Drones and diseases

A while back, while attending a party, the conversation inevitably turned to international politics.

This was just after the US announcement on exactly how many people they thought had been killed in drone attacks (I think the number in question was 4,700) and how this was abominable and should not be tolerated. And in fairness I agree. It's a very effective way of recruiting people who wouldn't otherwise care to fight against you.
It, by the nature of firing anti-tank munitions or dropping 500 lb bombs, does have the capacity to kill an awful lot of civilians for every one target.

However, I did some quick mental arithmetic, and compared the entire Obama presidency use of drone warfare and the one disease that I could remember the statistics for. The result is somewhat surprising:

The entire drone warfare campaign has cost as many lives as have been lost in Africa to the measles in sixty one hours.

The measles vaccine was developed more than fifty years ago, by a team headed by Dr John F Enders. The disease while technically untreatable beyond a palliative treatment of the symptoms, however the ability to prevent infection in the first place is painfully simple. It's an injection after one year and a second at the age of eleven to twelve.
The polio vaccine is even easier, the oral vaccine only requires a couple of drops of the vaccine to be swallowed (rather than be injected). Polio has been eradicated in all but three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria). With an effort of will only slightly larger than that required to put 9 kg warheads of anti-tank missiles through the sunroofs of the cars of people whose ideology we are assured that we should disapprove of we could reduce polio to a laboratory curiosity, and start making a serious dent into measles and anything else we can find a treatment for.

And for those who say we should be more concerned about terrorism than disease, in June 1916 there was a polio epidemic in the US, centered in Brooklyn. A grand total of 2,996 people were killed in the 9/11 hijackings with 6,000 wounded. The polio epidemic went across the country leaving more than 6,000 dead and 27,000 disabled to some degree or other.

I cannot help but it does not say much about our species that the likes of Bush, Blair and Obama will be remembered in history whereas the likes of Enders, William Hammon, Hilary Koprowski, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin (to name only five) are largely forgotten.