Charity Doesn't Stop at the Tsunami's Edge

Nicholas Kristof makes a good point in his NY Times column yesterday. While it is right we focus on the horrible tragedy caused by the tsunamis last week, there are ongoing slow-motion disasters claiming far more lives.

When grieving victims intrude onto our TV screens, we dig into our pockets
and provide the massive, heartwarming response that we're now displaying in
Asia; the rest of the time, we're tightwads who turn away as people die in far
greater numbers.

The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the
margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria.
Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and
most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.

But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people
will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the
tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000).

I heard a radio report on NPR yesterday that the $300 million the United States government has pledged to tsunami relief was coming from funds earmarked for other international relief. I have not seen this reported elsewhere and perhaps I misunderstood. But if this is true, we really are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Either way, it's kind of sad that we only get energized to help when presented with dramatic images. As Kristof puts it "When grieving victims intrude onto our TV screens, we dig into our pockets and provide the massive, heartwarming response that we're now displaying in Asia; the rest of the time, we're tightwads who turn away as people die in far greater numbers."