Saudi Arabia in UN Women

Sorry guys, but what would rejecting Saudi Arabia accomplish?

This isn't any award for excellence. Actually is doing very little to end injustice against women. Publicly promised end system of male guardianship, criminalise domestic violence and ban marriage of young women. Saudi Arabia haven't fulfilled this promises.

You could reject Democratic republic of Congo, Pakistan or Ethiopia on the basis of gender inequalities in those countries.

I say that inclusion of Saudi Arabia could do more help than harm. For once this is occasion to remind Saudi representatives on every meeting about their promises.

US involvement in Somalia

Here is assistant secretary of state Johnie Carson explaining US role in Somalia.

It's worth your time.

BTW, that part of war in Somalia (phase 4) ended in 2009 with withdrawn of Ethiopian troops and seizure of large part of Southern Somalia by Islamists, primarily al-Shabaab.

Firstly I don't believe Islamic Courts Union would establish sound governance in the country. Simply because they couldn't stop Islamic militia. Secondly They would try to support insurgency in Ogaden and North Kenya. Could you imagine Ogaden as independent state? Small, inland economy surrounded by another impoverished countries. from the other perspectives Somaliland's separatists are utterly convinced they can live without sharia law, so creating government without representatives of most sensible region of country was pointless.

This wasn't unilateral Ethiopian action. African Union has clear stance that current countries shouldn't be divided and some of its members suffered gravely from attacks by organisations originated in Somalia. Noticeably Uganda, which has largest contingent of troops currently in Somalia.

I don't believe anybody is serious about Somali pirates. why not establish naval blockade?

Maybe TFG wasn't good way to go, but ICU won't go anywhere, so they can impose sharia on any new government in the country with or without US support,

Arguably international and Ugandan efforts in Karamoja and Southern Sudan were successful in bringing some stabilization. Arbitrage between Eritrea and Ethiopia or Eritrea and Djibouti was even more successful. Some US diplomats had their role in this affairs.

Neglected Tropical Diseases

Well, neglected tropical diseases are neglected, but I don't see any concentrated effort on those three. Although there were notable successes.

Largest organization fighting with them - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - still waits for promised money.

They are low-profiled diseases, because they kill lot of less people, are mostly local and attack disadvantaged people.

Besides, even with NTDs there were some positive stories.

Prime example is dracunculiasis, which fallen from 900 000 cases in 1989 to 3000 cases in 2009. Currently every village, where the parasite remains is monitored.

African tripanosomiasis fallen from 28 000 in year 1999 to 10 000 in 2008.

668 million of people were covered by preventive chemotherapy.

This is purely researched article. Lets say something about chosen neglected tropical diseases:

• dengue - insect-borne outbreaks in Americas ans South-Eastern asia,

• rabies - global disease, livestock killer, major economic problem,

• trachoma - makes your lashes grow inward your eyes, blindness causes loses in productivity, 8 million cases a year, there is effective strategy for elimination,

• buluri ulcer - large ulcers on legs and arms in children,

• yaws, bejel, pinta - ulcers and in case of yaws destruction bones, easily treatable,

• leprosy - 122 countries, but steadily decreasing, most of cases in South-East Asia,

• Chagas disease - insect-borne, this blood-sucking bug lives only in Americas, 10 000 death a year, in decline,

• sleeping sickness - expensive and dangerous treatment, remains in Central and Western Africa,

• leishmaniasis - visceral (attacking liver) and cutaneous forms;

  first is real killer, over 50 000 deaths, mostly India and Bangladesh,

  second is causing scars in more than a million people a year, mostly Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brazil,

• cysticercosis - global, parasites living in a brain, millions of cases a year, tens of millions of people living with epilepsy, causes loses in livestock, China is only country, which has extensive elimination program, diseases causes hundreds millions of dollars lost in pork,

• dracunculiasis - giant subcutaneous worm, hopefully will be eradicated soon,

• echinococosis - worm transmittable by dogs, live in liver and lungs, global, endemic regions even in Europe,

• Clonorchiasis, opisthorchiasis, fascioliasis and and paragonimiasis - causes by long-lived worms, first three like liver, last lungs, all are food-borne, people are slowly collect them, estimated tens of millions of cases, preventive chemotherapy applied, where available,

• lymphatic filariasis - over 100 million of people living with infection, in worst cases - elephantiasis, ongoing elimination, Africa and South-East Asia,

• liver blindness - insect-borne disease, larvae may happily live 14 years under the skin, then they mature and female spawns thousands of of new larvae travelling through body, large scale prevention in place, tens of millions infections treated and hundreds of thousand cases of blindness prevented, 25 million hectares of arable land reclaimed over the years, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, 605 coverage of endemic area,

• schistosomiasis/bilharziasis - water-borne worm living in veins of the pelvis, millions of cases, over 10 million treated, very cost-effective prevention, below$1 a year per person,

• helminthiases - soil-borne diseases, global, over billion cases a year, mostly school kids, internal bleedind or rectal prolapse may cause decrease in school attainment, treatment,

Feathered dinosaurs

Do 3 million people a year die from diarrhea?

