I’ve had a few arguments about the ‘worm wars’, whether the bet on deworming kids, which was uncertain from the start, is undermined by the new evidence.
My interlocutor is very concerned about model error in cost-benefit analysis, about avoiding side effects (and ‘double effect’ in particular); and not just for the usual PR or future credibility reasons.
I looked into worms a bunch for the WASH post I recently made. Miguel and Kramer’s study has a currently unpublished 15 year follow up which according to givewell has similar results to the 10 year followup. Other than that the evidence of the last couple of years (including a new metastudy in September 2019 from Taylor-Robinson et. al.) has continued to point towards there being almost no effects of deworming on weight, height, cognition, school performance, or mortality. This hasn’t really caused anyone to update because this is the same picture as in 2016⁄7. My WASH piece had almost no response, which might suggest that people just aren’t too bothered by worms any more, though it could equally be something unrelated like style.
I think there’s a reasonable case to be made that discussion and interest around worms is dropping though, as people for whom the “low probability of a big success” reasoning is convincing seem likely to either be long-termists, or to have updated towards growth-based interventions.
I’ve had a few arguments about the ‘worm wars’, whether the bet on deworming kids, which was uncertain from the start, is undermined by the new evidence.
My interlocutor is very concerned about model error in cost-benefit analysis, about avoiding side effects (and ‘double effect’ in particular); and not just for the usual PR or future credibility reasons.
What’s the new evidence? I haven’t been keeping up with the worm wars since 2017. Is there more conclusive data or studies since?
I looked into worms a bunch for the WASH post I recently made. Miguel and Kramer’s study has a currently unpublished 15 year follow up which according to givewell has similar results to the 10 year followup. Other than that the evidence of the last couple of years (including a new metastudy in September 2019 from Taylor-Robinson et. al.) has continued to point towards there being almost no effects of deworming on weight, height, cognition, school performance, or mortality. This hasn’t really caused anyone to update because this is the same picture as in 2016⁄7. My WASH piece had almost no response, which might suggest that people just aren’t too bothered by worms any more, though it could equally be something unrelated like style.
I think there’s a reasonable case to be made that discussion and interest around worms is dropping though, as people for whom the “low probability of a big success” reasoning is convincing seem likely to either be long-termists, or to have updated towards growth-based interventions.
Not sure. 2017 fits the beginning of the discussion though.
I thought most of the fights around the worm wars were in 2015 [1]? I really haven’t been following.
[1] https://chrisblattman.com/2015/07/24/the-10-things-i-learned-in-the-trenches-of-the-worm-wars/