Challenges for the Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s richest charity, sees a limit to what it can do, which is why it has set its sights on improving global public health but has steered away from more conventional methods of aid, reports The Washington Post.

Instead of supplying Africa’s AIDS sufferers with lifesaving antiretroviral drugs, for example, the foundation supports the development of new vaccines and drugs to combat the worst diseases facing the world’s poor, the Post reports.

But that decision bothers some people, like Eric Goemaere of Doctors Without Borders, who says the Gates Foundation should focus on issues like the flight of doctors to rich countries, and not wait for vaccines.

The choices facing today’s major philanthropists, including the Gateses, is also the subject of a column by Ralph Kaplan, a management consultant, and Harvey Silverglate, a lawyer, who write in The Boston Globe of a dire need to support research for the defense against nuclear weapons.