Have We Been Wrong About Deworming? - EA Meetup with Talks

(English version with more details about the talk below)

Wie immer geben wir zu Beginn einen Einführungsvortrag zum Effektiven Altruismus im Allgemeinen. Dann folgt das Thema des Abends, dieses Mal wird Jan Stratil einen Vortrag zum neuesten Stand der Forschung zu Deworming halten, was eine der Maßnahmen ist, die im Effektiven Altruismus traditionell als sehr wirksam angesehen wurden. Jan hat den Vortrag im Zusammenhang mit seiner Doktorarbeit in Global Health erstellt.

Danach kann bei Snacks und Getränken noch beliebig lange weiterdiskutiert werden.

Wir freuen uns auf euch!

Los geht's um 18:30, auf der Praterinsel 4, im ersten Stock.

As usual, we begin with a short introductory talk on Effective Altruism in general followed by this month's topic, this time Jan Stratil is going to give a talk on the state of the science on Deworming, one of the interventions traditionally regarded as very effective in Effective Altruism. The talk was created by Jan in the context of his PhD research in Global Health. See below for details.

After the talk you can grab some snacks and drinks and continue the discussion informally as long as you'd like.

We're looking forward to seeing you!

We start at 6.30pm at Praterinsel 4 on the first floor.

Have we been wrong about mass deworming?

Why research and science repeatedly fail in providing the answers we need

by Jan Stratil

The "worm wars" have divided the scientific and EA-community: Mass deworming interventions have been hailed as a magic bullet for many years. These interventions focus on treating children with few doses or even a single dose of antihelminthic drugs per year to fight parasitic worms and they seemed to have contributed significantly to improving childhood health and nutrition status, educational attainment, school attendance and increase long term employment or earnings. But in recent years, these findings have been challenged and the effectiveness of deworming programs have been put into question; starting what has been known as the worm wars. In this talk, we are going to revisit the "worm wars", assess the evidence and use this as a case study to reflect on causality with regards to complex interventions in the real world.