Carter's post-presidency was transformative. And while he's well-known for his contributions to democracy, he deserves immense credit for his incredible successes with global public health.
American culture gives lip service to the Christian values that Carter spent his life exemplifying. What it really values is inauthenticity-as in Reagan, who was an actor frontman for the rising far-right corporate interests, and the grifter who’s readying to retake power next month-someone who makes people feel good about themselves.
I remember people deriding Carter for wearing a cardigan, in his efforts to encourage others to turn down their thermostats in the winter. People wanted to be told not to worry-the country’s resources are infinite, since that’s a comforting lie.
So a man who’s made millions of lives immeasurably better in quiet service to others will have 15 minutes before being pushed aside in the nation’s narrative by a selfish man who can no longer run a charity because of his scams. This is a real problem. The cultural values are horribly broken.
Thanks for documenting the good in Carter’s legacy. I think people care, if they know.
Thank you for highlighting this tremendous achievement in public health, especially since there’s no glory (here) in doing good works in some far off “shithole country.”
Not performative, not steered by ego; quietly going about, doing the right thing, doing his best. I think it unlikely that a better human has occupied the Oval office.
Brian - Thanks so much for this excellent piece on Jimmy Carter’s legacy. No doubt he was a great man and devoted to eliminating human suffering. As a devout Christian he “walked the talk” giving us all an example of what true Christianity is about. If only we all could follow his example.
Lovely post. I always loved Carter, and admired him post-presidency but I didn't know about the guinea worms or river blindness. Now my admiration has increased a hundred-fold.
I remember a person I highly respected once told me that “carter was the last ethical president we had”. It is fascinating about his public health accomplishments. Because we rarely hear about them. For some reason it seems the media only mentions habit for humanity as his post presidency accomplishments but after reading this article I didn’t realize he did so much more. Thank you for enlightening me.
Although I grew up hearing an argument against him and fellow democrats, I know now he was such a humanitarian who truly cared about others, helped establish Habitat for Humanity and was a beautiful human. Thank you Brian for this incredible piece. Your writing is motivating and inspiring.
I came to appreciate him after his Playboy interview. It was a bold move. I’ve done volunteer work in Habitat for Humanity and it felt productive and meaningful, much more than carrying signs and making political contributions. Working beside others dedicated to helping the homeless is probably the highlight of my life. Following POTUS Carter’s example, even in a small way, made his Presidency more impactful.
I see no evidence that the Carter Foundation were instrumental in the end of River Blindness. "The scientists who were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work that contributed significantly to ending river blindness are William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura. They shared half of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. Their work led to the development of the drug ivermectin, which has dramatically reduced the incidence of river blindness.
William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura were both associated with institutions and companies that funded or supported their research on ivermectin:"
"Satoshi Ōmura was at the Kitasato Institute in Japan, which had a research partnership with Merck. Ōmura isolated the bacteria from which avermectin, the precursor to ivermectin, was derived.
William C. Campbell was with Merck Research Laboratories at the time of the discovery. Merck was the company that further developed avermectin into ivermectin for both animal and human use.
Merck was the primary company that invested in the research and development of ivermectin based on the work of Campbell and Ōmura. This collaboration between Kitasato Institute and Merck led to the eventual commercialization of the drug."
Discovery and development of ivermectin (*and/or doxycycline, the main drug that is now used to prevent river blindness) is a necessary step in eradicating river blindness, but it is not a sufficient step. Anti-helminth drugs like ivermectin have to actually be available for people to use for their discovery to lead to river blindness eradication. This is where foundations like The Carter Center come in, providing access to drugs that have led to the near-eradication of river blindness. That's the claim that Brian is making here, that the Carter Center was hugely instrumental in actually getting people those drugs.
Now, I know that LLMs like Grok are good at scraping information from the internet, but they're bad at logic like "necessary but not sufficient," or the idea that there are multiple causes that contribute to any one outcome. But you're a person, and smarter than that. So I'm sure you get that inventing a product and distributing that product are not the same thing, once you take a step back and stop letting a pattern recognition program think for you.
American culture gives lip service to the Christian values that Carter spent his life exemplifying. What it really values is inauthenticity-as in Reagan, who was an actor frontman for the rising far-right corporate interests, and the grifter who’s readying to retake power next month-someone who makes people feel good about themselves.
