Prescription #6 of “Some Prescriptions For Productive Goals” is (derived from the World Health Organization, The Millenium Development Goal 1 : Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; please see the web site of The World Health Organization [e.g., www.who.int/gho/mdg/poverty_hunger/underweight_text/en/index.html] for more detailed information) : Work steadfastly and conscientiously toward eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Few would likely argue that either the World Health Organization, The Millenium Development Goal 1 or Prescription # 6 of “Some Prescriptions For Productive Goals” : Work steadfastly and conscientiously toward eradicating extreme proverty and hunger are herculean and humane undertakings.
There may be considerable differences of opinion as to how to achieve either the prescription or the goal. The previous prescriptions (and, likely, future prescriptions identified in The Hygiology Post), under the prescriptions identified in “Part Five — Some Prescriptions for Productive Goals” ; Prescription #5 : Increase democratic media and increase a democratization of information sources; Prescription #4 : Explore whether or not increasing certain types of writing behavior may be helpful for you; Prescription #3 : Provide (structured) incentive for people to solve local, regional, national, and international problems; Prescription #2 : To always treat all people with the same degree of (economic) care and kindness (if they so choose to accept it); and “The Voter Scorecard” — Prescription #1; may all help at least indirectly achieve Prescription # 6 : Work steadfastly and conscientiously toward eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as well as The World Health Organization Millenium Development Goal 1 : Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
The World Health Organization Web site has also apparently identified ways to measure and help achieve the Millenium Development Goals. All eight Development Goals are inter-dependent according to information on the World Health Organization Web site under the tab, “Health Topics” :
“The United Nations Millennium Development Goals are eight goals that all 191 UN member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015. The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000 commits world leaders to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women. The MDGs are derived from this Declaration, and all have specific targets and indicators.
The Eight Millennium Development Goals are:
1. to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
2. to achieve universal primary education;
3. to promote gender equality and empower women;
4. to reduce child mortality;
5. to improve maternal health;
6. to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
7. to ensure environmental sustainability; and
8. to develop a global partnership for development.
The MDGs are inter-dependent; all the MDG influence health, and health influences all the MDGs. For example, better health enables children to learn and adults to earn. Gender equality is essential to the achievement of better health. Reducing poverty, hunger and environmental degradation positively influences, but also depends on, better health.”
One way to help accomplish this end (all Eight Millennium Development Goals that are identified as inter-dependent) may be through innovation in areas that are well-funded. For example, it may be possible to effectively meld the apparent will to cure complicated scientific disease systems such as cancer and other age related and degenerative diseases with what is known about the way to decrease (with apparent complicated economic, political, and social systems involved in) hunger and malnutrition (a hypothesis). One reason for this hypothesis is that there does appear to be continued and increased wealth concentration coupled with increased poverty in areas such as the United Sates. A second reason for this hypothesis is that disease systems such as cancer affect the wealthy. A third reason for this hypothesis is that innovation does appear to often be done directly for those who can pay for the innovation.
Please consider the following seven snippets of information. After the snippets an example of a company, Senesco Technologies, Inc., which apparently combines the will of investor wealth innovation (From the web site, www.senesco.com : “…improve commercial agriculture and to treat major medical conditions in humans.”) to combat human diseases with what seems to be known about some ways to decrease hunger and malnutrition— increased amounts of food and food with a longer shelf life—is provided.
In the article, “Millionaires on the rebound”, dated 3-16-11 by Aaron Smith, staff writer for CNN Money wrote : “What recession? The millionaire population jumped in the U.S. by 8% last year, fueled by the stock market recovery, according to an industry report on Wednesday.
The number of U.S. households worth at least $1 million rose to 8.4 million in 2010, compared to 7.8 million the prior year, according to a report by Spectrem Group…”
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that in 2010, median household income declined, the poverty rate increased and the percentage without health insurance coverage was not statistically different from the previous year.
Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median.
The nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.
The number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 49.0 million in 2009 to 49.9 million in 2010, while the percentage without coverage 16.3 percent – was not statistically different from the rate in 2009.
This information covers the first full calendar year after the December 2007-June 2009 recession. See section on the historical impact of recessions.
These findings are contained in the report Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010….”
