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MARK ZUCKERBERG AND his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged $3 billion over the next decade to efforts to prevent, cure or manage disease, aiming to use the Facebook founder’s fortune for innovative research.
“This is a big goal,” Zuckerberg said at a San Francisco event announcing the effort of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative established by the couple.
But we spent the last few years speaking with experts who think it is possible, so we dug in.
Zuckerberg and Chan had their daughter Max late last year.
Shortly after, they pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook holdings or some $45 billion to “advance human potential and promote equality.”
Cure all disease
At yesterday’s event, Zuckerberg said their goal is to cure all disease, or at least turn catastrophic illnesses from terminal to manageable.
Chan, fighting back tears at times, said that curing all disease within Max’s lifetime will not mean children won’t ever get sick, but it would happen less often and be less severe.
The first investment being made as part of what the Zuckerbergs hoped would become a “collective” effort will be the creation of a bio-hub in San Francisco where researchers, scientists and others will work to build tools to better study and understand diseases.
“Throughout the history of science, most breakthroughs have been preceded by the invention of some new technology that lets you see things in new ways,” Zuckerberg said, mentioning the microscope and DNA sequencing as examples.
Tools also create breakthroughs in how we treat diseases.
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I am actually excited to see what comes of this over my lifetime. They both strike me as people who get things done, are not tied up in politics & have huge resources behind them. This initiative will make a difference.
unfortunately, their “initiatives” are just smokescreens. their internet.org (which i worked with) was less interested in providing affordable internet than ego to r&d projects and convincing governments to subsidise facebook access. Behind all the tears and faux humility is just a guy who got lucky who has the ear of politicians, not the saviour of the world’s poor.
You’re a glass half empty kinda person then Alien?
nope, very optimistic – but you have to filter out all the snake oil first!
@Jo45: You know Mother Nature has a way of population control. Once you cure one disease a more deadly one appears.
Spare us the crocodile tears Chan. Charity is no substitute for paying your taxes. If Facebook and the other parasitic multinationals stopped their systemic tax dodging there would be $ trillions more available to fund medical research to aid children and everyone else across the globe.
It’s the so-called parasitic Multinationals that actually do the research which leads to these cures. If the state gets the money it generally goes back to paying over inflated public sector wage demands and pensions
Nonsense Kirk.
Here on planet earth, Big Pharma like the rest of the corporate sector works solely to maximize profit, not to help humanity. Corporations are extremely reluctant to undertake the long and costly foundational research and development necessary to drive science and technology forward and indeed why would they when that cost can be borne by the state? Profits are privatized while losses are socialized as ever under the capitalist model.
We see for example where the big pharmaceutical MNCs have largely stopped developing new antibiotics even though they are desperately needed as they can generate greater profits in other areas as explained recently by the WHO:
“Another reason is commercial. Antibiotics, in particular, have a poor return on investment because they are taken for a short period of time and cure their target disease. In contrast, drugs that treat chronic illness, such as high blood pressure, are taken daily for the rest of a patient’s life. “Companies have figured out that they make a lot more money selling the latter drugs than they do selling antibiotics,” Spellberg says, highlighting the lack of incentive for companies to develop antibiotics. That’s why many companies have stopped developing antibiotics altogether”
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/2/11-030211/en/
“Evidence abounds of the state’s pivotal role in the history of the computer industry, the internet, the pharmaceutical-biotech industry, nanotech and the emerging green tech sector. In all these cases, the state dared to think – against all odds – about the ‘impossible’: creating a new technological opportunity; making the initial large necessary investments; enabling a decentralised network of actors to carry out the risky research; and then allowing the development and commercialisation process to occur in a dynamic way”.
Thus the algorithm that led to Google’s success came from a grant from the US National Science Foundation. Molecular antibodies (providing the foundation for biotechnology before the arrival of venture capital) were discovered in medical research labs in the UK. Most innovative young companies in the US were funded by public venture capital such as that provided by the Small Business Innovation Research programme.
Well Billy, their motivation is irrelevant, it’s the results that count. Big pharma account for 90% of all medical breakthroughs
@Wally, Back to work and quit your cutting and pasting!
They either want to cure all diseases which makes them a threat to the entire pharmaceutical industry or they want to disrupt the entire pharmaceutical industry through developing new pain management innovations which makes them a threat. Not a wise announcement.
I would love to believe that this is an entirely altruistic act, but the cynic in me can’t help but wonder, if they will continue to have the same control, access and benefit from this 45 Billion in funds and 99% stake in facebook and its assests, just without having to pay tax, due to its charitable status?
