Deworming in the News

Deworming is being talked about in the media. The problems associated with STH and Schistosomiasis do not grab headlines like other diseases, but the sicknesses they cause can be equally devastating. It is our hope that deworming will be recognized more and more by the media as an excellent means to increase access to education and improve development.

Media is a powerful tool to increase awareness about parasitic worms, their effects on people, and the simple and cost-effective means to combat and prevent the disease.

President Bush Pledges $350 million dollars to fight neglected tropical diseases! Read the Hoyt Bleakley and Miriam Wasserman article in the Chicago Tribune highligting the overwhelming historical evidence in the US South that deworming school children has profound impacts on education and health.

"The culprit, an intestinal parasite called hookworm, is one of the "neglected tropical diseases" that Bush has just pledged our country's support in attacking. While few Americans today have even heard of the disease, in 1910 about 40 percent of Southern children suffered from hookworm infection." (read more)

Michael Kremer comments on why Bush's pledge of $350 million to fight neglected tropical diseases is one of the best investments to be made. Review the blog posting on the Center for Global Development’s website.

"Today's pledge by President Bush to invest $350 million in fighting Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) over the next 5 years is one of the wisest investments we can make in combating poverty around the world. This is particularly true when children are mass treated for common diseases through schools. While development initiatives are often driven by sentiment, school based treatment of neglected diseases is backed by rigorous evidence." (read more)

Deworm the world is a big hit at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos! Check out the blog in TIME about Deworm the World's presentation. Cherie Blair and Gene Sperling role played while Nicolas Kristof emceed!

"Somewhere behind those backs of people's heads are Cherie Booth Blair (you know, Tony's wife), pretending to be an intestinal worm, chasing (while wearing boots with three-inch heels) after a bunch of Davos attendees pretending to be schoolchildren. Meanwhile, Gene Sperling (a top economic adviser in the Clinton administration), is pretending to be a teacher, rushing to get antiworm medicine to the kids before Cherie gets them." (read more)

• Read Nicolas Kristof's op-ed column in the New York Times, Attack of the Worms....

"Quiz time: So what do hundreds of millions of ordinary schoolchildren around the world possess that American kids almost never get? Answer: worms?
(...)
"Indeed, the cheapest way to increase school attendance in poor countries isn’t to build more schools, but to deworm children. Yet almost no government aid goes to deworming." (read more)

• Understand how randomized evaluations uncovered the unparalleled cost-effectiveness of deworming as an educational intervention in Nature....

"Faced with the multitude of problems that result from and contribute to poverty, how can you decide which strategy to use to tackle an issue? One innovative lab is borrowing ideas from the medical world in a bid to find out." (read more)

Related pieces....

• See how the debate over 'sustainable development' is heating up, due in part to what randomized trials have unearthed about deworming and other development interventions. (Read the Boston Globe article)

"THE HOLY GRAIL of international development has long been sustainability - creating markets and institutions that will flourish after Western donors have gone home....

....The researchers found that charging a fee for the relevant [deworming] medicines brought use down from 75 percent in a school to 19 percent - a devastating result." (read more)