Quick takes

Buried deep in the PEPFAR Report's appendix - methodology section is a nice "introduction to global health programs" mini-article that also addresses some lay misconceptions about foreign aid and suggests a better way to think about it all in one go; it's a shame that most folks won't read it, so I'm reposting it here for ease of future reference.

Update (January 28): Marco Rubio has now issued a temporary waiver for "humanitarian programs that provide life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance."[1] PEPFAR's funding was recently paused as a result of the recent executive order on foreign aid.[2] (It was previously reauthorized until March 25, 2025.[3]) If not exempted, this would pause PEPFAR's work for three months, effective immediately. Marco Rubio has issued waivers for some forms of aid, including emergency food aid, and has the authority to issue a similar waiver for PEPFAR, allowing it to resume work immediately.[4] Rubio has previously expressed (relatively generic) positive sentiments about PEPFAR on Twitter,[5] and I don't have specific reason to think he's opposed to PEPFAR, as opposed to simply not caring strongly enough to give it a waiver without anyone encouraging him to. I think it is worth considering calling your representatives to suggest that they encourage Rubio to give PEPFAR a waiver, similarly to the waiver he provided to programs giving emergency food aid. I have a lot of uncertainty here — in particular, I'm not sure whether this is likely to persuade Rubio — but I think it is fairly unlikely to make things actively worse. I think the argument in favor of calling is likely stronger for people who are represented by Republicans in Congress; I expect Rubio would care much more about pressure from his own party than about pressure from the Democrats.   1. ^ https://apnews.com/article/trump-foreign-assistance-freeze-684ff394662986eb38e0c84d3e73350b 2. ^ My primary source for this quick take is Kelsey Piper's Twitter thread, as well as the Tweets it quotes and the articles it and the quoted Tweet link to. For a brief discussion of what PEPFAR is, see my previous Quick Take. 3. ^ https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/pepfars-short-term-reauthorization-sets-an-uncertain-course-for-its-long-term-future/ 4. ^ htt

For the tax nerds, cool event next week from the OECD: Tax Inspectors Without Borders: A decade of niche assistance to developing countries 12 March 2024 | 13:45 - 14:45 CET https://www.tiwb.org/resources/events/oecd-tax-and-development-days-2025-tiwb-a-decade-of-niche-assistance-to-developing-countries.htm 

Sharing this talk I gave in London last week titled "The Heavy Tail of Valence: New Strategies to Quantify and Reduce Extreme Suffering" covering aspects of these two EA Forum posts: * Quantifying the Global Burden of Extreme Pain from Cluster Headaches * The Quest for a Stone-Free World: Chanca Piedra (Phyllanthus niruri) as an Acute and Prophylactic Treatment for Kidney Stones and Their Associated Extreme Negative Valence I welcome feedback! 🙂

I've been doing some data crunching, and I know mortality records are flawed, but can anyone give feedback on this claim: Nearly 5% of all deaths (1 in 20) in the entire world occur from direct primary causation recorded due to just 2 bacterial species, S. Aureus and S. Pneumoniae.   I'm doing a far UVC write up on whether it could have averted history's deadliest pandemics. Below is a snippet of my reasoning when defining 'CURRENT' trends in s-risk bio. ---------------------------------------- Analysis of pathogen differentials: 2021-2024 data: Sources Our World in Data, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, CDC, FluStats, WHO, 80 000 hours   Figure 8: Comparison of number of identified and cultured strains of pathogen types Figure 9: Comparison of number of strains pathogenic to humans by pathogen types   From the data, despite a considerable amount of identified strains of fungi and protists, the percentage of the strains of those pathogen types that can pose a threat to humans is low (0.2% and 0.057%) so the absolute amount of strains pathogenic to humans from different pathogen types remains similar to viruses, and becomes outweighed by pathogenic bacteria.   Archaea have yet to be identified as posing any pathogenic potential for humans, however, a limitation is that identification is sparse and candidates of extremophile domains tend to be less suitable for laboratory culture conditions.   The burden of human pathogenic disease appears clustered from a small minority of strains of bacterial, viral, fungal and Protoctista origin.   Furthermore, interventions can be asymmetrical in efficacy. Viral particles tend to be much smaller than bacterial or droplet based aerosols, so airborne viral infections such as measles would spread much quicker in indoor spaces and would not be meaningfully prevented by typical surgical mask filters. Whilst heavy droplet particles or bodily fluid transmission such as of colds or HIV can be more effectively prev

I just learned that Trump signed an executive order last night withdrawing the US from the WHO; this is his second attempt to do so.  WHO thankfully weren't caught totally unprepared. Politico reports that last year they "launched an investment round seeking some $7 billion “to mobilize predictable and flexible resources from a broader base of donors” for the WHO’s core work between 2025 and 2028. As of late last year, the WHO said it had received commitments for at least half that amount". Full text of the executive order below: 

During the animal welfare vs global health debate week, I was very reluctant to make a post or argument in favor of global health, the cause I work in and that animates me. Here are some reflections on why, that may or may not apply to other people: 1. Moral weights are tiresome to debate. If you (like me) do not have a good grasp of philosophy, it's an uphill struggle to grasp what RP's moral weights project means exactly, and where I would or would not buy into its assumptions. 2. I don't choose my donations/actions based on impartial cause prioritization. I think impartially within GHD (e.g. I don't prioritize interventions in India just because I'm from there, I treat health vs income moral weights much more analytically than species moral weights) but not for cross-cause comparison. I am okay with this. But it doesn't make for a persuasive case to other people. 3. It doesn't feel good to post something that you know will provoke a large volume of (friendly!) disagreement. I think of myself as a pretty disagreeable person, but I am still very averse to posting things that go against what almost everyone around me is saying, at least when I don't feel 100% confident in my thesis. I have found previous arguments about global health vs animal welfare to be especially exhausting and they did not lead to any convergence, so I don't see the upside that justifies the downside. 4. I don't fundamentally disagree with the narrow thesis that marginal money can do more good in animal welfare. I just feel disillusioned with the larger implications that global health is overfunded and not really worth the money we spend on it. I'm deliberately focusing on emotional/psychological inhibitions as opposed to analytical doubts I have about animal welfare. I do have some analytical doubts, but I think of them as secondary to the personal relationship I have with GHD.

Fortunately, GiveWell has agreed for me to post their response to my post on Independent Evaluation for Reputation; you can find it at the end of the post.