Well, not really.
WHO has most recent statistics from 2004 and even they account for 1.8 million deaths.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index.html

Lancet gives estimates 1.3 million deaths were caused by diarrhoea in 2008.
Global child deaths on decline.

Main cause of these death (beside lack of improved sanitation access) is rotavirus, killing about 500 000 people a year.
This is one of the ways Bill Gates is going to save so many lives. Investing in rotavirus vaccine is very cost-effective.
Currently largest organization supporting vaccination is GAVIalliance, which is working within 72 countries.

EDIT: Using this visible place I may add some comprehensive study of access to sanitation around the world.
Progress on sanitation and drinking water: update 2010. This is report about achieving MDG7.

Lancet has clear agenda in reporting their estimates.
Progress and barriers for the control of diarrhoeal disease
You can clearly see, by the terms they are using. They strongly propagate prevention and mitigation of diarrhoeal diseases. I doubt their estimate are undervalued.

Wait, so the problem has a solution at hand, and it's a matter of pumping cash into it, not hoping for a magical cure for cancer?

No, first population studies were performed primarily in South America.

There is no guarantee that other regions would have same results.

South Asia has more diversity in rotavirus genome. There is need for more scientific studies.

Secondly, there are few organization, who want to deploy new vaccines in the recipient countries. This isn't sexy thing to do.

There is particular problem with Somalia (and Western Sahara), which de facto don't have any health program and remain excluded.

Thirdly, lack of improved sanitation (mostly in South Asia) doesn't allow to decrease number of deaths to zero. Even with best vaccine coverage and mineral supplementation you can expect decrease in number of deaths by 300 000 a year.

Fourthly, chronic malnutrition (South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa) is also responsible for part of these deaths, even taking into account vaccines and improved sanitation access.

Let's see, how amazing progress was made from grim XX century.

In the year 2000 over 900 000 children died of measles. In 2008 it was 160 000. In this year we can hope it would be below 100 000.

In the year 1990 there was 230 000 cases of polio. In the year 2000 it was 3500 cases. This year, AFAIK, there was 64 cases in India, 8 cases in Nigeria. Single cases in Uganda and different countries. I don't have data from Pakistan and Afghanistan, which could have outburst of polio. Apropos, there is currently vaccination intervention in number of Sub-Saharan countries. 72 million people are going to receive vaccine.

Oh, there is also "Reddit aspect". You would be paying some of largest international pharmaceutical companies hundreds million of dollar.

Is body-fat percentage the actual metric with the most clinically actionable meaning?

No, fat distribution is crucial for risk assessment. This is mainly mesenteric fat, which is responsible for insulin-resistance and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Asians have comparably higher body fat percentage than Caucasians and they don't have higher risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

Total body fat depends heavily on subcutaneous fat, which isn't very hormonally and metabolically active.

Methods correlated with diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular risks, from best to worse:

• ultrasonographic measurement of mesenteric fat thickness,

• waist circumference,

• BMI,

• MRI measurement of abdominal fat,

• waist-hip ratio,

• MRI measurement of visceral fat,

• ultrasonographic measurement of preperitoneal fat thickness,

• subcutaneous fat thickness,

for healthy population.

Currently measuring waist circumference is gold standard, while assessing risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, while BMI and waist-hip ratio give reliable results too. Sonographic measurement of visceral fat thickness may become standard in the future. Total body fat repeatedly failed as predicting factor.

While exercising is commendable you should measuring your waist circumference, as indicator of your fitness.

Is body-fat percentage the actual metric with the most clinically actionable meaning?

No, fat distribution is crucial for risk assessment. This is mainly mesenteric fat, which is responsible for insulin-resistance and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Asians have comparably higher body fat percentage than Caucasians and they don't have higher risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

Total body fat depends heavily on subcutaneous fat, which isn't very hormonally and metabolically active.

Methods correlated with diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular risks, from best to worse:

• ultrasonographic measurement of mesenteric fat thickness,

• waist circumference,

• BMI,

• MRI measurement of abdominal fat,

• waist-hip ratio,

• MRI measurement of visceral fat,

• ultrasonographic measurement of preperitoneal fat thickness,

• subcutaneous fat thickness,

for healthy population.

Currently measuring waist circumference is gold standard, while assessing risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, while BMI and waist-hip ratio give reliable results too. Sonographic measurement of visceral fat thickness may become standard in the future. Total body fat repeatedly failed as predicting factor.

While exercising is commendable you should measuring your waist circumference, as indicator of your fitness.