to the plight of malaria victims.
Bill Gates releases mosquitoes at TED on Wednesday.
(Credit: James Duncan Davidson for TED)The Microsoft co-founder released the insects, which are notorious for spreading the deadly disease, during the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference in Long Beach, Calif.
"Not only poor people should experience this," Gates told the audience before assuring them that the insects were malaria-free.
The insect release, which was first reported on Twitter by Facebook's Dave Morin, was initially characterized in some reports as a swarm, but some in the audience reported seeing just a few.
TED curator Chris Anderson reportedly quipped that the video of the talk posted at TED.com will be headlined "Gates releases more bugs into the world."
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced last year that it would provide $168.7 million to develop a vaccine for malaria.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
negligent action + one of world's richest men as agent provocateur (who knew or should have known that someone in the audience might be allergic to the proteins in the mosquito's saliva) + blood sucking attorney =
lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional (induced fear) and/or physical (being bitten by Gates' mosquitoes) distress
They can't get viruses right?
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10154662-83.html
We're waiting.
(Hint: Unix has suffered viruses before, in fact the very first virus was written for Unix I believe. So it's not like it's not possible, the question is can you do it in a few hours the way some people can for winblows.)
First virus hatched as a practical joke
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/01/1188671795625.html
A 20-year plague
http://news.cnet.com/A-20-year-plague/2009-7349_3-5111410.html?tag=item
A History of Viruses
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1286
http://www.elkcloner.com/
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci989616,00.html
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]
Nice gimmick, but jeez, for a philanthropist he's not thinking of other people ;-)
Do you? Have you researched it at all? There is no telling because there is no "disastrous" effect. The idea is to make safe the living area of fellow human beings, not eliminate a species.
PS. the pest bugs did come back, just not the bugs they want. What would have happened if it had been a rice or wheat region? Without bugs we all starve.
Or pointing a rifle at audience members' heads to discuss the merits of gun control?
(And were those clean mosquitoes? Would said blood be clean? And don't warn people beforehand, especially if they have open wounds or like to scratch their eczema...)
I work with NGO's, some of whom work in Africa. I also have a personal friend, who's spent their life among the poorest and castoff in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Eritrea teaching transformational community development.
On their last trip back here, this person met with our family at a friend's home for dinner, and we asked about the influence of western money, and what works and what doesn't.
This person grew quiet, and told us a Tale of Two Rich Folk and their money... BillG and Oprah.
Remember Oprah's fancy girl's school? She tested and picked the best and brightest, the future leaders, she called them. And the privileged status that inferred to those kids families have ripped their villages apart socially.
BillG's money, however, has mostly gone to provide 1) thousands and thousands of mosquito nets, and 2) lots of malaria medicines (and some for AIDS) ; which enable people to live without fear of invisible insect killers.
Oprah created dissention and division among the people and significantly entitled a chosen few.
BillG has enabled families and communities to live and continue to work to improve their situation without fear of malaria.
Guess which one is regarded as a savior of the people?
You may not like Windows, you may hate Microsoft, you may be jealous of BillG and think he has more money than the Almighty (...so why not share some with me, right?)
Well, If you lived through the early 80's (pre-Windows) and spent weeks writing drivers to talk to 50 different printers, you can at least give the guy a nod. Windows and the Mac unified the chaos.
But if you had malaria, or almost lost children or a spouse to a freakin' mosquito, and BillG's nets and medicine saved your life, you'd shake his hand and thank him with tears in your eyes.
I don't agree with all he does, but he deserves our respect for the thousands of lives he's saved.
I believe I saw you make similar racist comments on OLPC sites. Saying Africans should receive medical help, but not educational assistance, is racist because it is anti-equality. People like you do not want the status quo, continuing dominance by white Westerners, disturbed.
Both Gates and Ms. Winfrey are doing great things in Africa.
I have heard that the amount of money being given by Gates to the malaria cause actually has negative consequences too. It tends to reduce the number of other NGO's involved and reduce funding from other sources, this leads to a lack of diversity in the types of ideas and actions taken to deal with it. It might be worth looking into what I'm talking about instead of just taking my word on this one if you find the comment interesting.
And no, I'm absolutely not opposed to educating black people at all, nor of increasing the middle class; in fact, I'll educate everyone who will listen. But I fear you have little actual experience with what you're talking about when it comes from Africa.
You can't go to school when you're dead. You can't go to school when you're working to provide for your brothers and sisters when your parents are dead (from either AIDS or Malaria.)
My friend teaches transformational development, as do many there; because cultural transformation is necessary before significant advances can take place.
My friend in Africa also teaches the people to read. Young, old, rich, poor, black, purple, it doesn't matter.
My friend also transforms the people not to urinate and defecate in their drinking water supply.
You get that?