On FoxNews.com, dated 9-13-11, titled “Record Number of Americans Living in Poverty, Census Reports” The Census Bureau’s annual report showed nearly 1-in-6 people in poverty, reflecting sustained long-term unemployment and the failure of the U.S. economy to kick into gear following a crippling recession…” (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/13/census-us-poverty-rate-swells-to-27-year-high-151-percent/#ixzz1XrvRFJeh)
On the web site of The World Health Organization (www.who.int/gho/mdg/poverty_hunger/underweight_text/en/index.html) :
“Underweight in Children
Situation
Child malnutrition – as measured by poor child growth – is an important indicator for monitoring population nutritional status and health. In 2010, an estimated 18%, or 103 million children under five years of age in developing countries were underweight (low weight-for-age according to the WHO child growth standards). Underweight is most common in the UN regions of South-central Asia (30%), followed by Eastern, Western and Middle Africa (22%, 22% and 21%, respectively) and South-Eastern Asia (17%). The situation is better in other UN regions of Eastern Asia, Northern Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, where under 10% of children were underweight. Children in the poorest households are twice as likely to be underweight as those in the least poor households. Children living in rural areas are more likely to be underweight than those living in urban areas. Childhood malnutrition, including poor growth and micronutrient deficiencies, is an underlying cause of death in an estimated 35% of all deaths among children under five years of age. The graph presents the most recent survey data available for each country since 2000.
Trends
The proportion of children under five years old in developing countries who were underweight is estimated to have declined by 11 percentage points between 1990 and 2010, from 29% to 18%. This rate of progress is insufficient to meet the MDG target of halving 1990 levels of underweight by 2015. Good progress has been made in the UN regions of South-central Asia (reduction from 50% to 30%, on track to reach the MDG target), Eastern Asia (16% to 4%, on track to reach the MDG target) and Latin America and the Caribbean (from 8% to 3%, where all regions already met the MDG target). Even though South-central Asia is on track, underweight remains high at 30%. This combined with large population, means that most underweight children live in South-central Asia. Rising food prices and the economic crisis may have affected the latest trends in some populations, but it is too early to draw firm conclusions. ”
There does appear to be a will to advance the cause of science in the areas of research on cancer and other age and degenerative related diseases. Many billions of dollars are invested yearly to treat and attempt to cure such diseases. The (United States) Office of Budget and Finance (www.obf.gov; in “2010 NCI Fact Book”, under “Summary” on page iii) showed that : “Funds available to the NCI in FY 2010 totaled over 5.098 billion, reflecting an increase of 2.6 % and $ 131 million from the previous fiscal year.” (Note: NCI is the National Cancer Institute). There is an apparent ongoing and concerted effort being made by many countries worldwide to effectively treat and find cures for such diseases.
There are many publicly traded for profit companies that in the aggregate additionally spend billions yearly on research and treatment for such diseases. For example, in “Bloomburg Business Week” (–Editors: James Callann Niamh Ring), with a date and time on the internet page of “September 18, 2011 4:40 PM” the following is an exerpt (news.businessweek.com/article.asp?document.Key=1736-LRJPU61A74E901-75STPCH620189MA3EN8KFV435M) :
“GE Leads $110 Million Fund for Breast Cancer Challenge
(Updates comment from Immelt in third paragraph.)
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) — General Electric Co. joined four venture capital firms in pledging $100 million for a six-month contest to finance ideas for improving breast cancer detection.
The goal is to speed the diagnosis of breast cancer, the most common form of the disease in women, and find more-precise therapies, GE said today in a statement. Breast cancer also will be the initial focus of a $1 billion GE investment over five years to develop products to detect disease early and treat tumors.
‘In the case of breast cancer, there’s some meaningful therapies, it’s such a pervasive disease, we thought it was a good place to start,’ Immelt said today at an event in New York to unveil the effort. ‘There’s a chance for this disease to go chronic in some cases.’ ”
There are also relatively small or tiny companies such as Geron Corporation (www.geron.com), Advanced Cell Technology Inc. (www.advancedcell.com), and Senesco Technologies Inc. (www.senesco.com) that are involved in research on cancer and other diseases. Since the latter part of 2010 the author has been a shareholder in Senesco Technologies, Inc. Research into the company by the author has included; evaluating the science from publicly available information (e.g., Factor 5A1, eIF-5A1, SNS01-T); communicating with “Key Executives” as shown on the Yahoo web site, Dr. Leslie J. Browne Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer and President and Dr. John E. Thompson Ph.D. Chief Scientific Officer, Executive VP; communicating with other investors; reading the SEC filings; contacting investor relations; reading the Company Web Site information; and examining relationships that Senesco Technologies, Inc. does have with other companies. The author is disclosing this information because it would appear to be important for a reader to know this information; the author is not currently a shareholder in any of the other four companies indentified above. The potential humanitarian value was why the author has repeatedly chosen to invest in this company over other companies. The author is not recommending to anyone reading The Hygiology Post to either invest in any company or not invest in any company. The specific information presented about Senesco Technologies, Inc. is to help explain and substantiate by way of example what was written above : “One way to help accomplish this end (all Eight Millennium Development Goals that are identified as inter-dependent) may be through innovation…it may be possible to effectively meld the apparent will to cure complicated scientific disease systems such as cancer and other age related and degenerative diseases with what is known about the way to decrease (with apparent complicated economic, political, and social systems involved in) hunger and malnutrition (a hypothesis).” Steadfast and conscientious innovation may ultimately be a key factor in helping to accomplish this end.
