When winners take too much

By Ian McDonald

It would cost US$600 million a year to immunise 200 million children in poor countries against polio, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus and tuberculosis.  This is equal to a few weeks’ beer for one or two countries in the rich world, but it is a few weeks’ beer money that simply will not be spared. It is this sort of thing that fills one with such disgust that it almost makes one physically sick contemplating the hypocrisy of world leaders as they mouth glib clichés about the terrible state of the world and express concern for the millions of people in developing countries who live now, right this minute, in absolute poverty.