So what if is. 3 thousand million dollars will help
Well Paul, the problem as I see it is, the fifty richest people in the world have 1.46 Trillion dollars between them, and if they all remove themselves from paying tax on anything they have, by setting up similar charitable foundations, it’s not hard to see that everyone else could suffer rather than benefit as a result. They could in fact spend considerably less on research and development for these proposed humaitarian endeavours, than they would have had to pay in tax. Then if the mere billionares also follow suit that amount of untaxable wealth increases to over 7 Trillion dollars. Its not much of a stretch to then imagine that the mere multi millionaires of the world would also like to get in on some of that non taxable status action. That’s the problem in my opinion.
Nonsense. Facebook is not a charity. The Zuckerman wealth was taxed before he got it. Monies raised by the Initiative will benefit from charitable status so long as all of it’s activities are for a charitable purpose.
Disease is natures way of keeping balance, without it we would be over-populated.
@gavin. That’s true. Initiatives like this need to be balanced with contraceptive and sterilisation programs. Otherwise what with become of this excess population. Oh wait……
gav, disease isn’t nature way of controlling populations – it tries to wipe them out. Survival as a species involves controlling diseases as well as population by educating women (and again, getting rid of religions that tell women they are going to hell if they don’t churn out as many dead children as they can, when contraception would allow them to have one or two healthy children).
Totally agree Gavin. We all have to die & not everyone lives to be old.
Disease, at least some of it, is just another organism trying to survive. Or it is a fault in the way the body works. It is not some plan to control population by Sky fairies or Mother Nature or whatever you’re having yourself. It just is.
@Gavin:
The Third World’s lack of family planning is not the West’s responsibility.
Africans breed and multiply irresponsibly and think it’s somehow our fault.
@Gavin: It’s really not. Disease doesn’t have a plan for mankind. Ireland, for instance, is in no danger of overpopulation but will still have a lot of cancer and heart disease.
@Eamon Mac Gowan: read an article a few years ago regarding the Ethiopian famine. In the 30 years since the famine, the population of Ethiopia had more than doubled. Why? assistance from the west enables this overpopulation and ability to live in an unsustainable environment, and so the west is also had to deal on our own shores with this excess population which as we see is destabilising our society. The only programs we should be financing are contraceptive programs. All else is pointless if the world is allowed to breed without regard to any other factor.http://www.nairaland.com/356768/irish-independant-africa-giving-nothing
@Margie Murph: So what should/shouldn’t be done? let them all die is it? Sometimes despite the consequences we have to do the right thing – that is because we are human and it is compassion that defines us. Can you imagine a world (although Trump and his followers are close to it) where we don’t care about each other – and just say let sh*t happen.
What you have just articulated is exactly the same position members of the british cabinet during the famine.. let them die because if we help them they’ll only multiply in number. What a disgusting and grotesque viewpoint to have – let’s hope you never need help from a neighbour.
@Margie Murph: Let me guess you also define yourself as believer in god, a good christian are anti-abortion, anti-immigration and like Donald Trump and think Nigel Farage is a good guy if only we had him in Ireland.
@Old Gabby Johnson: no. I don’t advocate letting people die, I’m advocating help and compassion in a sustainable fashion underpinned by contraceptive and sterilisation programs. No,point in feeding and caring for families with 10 kids if there’s no work or purpose for these kids apart from another 10 off spring from each child. Born into a world where’s there’s nothing for them except reproducing themselves and an early death. The do gooders on this planet only see one side of this dilemma. Save lives because we are compassionate human beings. But we also have to be very aware of the quality of lives were promoting. Overpopulation in Africa is having its effects in Europe, uneducated people with no saleable skills in huge numbers are on their way. Our compassion has unintended consequences. We need to face those consequences and implement serious population control by Norplant injections. Or Europe, as we know it and like it, is finished.
@Old Gabby Johnson: OK gabby Johnson. Just read your second comment and now you can fcuk off. You know nothing about me.
@Margie Murph: Jesus christ in a handbasket – what you are suggesting is what was advocated in the 1930′s to control the population of jews. So who do we decide should not be able to conceive?
I thought people like you went the way of the do do and then i look at the rise far right.
@Margie Murph: Oh my God, a Kevin Myers opinion piece from 2008.
What a surprise that blowhard has a ‘controversial opinion’.
And in one quick Google I debunked his bullsh!t.
http://www.demographicdividend.org/country_highlights/ethiopia/
Ethopia’s population growth is 2.1% and its birth rate has declined.
@Old Gabby Johnson: Funnily enough, you’re exactly right!
Mozart was the youngest of seven.. your dull, mengele sterilisation would have prevented his existence. Apologies for Godwin ing but sterilisation was literally a major factor in the final solution; milosevic tried it in bosnia; and as for the Armenians, homosexuals and our own monstrous doctor neary in dundalk doing his symphysiotomies on unmarried huskies….. sterilisation is a gangrene on the human ability to imagine a better world
Where did I I mention “forced”? I didn’t, you virtue signallling d!ck.
@Margie Murph: The mask has slipped i see.
