Bill Gates world's richest man - again

Not from me

 

I am saying that prevention is magnitudes cheaper and more effective than early detection, which in turn is cheaper and more effective than improved therapies.

Cancer is really no different as a public health concern in the US than e.g. Diabetes or Coronary artery disease. Change lifestyle. Trying to treat the disease once established is (relatively) very little benefit at a very high cost.

 

... of rich humans who already have very good life expectancies. The poorer humans have far more immediate problems.

Cancer is not like polio or smallpox. We can't eradicate it any more than we can find a perpetual fountain of youth or achieve immortality. While we can push back against it, delay it, 'cure' many of the first and sometimes second outbreaks, any hint of eradication will require fortunes far greater than Gates and Buffet and Slim combined.

Meanwhile, Gates and Buffet are trying to achieve far more benefit from their finite resources, directed towards the less advantaged humans with other larger and more immediate health concerns.

If you disagree, you are most welcome to create your own $50-100 Billion fortune and then use it as you think best.

 

I am well aware that friendship played a major factor, but the story is much more broad than that. Buffet is not the type of businessman to re-invent the wheel by replicating someone else's successful business. He prefers to identify an existing successful venture, then buy in to it (the original) and provide more resources to continue and expand what is already successful.

Note also that compared to Buffet, Gates is 25 years younger, had already set his calendar to exit the meatgrinder business of making money and devote full time to philanthropy, and had a spouse who had already done so many years previously. I.e. Buffet cannot match Gate's philanthropy experience.

 

From your tone, it is very clear that you are not one of the children of Mary and William H. Gates Sr.

Bill Gates was born into relative privilege. His mother made it clear that that brought great responsibility to give back. He wasn't expecting to receive all his own parent's fortune, so had to go out and create his own. I suspect he will push his children to do the same, on whatever scale they are capable of.

 

Cheaper, so it's about money? Detection and prevention for sure. But cure is needed. What better person to fund the cure than the worlds richest man. Better than funding condom distribution

 

So Fuzzy how long you have known the Gates family?

 

You just put me to sleep. Gates is retired, he has time. Buffet is still working full time. If your a CEO of a successful company and one of the worlds greatest investors you can or hire the right people to manage your charity. I'm not buying your argument.

Read between the lines.

I will go as far as saying that perhaps Buffet made a big donation to the Gates foundation, and in return Buffet is managing some of Gates wealth and the foundation wealth in his Mutual Fund. That and friendship is more a solid reason than Buffet cannot manage a charity.

 

Fuzzy just threw cancer under the bus! Amazing.

 

Fuzzy, Sage etc we will have to agree to disagree.

Cancer, heart disease and stroke is the number one killer.

The biggest impact is to fund research.

It's not about rich people living longer, but all people living a Better quality of life.

Sure Melinda looks cute posing for pictures hugging African children in schools with Windows 8 shirts on.

I'd like to see her hug a cancer researcher at UCLA hunting for the cure, and him exclaiming a cure is possible with Melinda's help next to a child with a chemo line in her chest.

 

Apparently you missed 30+ years of reports and interviews by Seattle news media.

 

Public Relations 101.

 

This is not just naive, it borders on offensive.

My mother's bloodline has inherited breast cancer. She 'avoided' that by getting ovarian cancer instead. When dad was exhausted, I took FMLA to provide home hospice care. I was the one she asked, without warning, for the whole bottle of morphine. (Suggestion for future hospice patients: explicitly talk this over with a trusted caregiver in advance, don't wait until your pain is overwhelming to shock them with a surprise request.) (I gave only enough to knock her out for a few hours, and wasn't asked again before the final coma arrived the next week.) I was holding the stethoscope as the final heartbeats faded into an sea of white noise.

I've had several cancer scares myself. Two different kinds of lumps turned out benign, though biopsy nerve damage from one left a minor but permanent disability. I've flunked one PSA test, and am on the short recall schedule for colonoscopy, hoping to not need to follow in F8L's path (Never too young for colon cancer.. Where I've been).

So I am intimately familiar with cancer.

There is no good reason for you to castigate Bill & Melinda Gates for putting their money where they believe it will buy greater benefits. If you don't like it, go raise your own $70,000,000,000 to spend according to your beliefs.

 

It is about ROI for the world; or if you prefer a much more limited perspective, the world's humanity.

I think you need to travel. Infant death on scales you cannot imagine happens every day from dehydration. Think about it this way: 70B USD is about $12 a person. A one time present, never to repeat. For the 2 - 3 billion people in the work who on good days only have to worry about starvation, the idea of spending the Gates fortune on cancer treatment is beyond ludicrous.

Let me clue you in, to what I thought was well known:
Exercise
No tobacco
Healthy diet
No Obesity

reduces overall cancer incidence and death by ~ 70%. Marginal cost ? $0

 

Fuzzy Castigate is a strong word and borders on offensive.

Fuzzy my OPINION and I have a right to express it is the foundation can better serve mankind investing in the top 3 killers of humans and not condom and drug distribution and education with MS products in the third world.

We will have to agree to disagree

 

Sage if Exercise is the end all of cancer best you apologize to Lance Armstrong and countless others.

I'm aware of the benefits of exercise and eating well, but hardly a cure.

We will have to agree to disagree

 

is at odds with simple facts.

 

Sage nice graphic but exercise is not a cure. Good point though

 

The simple and free measures I mentioned are a CURE for the 70% of cancer that would never occur. Compare that to the progress made to date with cancer therapeutics.

 

I'll go race to the chemo and radiation waiting room now and tell them to skip there appointments and get a Gym membership.