You see, native beliefs are that sharing a toilet mixes peoples souls and they won't do it. "What if an enemy or my mother-in-law uses the same toilet?" So they poop on the ground, or in the drinking water supply. Now *that's* a cultural problem!!!
Like bmn_1213 said, they're having trouble with food and water and basic life needs. In the meantime, while they're *alive*, then they go to school (or school comes to them) and they get an education and work to earn money for food.
Look... I myself attend a local white middle class educated protestant church, where my wife is the token foreigner. We have a friend who attends also, she's from Kenya, an adult, been here two years. She's true African black, and her English is far, far better than mine... or yours for that matter. She's world-wise and well read...
...and she's continually astounded by the people here in the US who can't find their own nation's capital on a map, but expect her to be speaking broken English and swinging half-naked through the trees. She speaks 4 languages, as do most of her peoples (two tribal plus English and French.) She's been my table guest from time to time, including at Thanksgiving and Chrstmas two years in a row. She's not privileged or rich. And I've sat overnight with her baby in the hospital so that she could go home and get some sleep; I've held him and rocked him and loved him as if he were my own. He's a baby, doesn't matter what color he is. Or hers.
Our friends come from around the globe...the USA, China, Africa, Europe, Russia, South America, Mexico, even the Middle East! Some aren't educated...but for sure, none are idiots! And Idiots come in all colors too.
I'm all for educating people, you should try it yourself sometime.
It costs about $3000 to visit Africa for two weeks. Get your shots and yellow card and go. Leave the tour bus and get out into the field. Deep. Work with the people whose sole possessions in life are a layer hen and a hut made from grass and dried cow poop; people who walk 10 klicks twice a day for dirty water.
I'd honestly love to hear what you have to say... then.
Until then, be careful what you say.
The liberal eco-nuts that banned DDT and doomed the rest of the world to live with or should I say die from Malaria.
Malaria can be erradicated from anywhere in the world in an extreamly short period of time if you just allwed DDT to be used again.
North America is still here after all of those years of DDT use, so will the rest of the planet.
I'm glad to hear the statements of someone who is reasonable and not prone to restating the falsehoods of others. Assuming that using DDT would eliminate an entire species of mosquito and "destroy the environment" is like assuming that throwing an ice cube in the Atlantic ocean will set off the next Ice Age.
If, and it is only if, a vaccine can be developed, I'm all for it. And, if Bill Gates wants to risk his Foundation's money on it's development that's his choice. But 1% of the money he's committing to the development of a vaccine could be spent to save lives today.
DDT may be effective in acting as a deterrant even amoung resistant mosquitos but it depends on a couple fo issues - including societal practices. If you spray interior rooms with DDT the mosquitos generally move to the outdoors. If you have a population where a significant percentage generally sleep outdoors (as in some part of India) then you aren't accomplishing that much.
The correct and judicious application of DDT may prove to be an effective element of a control campaign but carpet bombing the world with DDT isn't going to have the effect you might believe it will.
Oh, as for why malaria receeded from the United States? Well, it was in decline before the widespread use of DDT in the United States. Most of the researchers in the field attribute it to changing land use patterns and the reduction in the total amount of swamp lands in endemic areas. Less standing water means fewer mosquitos. Its actually more coimplicated than that - but its a good place to start.
If you are scared of a little jar of mosquitoes that Gates released, then you should be pitying those people who on a daily basis face these bugs before, during, and at times after their daily night's sleep. That is the message Gates is passing across!
Anyway, malaria can and should be ERADICATED worldwide. The steps for doing so are easy and practicable. I can implement an ERADICATION program using far less money than what Gates and others are using now. The problem with malaria eradication is that some researchers have hijacked the process for their FINANCIAL benefits. If malaria is ERADICATED, some of them will be without JOBS or financial gains they currently enjoy. They are not interested in getting rid of the scourge!!!! It is in someone else's backyard, who CARES.
Gates and others should find a better way to ERADICATE malaria. The current approach is WASTEFUL and EXPENSIVE.
i cannot believe a company has not been able to outduel a company with such a poor product.
Sorry for the shameless plug but here is a website.. ..http://www.downtownlongbeach.org/
The cost of a future vaccine isn't measured in millions of dollars--it's measured in the millions of lives that are lost each year. Perhaps we should go to the mothers who have lost infant children to malaria and ask them about surviving the "effects" of DDT.
- by pc1980 February 5, 2009 2:00 PM PST
- I wonder what he will do to bring attention to AIDS in africa. Maybe if he wasn't playing philanthropist in africa (wife's idea) his company wouldn't be going to s***. But then again microsoft has always been s*** for quite some time, but Gates absence doesn't help. Bill Gates' and everyone else that pours money into Africa does it in vain. Sooner rather then later handouts will cease after they prove fruitless.
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- by rapier1 February 5, 2009 9:30 PM PST
- Goodness, you are quite Africa expert aren't you? Please continue to educate us all from that prodigous font of insight you seem to have at the ready!
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