[afro-nets] Corporate influences on epidemiology (3)

["Peter Burgess" <peterbnyc@gmail.com>]

Dear Colleagues

I found the message about corporate influences on epidemiology a little disconcerting, and will try to take the discussion further in due course. For the moment, however, this brief note.

I am not at all happy with the way in which my generation of leaders have conducted themselves over the past 40 odd years ... but the world is not populated only by people who are greedy, though clearly they do have a lot of influence. There have been and are some amazing people who have made a difference including, for example:
.... Mohatma Ghandi - building on a right idea.
.... Nelson Mandella - made it possible for the impossible to be a success.
.... Muhammad Yunus - has made it possible for poor women to progress with dignity.

But more important ... millions of good ordinary people do nice things every day that make the planet more hospitable for the neighbors.

In my own way I want to help by "collecting the dots" so that it becomes relatively easy to "connect the dots" and get pressure on the people and organizations that are not doing what really should be done.

In the area of malaria control I would be interested to get some data (the dots) about the role of bednet manufacturers in compiling the information that is being used to demonstrate that bednets are being effective as a malaria control interventions, and I would like to have an opportunity to study the data that backs up the conclusions being drawn.

I have no doubt that bednets have some positive impact ... but I would like to know a lot more about the cost effectiveness of the interventions, and to what extent there might be side effects.

I would like to see data about the ex-factory cost (price) of bednets as a time series. As the volume goes up, it seems that the price goes up. In Economics 101 we learn that as demand goes up, then price goes up  ... and we also learn that as volume goes up, costs go down (economies of scale!). If we combine these two lessons from Economics 101 we must conclude that profits in the bednet industry have gone up substantially. This is not all bad, if the product is a luxury ... but it is not much good when the product has been positioned as the key intervention to save lives, and one of the limiting factors is the absolute amount of money available to fund interventions.

If anyone has any of this information ... I would very much like you to share it with me. This is probably inconvenient information, which is likely also to be valuable information.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess

--
Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
http://www.tr-ac-net.org
IMMC - The Integrated Malaria Management Consortium Inc.
http://www.IMMConsortium.org
The Tr-Ac-Net blogs ... start at http://tracnetagenda.blogspot.com
+1 917 432 1191 or +1 212 772 6918  
mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com