Senesco Technologies Inc. has the following information about it on the Yahoo finance web site in September 2011; under “Profile” it showed (www.finance.yahoo.com./q/pr?s=SNT+Profile): “Business Summary: Senesco Technologies, Inc., a development stage biotechnology company, focuses on the development of technologies to treat programmed cell death diseases in humans. Its technologies are also used to enhance the productivity of fruits, flowers, vegetables, forestry species, and agronomic crops through the control of cell death in plants. The company was founded in 1964 and is headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey.”
On the web site of Senesco Technologies, Inc (www.senesco.com) under “About Us” and “Profile” :
“We are engaged in the research and development of genetic technologies to improve commercial agriculture and to treat major medical conditions in humans. Our platform technology is based on the identification and characterization of specific genes that are responsible for plant cell death (senescence) and for programmed cell death in humans (apoptosis).
We are developing our technologies to address multiple opportunities within the global commercial agriculture industry, including extending the shelf life of perishable plant products, producing larger and leafier crops, increasing crop yields and reducing the harmful effects of environmental stresses, like drought.
We are also researching applications of our technologies which may address the many human diseases associated with suppressed or premature apoptosis, including cancer, glaucoma, and cardiovascular disease.
One of the main advantages of our patent pending genetic technologies is their broad applicability. Our technology has shown the ability to enhance a wide variety of crops, which could be implemented by multiple licensing partners on a worldwide scale. We have already made progress to this end with our existing commercial relationships. Likewise, we are researching the feasibility of using our technologies as therapeutics in a variety of human health conditions and plan to establish a similar licensing network for pharmaceuticals.
We believe that our technology could have a competitive advantage in treating apoptotic diseases because our technology regulates apoptosis by controlling all genetic pathways that trigger cell death. By mediating multiple pathways, the maximum benefit can be obtained, unlike competing technologies that act further ‘downstream’ within individual pathways.
To take greatest advantage of our early stage discoveries, we have formed a highly focused and efficient R&D department headed by John Thompson, Ph.D., the inventor of our technology. This R&D takes place at several highly regarded academic institutions around North America. While most early-stage biotechnology companies spend millions on R&D, we are conducting top-notch research with relatively minimal cash burn by utilizing these institutions.
To protect the discoveries being generated by our researchers, we have a growing intellectual property estate that encompasses patent applications, both domestic and international, covering methods of controlling senescence in plants and regulating apoptosis for human health applications.”
On another part of the Senesco Technologies Inc. web site (“Our Technologies”) :
“All living things are composed of cells. Cells have a predetermined lifespan; once a cell has outlived its usefulness, programmed cell death is triggered to ensure the overall health of the organism. However, cells may die prematurely, throwing this equilibrium out of balance, often causing disease or death of the organism. In humans, programmed cell death is known as apoptosis. Premature cell death is symptomatic of many ischemic and inflammatory conditions. Cancerous cells behave in the opposite manner. One of the traits common to many cancers is the presence of cells that do not undergo apoptosis.
In plants, factors such as drought, temperature and disease can accelerate cell death, which is termed senescence. This leads to rotten fruit, smaller plants and wilted flowers, amongst other undesirable traits. Despite the different terminology, the processes and genes involved in cell death are virtually identical in plants and humans.
We have characterized an important suite of genes that regulate senescence and apoptosis, which are the basis of Senesco’s techology. Our research and development have shown that we can precisely target these genes for both Agricultural and Human Health applications. Our technology is based on the regulation of these existing genes, not the addition of foreign genes.”
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Louis DeCola, Jr. © 2011 The Hygiology Post