Monday, October 29, 2007

One Child Every 6 Seconds Dies of Malnutrition

Every year, malnutrition kills five million children -- that's one child every six seconds. But now, the Nobel Prize-winning relief group "Doctors Without Borders" says it finally has something that can save millions of these children. It's cheap, easy to make and even easier to use. What is this miraculous cure? As CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it's a ready-to-eat, vitamin-enriched concoction called "Plumpynut," an unusual name for a food that may just be the most important advance ever to cure and prevent malnutrition.

No kids need it more than a group of children 60 Minutes saw in Niger, a desperately poor country in West Africa, where child malnutrition is so widespread that most mothers have watched at least one of their children die. Why are so many kids dying? Because they can't get the milk, vitamins and minerals their young bodies need. Mothers in these villages can't produce enough milk themselves and can't afford to buy it. Even if they could, they can't store it -- there’s no electricity, so no refrigeration. Powdered milk is useless because most villagers don't have clean water. Plumpynut was designed to overcome all these obstacles.

Please watch this video http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/60minutes/main3386661.shtml and if you feel moved to help I have a friend that has set up a website to take donations http://www.firstgiving.com/dandenaultfamily.

This puts life and any obstacles I have in perspective for me. Let's be M.A.D. (Make A Difference)!