“Malaria” on The Daily Caller

Recent efforts, spearheaded in large part by the U.S. government, have reduced the annual malaria death toll from around 1 million to 800,000. There has also been an impressive increase in funding for research and development (R&D) into new malaria-fighting tools. Yet there may be trouble ahead. R&D spending to date has been skewed away from some of the most useful anti-malaria tools and the donor nations that have been picking up the tab face an avalanche of debt. This potential problem provides an important opportunity for malarial countries to show some leadership of their own. (more)

With a Congressional budget showdown all but inevitable, U.S. foreign assistance is once again on the chopping block. As two long-serving Republican former members of Congress, we believe the fiscal situation in this country demands bold action. However, we are deeply concerned about the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ recent proposal to make sweeping cuts to the budgets of the State Department and at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). (more)

As a new Congress gets into gear, both Republicans and Democrats have a solemn duty to do the people’s work and to make sure their taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely. U.S. foreign assistance is already under the microscope, as it should be, but we believe policymakers should focus on making it better instead of slashing budgets. Foreign assistance accounts for less than 1% of our federal budget, and our investments in it can pay real dividends for the cost. (more)

Malaria continues to ravage communities and economies and claims the life of a child approximately every 45 seconds. Some progress has been made in recent years, but this could be undone if some UN agencies continue their campaign to stop the use of public health insecticides in the fight against malaria. Unless the donor nations that fund global malaria programs, such as the US, firmly reject the unscientific, fear-based opposition to insecticides, progress against this preventable and curable disease will be lost. (more)

To say the government regulates everything is an understatement. Aside from the black market, which is only unregulated insofar as it avoids taxes and bypasses age restrictions on such things as alcohol (not including illegal products), there really isn’t much in which the government doesn’t have a hand. And now they’re thinking about coming after your hand…well, your hand soap, anyway. (more)

Imagine there are no mosquitoes – it isn’t hard to do. No welts to itch or scratch and no malaria too. (more)

An op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times about the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by rock singer Bono (yes, you read that right) was naive and misguided.  The minimal successes at improving the health and wealth of the poor he cited have been vastly overshadowed by negative policies and actions by UN agencies. (more)

A spokesman for British singer and TV personality Cheryl Cole says she is being treated in a London hospital for malaria. (more)

Summer’s back . . . and so are the unwelcome guests everyone dreads. (more)

Efforts to develop a vaccine triggered by human sweat, and to control mosquitoes using carnivorous plants, were among 78 science projects that won backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Tuesday. (more)

It makes sense to set aside a day to celebrate our planet.  Unfortunately, that is not what Earth Day is about.  Instead, it is a day to celebrate public policies that have had disastrous consequences—both for humanity and for the environment.  If we want to celebrate the environment and humanity, then let’s celebrate Free Market Earth Day and promote the principles of Free Market Environmentalism (FME). (more)

The single-mindedness among do-gooders never ceases to amaze me—and not in a good way. (more)

During his State of the Union address on Jan. 31, 2006, President Bush mentioned malaria twice. This probably took most Americans by surprise as the disease was banished from the States in the early 1950s. But as Bush and his administration established the ambitious President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the disease would soon feature fairly high on the political and popular agenda. So it should — the disease claims the life of an African child almost every 30 seconds. (more)

We’re facing extraordinarily challenging fiscal times. So as the president’s budget makes its way through the halls of the Capitol, lawmakers will carefully scrutinize every account, every program, and every initiative—as they should. (more)