Agree that it would be difficult to generate comparably high certainty evidence for most of these cause areas.
However, I think interventions in these areas could still have high expected value and perform well on the ITN framework so could still be worth pursuing, the way pandemic preparedness, AI safety and broader approaches and political approaches to international development and farmed animal welfare are pursued by EA at the moment.
Interested to hear which of these causes you feel are not neglected at the moment. I’d say you’re probably right for 19, 20 and 25.
On 18A/​C, there have been a number of very expensive trials for new antidepressant agents, including for TRD . . . and they have generally underperformed in Stage III trials. There is a huge financial incentive for a successful product in this area in the high-income markets. So not particularly neglected, and I’m not sold on tractability either. For example, I don’t think the current armamentum of antidepressants as monotherapy is more effective than the old school MAOIs and TCAs from decades ago (although the drug interactions, cheese-eating risk, and overdose risk SSRIs are much improved with SSRIs etc.).
I think promoting access to mental-health care in low-income countries is an easier argument to make than throwing billions more into trying to find a better treatment for TRD.
Most of these seem intractable and many have lots of people working on them already.
The benefit of bed nets and vitamin A supplementation is that they are proven solutions to neglected problems.
Agree that it would be difficult to generate comparably high certainty evidence for most of these cause areas.
However, I think interventions in these areas could still have high expected value and perform well on the ITN framework so could still be worth pursuing, the way pandemic preparedness, AI safety and broader approaches and political approaches to international development and farmed animal welfare are pursued by EA at the moment.
Interested to hear which of these causes you feel are not neglected at the moment. I’d say you’re probably right for 19, 20 and 25.
On 18A/​C, there have been a number of very expensive trials for new antidepressant agents, including for TRD . . . and they have generally underperformed in Stage III trials. There is a huge financial incentive for a successful product in this area in the high-income markets. So not particularly neglected, and I’m not sold on tractability either. For example, I don’t think the current armamentum of antidepressants as monotherapy is more effective than the old school MAOIs and TCAs from decades ago (although the drug interactions, cheese-eating risk, and overdose risk SSRIs are much improved with SSRIs etc.).
I think promoting access to mental-health care in low-income countries is an easier argument to make than throwing billions more into trying to find a better treatment for TRD.
Good point, this makes sense.