@Margie Murph: I have to say that is a remarkably similar philosophy to that adopted by many in the British government and others in the 1840s, albeit it without the sterilisation and contraception options. However there are many things that could be done to make life in the likes of Ethiopia sustainable nowadays and that includes industrialisation and redefining countries’ borders. Seeing as First World countries telling African people they can’t have children is an option that would cause resentment and revolution etc and is also completely impractical, it only leaves the horror of starvation as the viable one in that particular line of thought. Human ingenuity needs to come up with something better and unfortunately that ingenuity only kicks in when there’s money to be made..or saved. If you have a hard look at the history of famine and disease you will notice something which may seem strange. Humans tend to breed their way out of them. Look at what happened here and in Africa. It’s one of the things that separates us from other species and is maybe down to conscious thought of the future.
@Niamh Kenneally: Do you have a spare room?
Perhaps you could take in an Ethiopian family, seeing that you are so kind and benevolent?
What do they want, the global population to grow to 20 or 30 billion?
@Eamon Mac Gowan: Whenever people get access to better education and medical care/contraception, the population growth slows. When the mortality age increases population growth slows.
I wouldn’t worry about it.
@Niamh Kenneally: That’s the way we in the West think and react.
But when vast swathes of the Third have extremely low IQ, they’ll keep reproducing.
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country
@Eamon Mac Gowan: Oh ok, I thought you were a real person with thoughts. You’re just a troll.
Sorry for your troubles. Hope your life gets happier and more fulfilled.
Not likely if god stops condemning Contraception and abortion
It took entire human history for global population levels to reach 1 billion, that doubled in 100 years to 2 billion by the early 1900s and exploded in the 20th Century (despite all the wars & pandemics such as the Spanish Flu) whereby we now have a population of nearly 7.5 billion.
The primary reasons for that were better nutrition (through increased food supply) and better disease control (through better medical care, vaccinations, sanitation etc.).
Increased access to Education & contraception (which I’m all for) will only get us so far in the short term. Estimates suggest that by 2100 global population will be for better or worse 11 billion and rising. We’ll be long gone but I’m not sure that’s a planet I’d like to be around to see.
Overpopulation is going to be one of the biggest problems facing future generations.
Very true Cyril. And it’s the elephant in the room that no govt, politician, economist or altruistic celebrity wants to address. As far as I know David Attenborough is the only one in the media to express his concern for human overpopulation.
@Niamh Kenneally:
Way to go, Niamh.
Deny reality even when it’s staring you in the face.
@Eamon Mac Gowan: I’d have to disagree with you there eamon – based upon the evidence staring everyone in the face and therefore reality – it can be quickly surmised that you are an idiot. Therefore i would say Niamh was accepting the reality before her eyes.
@Old Gabby Johnson: All those scientists and their data on IQ are wrong, and you and Niamh are right?
I don’t think so.
There’s no money in cures
treatments are where the money is
Between Elon Musk and the Zuckerberg’s, change like this is possible. It won’t be the politicians or governments of the world that push these changes, it will be people like these. Yes they are billionaire’s, and people will sat it’s easier for them. But wouldn’t it be easier for them to take the money and run of to some tropical island somewhere and live out their lives in ridiculous luxury?! Yes it would, but they want to change the world, beyond his they have already. They want a better future for all mankind. Things may not change completely in their/our lifetimes but at least they will have moved the ball forward enough for someone else to continue in the future. The world needs people like this, people who look beyond their own lifetimes and try to effect a better future for us all.
and yet all their cash is a drop in the ocean compared to US govt drug research spending. At least the Gate’s projects were focused on African poverty. And no comparison to Musk, he wants to advance mankind, not save it – a more noble and focused aim.
Bold vision.
Possibly egotistical but admirable all the same.
@ads20101: so Bill Gates was thinking about his ego when he decided to give children polio vaccines?,heforshe ego?Let girls learn, instead of being sex/baby/cleaning and cooking bot, ego ? People do good things to feel good.
Meanwhile elsewhere in the America the U.S government spends $596B per year building every conceivable weapon to kill people
Headline should read, “Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan want to pay less tax on their profits”. That would be more realistic.
@СIΔЯΔИ: there’s always one gonad hater. And what have you ever done that matters?
@Brian Finucane: The bus to DisneyLand is gone Brian. Better crawl back into your bubble lol.
@Brian Finucane: You’re very gullible.
They should be preventing population increase. Not much foresight there.
@Alan T Duffy: Well what with the catholic church being the worlds largest provider of health care and education,They are the only people fighting contraceptives and abortion. Look at their attitude to aids,its disgusting.
I agree with ads. It is admirable but as all we do in our lives is influenced naturally by our own self-preservation instinct (of which the striving for happiness is a part of), I see how happy this step will make the rich couple. It is impressive though.
God telpis, I guess they must have finally got that bag of a million likes. Won’t need to pray to the gardening angles anymore.
I bet there is tax messing charity tax break scheme somewhere in it?
BIG PHARMA !! Won’t be happy with this
have your say