![\"bush.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/files\/bush.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHave you seen this picture?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That’s President Bush, dancing at a benefit for Malaria Awareness Day. The picture is priceless, but I’ll restrain myself. This is once I can’t fault the administration too much.<\/p>\n
In 2005, Bush launched the President’s Malaria Initiative <\/a>which has, among other things, helped support the use of DDT<\/span> <\/a>in many African countries.<\/p>\n Yesterday, Africa Fighting Malaria <\/a>(AFM<\/span>), a NGO<\/span> that helped bring DDT<\/span> back, scored donor countries on their efforts fighting malaria. On their scorecard<\/a>, the US ranks above everyone else, getting an impressive B+. Considering most other countries got themselves big, fat Fs that’s really good.<\/p>\n Things weren’t always so rosy, of course. In fact, before AFM<\/span> and others took the US Agency for International Development to task, the agency was spending about 7% of its budget on actual interventions. the rest went to “other” costs. After Congress intervened, things at USAID<\/span> have improved dramatically and they’re now working closely with AFM<\/span>.<\/p>\n But that still leaves all the other donors, who are—litreally—failing in their efforts to fight malaria.<\/p>\n For the purposes of the scorecard, those countries “got an F because they never even responded,” AFM’s Richard Tren told me yesterday at a fundraiser in New York for the NGO<\/span>.<\/p>\n Maybe it’s time to rustle up pictures of those leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you seen this picture? Read more<\/a> Continue reading