Interplast Included in Peter Singer’s “The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty”

Interplast is honored to be included in world-renowned ethicist and Princeton professor Peter Singer’s widely acclaimed book, “The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty.” 

The premise of the book is that if we could easily save the life of a child, we would--- and that most of us living in affluent countries can and should do more. It challenges readers “to give a modest proportion of their income to effective organizations fighting extreme poverty” in order to solve world poverty. 

Interplast is mentioned as one of those effective organizations, based in part on watch-dog group Give Well’s favorable evaluation of us.  “Interplast doesn’t save lives, but Give Well included it in [its most effective organizations category] because it transforms them so dramatically.  Interplast corrects deformities like cleft palates, and helps burn victims so that they can walk or use their hands again,” writes Singer.  “The procedures performed are often relatively simple and would be routine in rich nations, but for the poor in the developing world, getting to a surgeon is often impossible…. Life-changing procedures anywhere, the surgeries are even more so in poor countries, where discrimination against people with deformities is often much more severe than in rich nations.”

The book also discusses in interesting detail the psychology of giving and how there needs to be a cultural shift in giving to end poverty. “Research has shown that people are more likely to give if they know that others are giving.  So we need to be upfront about our giving.”

Interplast is one of 15 charities recommended for donations on the book’s website.   Singer also recently wrote to us, “I just wanted to add my own appreciation of your work at Interplast.  I do hope the book helps you gain further support.”  While we do not know if it has yet, we do know his website endorsement and numerous book interviews have increased traffic to our website.  We thank Professor Singer for including us in his book and most importantly, for his work trying to make the world a better place for all.

To learn more, visit "The Life You Can Save”, or numerous interviews and reviews, including The New York Times, The Chrisitan Science Monitor  or NPR.  

Comments

[Tatio]

Arnold, I’m pretty connideft it seems to most Iranians that there is not an honest dispute over Iran’s nuclear program that is fueled by a kind of naive ignorance on the part of the West, and that can be resolved by Iran producing more information. The West opposes Iran’s real position, which is that even though it has no intention of building a weapon I always find irony in responses like this. You argue that Iran's expanding its nuclear disclosures to what other countries disclose would not really satisfy the West, and so why do it? That implies that the only purpose of Iran's action should be to satisfy the West. I disagree with that. The objective of Iran's actions in observing the AP and nearly every other action should be to keep the US at bay long enough that the US' strength weakens, Iran's strength increases, and Iran's alliances with rising new powers strengthen sufficiently that Iran need no longer care whether its actions satisfy the West or not.I believe observing the AP would accomplish that objective. Doing so could help Iran to peel off China and possibly Russia when the next round of sanctions come up for a vote. It could make it a bit tougher, and take a bit longer, for US war-mongers to bring around the American public. All this means delay, and delay is good for Iran.In short, the flaw in your criticism is that you assume an action taken by Iran will have value for Iran only if that action causes the US to change its behavior. Ironically, you ascribe much more importance to the US' reaction than I do.