• Question: If you had to choose between finding the cure to a huge disease or finding a way to save starved, malnourished and underprivileged children and adults, which would you choose?

    Asked by shivangigarg to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Hi shivangigarg- thats a tough one. As most of the children and adults you refer to would be more likely to catch a whole range of diseases, I would say that finding a way to solve this problem would go far in helping us to improve people’s health overall- but it wouldnt necessarily cure diseases, people would just be less likely to become ill.

      if it was a disease which was SO huge that everyone was at risk, then this would probably be my choice…

    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Curing a disease is a permanent fix for generations to come, so I think I’d go with that, but I might be wrong. A similarly permanent solution to the other half of your question would be simply awesome.

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Personally I would prefer to work on finding a cure for disease. That’s because this kind of work genuinely tries to get to the root of the problem, find out why people are sick, and make them better again. The majority of the world’s poverty and starvation is caused by human actions – war, or unfair trade, or inadequate help for disaster areas. These problems can most easily be solved if the people who have power and money (governments, big companies etc.) did their best to solve them, but the political and financial fields are often illogical – people almost never do what you think they should. Rather than trying to go against these giants, I think I would be able to do more by researching disease.

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I would also have to say disease, because a lot of malnutrition and poverty results indirectly from disease – for example children can lose their parents when they are still young and so are unable to finish their education, or adults become too sick to work and pay for food for their family.

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