[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I am personally opposed to philanthropy. I think its a greedy way to look nice and does not progress humanity. Just think about all the good Charities with multi-billion dollar funds have done for the world. Thats right not much for the resources they have available. However, look what materialistic consumerism has brought us. Rapid tech advancement, large infrastructures, and a method of wealth-redistribution people are happy to work for.For profit pharmecuticals have done far more to cure diseases then any charity has been able to muster with greater resources.[/citation]
What? For profit pharmaceuticals make almost nothing off vaccines, that's why they are heavily subsidized, otherwise they'd never bother to make them. There's a lot more money in treating ongoing symptoms than actual cures (e.g. depression, not a single depression pill cures depression, they all treat the symptoms resulting in you having to take them the rest of your life - or you toughen up 😛 - life sucks, get a helmet). The WHO is the one responsible for the eradication of smallpox, not private industry, and with philanthropy from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and other charities and governments the WHO has been making significant inroads against polio and was going to have it eradicated in the next few years (at least until the Jenny McCarthy's of the world started the vaccine scares resulting in some African gov'ts throwing up blocks to prevent vaccinations).
There are plenty of charities out there that do plenty of very good work. Just because you don't hear about the good they're doing on a daily basis doesn't mean they aren't helping the world. However, good things hardly make the news, people rather hear about what's going wrong. Case in point; how many oil wells do you hear about that are working perfectly on the news, there's hundreds of thousands of them? How many iPhone4 antenna stories are there? How many stories about actresses that aren't total screw-ups like Lohan do you see?