Why Research Won't Cure Malaria

I realize this might sound like an odd title for a site that often heralds the latest news on vaccines, treatments and such. I'm definitely susceptible to the intrigue of stories like "Laser Beam Kills Disease-Bearing Mosquitoes" and the latest global health gimmick — the product of a culture which believes that ultimately, science saves.

But I wanted to take a moment to note a provocative question that Bart Knols raises, namely: Can science also cripple development? On first pass, the question seems strange. Obviously, technology = progress, research = diseases fixed and all that. And yet consider the case of malaria, as Knols does.

Every year, over 3,000 scientific articles on malaria are published in distinguished academic journals around the world. How many of them will ever make a difference for peoples' lives on the ground? Knols — himself a scientist, and managing director of MalariaWorld — puts it succinctly: "Few. Very few indeed."

Because at the end of the day, as Knols notes, the goal of academic malaria researchers is to generate new knowledge. Which, as it happens, isn't exactly the same thing as trying to control malaria. Much of the most marketable new knowledge (marketable, that is, to journals like Nature or Science that will create an academic's career) focuses on stuff that ends in "omics" and deals with high-tech molecular issues that don't have much bearing on, say, a rural clinic in Kenya. And there are few researchers working in developing countries to identify solutions for malaria that can be applied and sustained over the long haul.

As Caitlin's written here before, "Science isn't the answer to the developing world's burden of disease." Already, the world is home to vaccines that can prevent measles, whooping cough and tetanus — conditions that all still rank among the top killers of children around the globe. In many cases, we've got the technology or know-how in place (so often, it's called basic hygiene, access to bed nets, et cetera). It's the follow-through that's lacking.

At the end of the day, it shouldn't surprise that even scientists don't necessarily put much faith in the impact of what they produce. After all, their job is to publish their research — which, ideally, others in turn harness for action. If, as Knols points out, "thousands of pieces of malaria research end up in libraries and never get used afterwards," who's really to be faulted?

Does science cripple development? By the end of his post, Knols doesn't quite seem convinced. Either way, though, when it comes to global health, we'd be foolish to make research our primary article of faith. So often, it's not the science that matters — it's the people (the health workers, the administrators, the system builders). You could easily find that a depressing thought. I also see it as an inspiring one.

Photo Credit: Conor Lawless