The front page story in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times is a bit of unwelcome sensational journalism.  The headline is “A Times Investigation - Unintended Victims of Gates Foundation Generosity.”

The story is about the state of health in the poorest areas of Africa where, under the aegis of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Fund and the GAVI Alliance are combating AIDS, TB, malaria and measles. The vast good that these initiatives have done receives scant coverage – you have to read far into the 4,500+ word article to get the true picture, which is that initial vaccinations and treatment are not a solution for the abject poverty that affects all aspect of medical care. Moreover, the Foundation is aware of the problems that result as one shifts the medical calculus of entire populations and is working to fix them: The piece quotes Paul Farmer, recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and founder of Partners in Health as saying “…Farmer, who knows the Gateses, said they had a deep personal commitment to understanding and addressing the needs of developing countries. He said he expected the Gates Foundation to increase its support for health delivery systems.”

It’s important to have media monitor philanthropic efforts in Africa.  But I share some of the opinions that a reader (Julie from San Diego) posted about the Times’ coverage:

“This article is so offensive that I am nearly speechless. To intimate that Bill and Melinda Gates are doing something bad by providing vaccinations and AIDS medicine is a shoddy sucker-punch disguised as "news". True philanthropy gives a hand up, not a hand out. The problems in Africa are so big and so complex that no one, not even Bill Gates, can fix them. What can be done is to ensure that no child needlessly dies of a PREVENTABLE disease for which we have a vaccine that is relatively easy to administer. The writers of this twisted piece of pseudo-journalism should be sent to Africa to take a crack at fixing the problems themselves.”