Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference

by William MacAskill

This is an easy consideration to forget. If something seems like a huge problem – perhaps the biggest problem in the world – it is natural to think one should focus on it. But if that problem already has a large amount of resources invested in it, then additional resources might be better spent elsewhere. For example HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria traditionally received much more attention than conditions like intestinal worms. One reason for this, I think, is that these other conditions cause a much greater amount of ill health (measured in number of deaths, or QALYs lost) than intestinal worms do, and thereby attracted a disproportionate share of attention. However, precisely because intestinal worms had much less attention, the cheapest and most effective ways of treating them were still available. In fact, it wasn’t until Alan Fenwick, executive director of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, coined the term ‘Neglected Tropical Diseases’ that these conditions became more prominent in the discussion of global health. The term had two benefits. First, it classified a wide range of conditions under one heading. This meant that, even though the burden of disease from schistosomiasis, for example, was small compared to the global burden from HIV/AIDS, the global burden of disease from all neglected tropical diseases was comparable to the global burden from HIV/AIDS. Second, the name highlighted the fact that these diseases were neglected. When you read the rest of t...