In Response to Lauren's "New Ways to Relieve Malnutrition"

The new way of relieving malnutrition refers to giving malnourished children antibiotics to decrease the death rate. The article "The Lives of Many Malnourished Children Saved by Antibiotics" talks about research done in Malawi where children are given antibiotics to supplement the Project Peanut Butter diet. This piece argues that giving children an antibiotic decreased the death rate by 2.5%. I have two questions to present about this new technique to battle malnutrition. 

First, is this 2.5% really significant? This is a very small difference in death rate for those children given an antibiotic versus a placebo, which leads me to be skeptical about the validity of this approach in improving nutrition. Are these antibiotics really making a significant difference in the malnutrition of the children in Malawi. This brings up of argument of measuring success. Is the goal to solely decrease the number of deaths per year or is it something more. Are the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals based on quantity i.e. mortality or are they based on quality of lives.

If you would like to argue that indeed, any life saved or nutrition level increased is significant than the second question I would like to pose is what is the cost of this 2.5% decrease and is it ultimately worth it. In order to finance, produce and distribute antibiotics to the extremely high number of malnourished children living on the planet this must be an extremely demanding and burdensome procedure. While I agree that antibiotics may be relevant for sick children in order for their health to improve, I don't necessarily think that the topics of antibiotics are relevant to malnutrition. We have other means to decreasing the number of malnourished children that are more cost efficient, accessible and sustainable. For example, programs that focus on internal creation of community farming may be an effective way of getting children enough nutritional food that will bypass the use and reliance on pharmaceuticals. Antibiotics are a very westernized approach to solving a problem on a massive scale and very quickly but with the disregard of sustainability. If communities are not able to provide enough nutrition for children, popping a pill is not a viable solution to this important issue. I think this technique is just another way for Western cultures to impose their views of how to deal with problems as cheaply, quickly and impersonally as possible. I don't think antibiotics are the right answer to decreasing the level of malnourishment in children.