I remember people deriding Carter for wearing a cardigan, in his efforts to encourage others to turn down their thermostats in the winter. People wanted to be told not to worry-the country’s resources are infinite, since that’s a comforting lie.
So a man who’s made millions of lives immeasurably better in quiet service to others will have 15 minutes before being pushed aside in the nation’s narrative by a selfish man who can no longer run a charity because of his scams. This is a real problem. The cultural values are horribly broken.
Thanks for documenting the good in Carter’s legacy. I think people care, if they know.
Thank you for highlighting this tremendous achievement in public health, especially since there’s no glory (here) in doing good works in some far off “shithole country.”
Jimmy Carter was a good person, and that's the best epitaph anyone can hope for.
Not performative, not steered by ego; quietly going about, doing the right thing, doing his best. I think it unlikely that a better human has occupied the Oval office.
Excellent article, Brian ❣️
Thank you for highlighting these decent, humanitarian qualities in President Carter.
This is a real legacy 👏🙏
One of the better ones.
Brian - Thanks so much for this excellent piece on Jimmy Carter’s legacy. No doubt he was a great man and devoted to eliminating human suffering. As a devout Christian he “walked the talk” giving us all an example of what true Christianity is about. If only we all could follow his example.
Lovely post. I always loved Carter, and admired him post-presidency but I didn't know about the guinea worms or river blindness. Now my admiration has increased a hundred-fold.
I remember a person I highly respected once told me that “carter was the last ethical president we had”. It is fascinating about his public health accomplishments. Because we rarely hear about them. For some reason it seems the media only mentions habit for humanity as his post presidency accomplishments but after reading this article I didn’t realize he did so much more. Thank you for enlightening me.
Although I grew up hearing an argument against him and fellow democrats, I know now he was such a humanitarian who truly cared about others, helped establish Habitat for Humanity and was a beautiful human. Thank you Brian for this incredible piece. Your writing is motivating and inspiring.
I came to appreciate him after his Playboy interview. It was a bold move. I’ve done volunteer work in Habitat for Humanity and it felt productive and meaningful, much more than carrying signs and making political contributions. Working beside others dedicated to helping the homeless is probably the highlight of my life. Following POTUS Carter’s example, even in a small way, made his Presidency more impactful.
I see no evidence that the Carter Foundation were instrumental in the end of River Blindness. "The scientists who were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work that contributed significantly to ending river blindness are William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura. They shared half of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. Their work led to the development of the drug ivermectin, which has dramatically reduced the incidence of river blindness.
William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura were both associated with institutions and companies that funded or supported their research on ivermectin:"
"Satoshi Ōmura was at the Kitasato Institute in Japan, which had a research partnership with Merck. Ōmura isolated the bacteria from which avermectin, the precursor to ivermectin, was derived.
William C. Campbell was with Merck Research Laboratories at the time of the discovery. Merck was the company that further developed avermectin into ivermectin for both animal and human use.
Merck was the primary company that invested in the research and development of ivermectin based on the work of Campbell and Ōmura. This collaboration between Kitasato Institute and Merck led to the eventual commercialization of the drug."
Source: Grok
This is very, very easy to Google: https://www.cartercenter.org/health/river_blindness/index.html
I did. It repeated what I said.
Discovery and development of ivermectin (*and/or doxycycline, the main drug that is now used to prevent river blindness) is a necessary step in eradicating river blindness, but it is not a sufficient step. Anti-helminth drugs like ivermectin have to actually be available for people to use for their discovery to lead to river blindness eradication. This is where foundations like The Carter Center come in, providing access to drugs that have led to the near-eradication of river blindness. That's the claim that Brian is making here, that the Carter Center was hugely instrumental in actually getting people those drugs.
Now, I know that LLMs like Grok are good at scraping information from the internet, but they're bad at logic like "necessary but not sufficient," or the idea that there are multiple causes that contribute to any one outcome. But you're a person, and smarter than that. So I'm sure you get that inventing a product and distributing that product are not the same thing, once you take a step back and stop letting a pattern recognition program think for you.
Grok, nor any other LLM, is not a source.
Convey my respects to you colleagues in the dictatorship of the expertariat