- Chart data
- Estimates of lives saved by major innovations
Estimates of lives saved by major innovations
The numbers behind a chart Our World in Data published, redrawn natively. Check the original, study the data, then make your own.
Simplified redraw
Drawn by us from the numbers below. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys.A simplified redraw: it shows the numbers in our own look, not the look of the original. One accent marks what the chart is about. Values marked with ~ in the table are estimates.
The numbers
First 10 of 38 points are free| Group | Value (lives saved) | Source | Conf. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue baby syndrome therapy - Helen Taussig, Vivien Thomas and Alfred Blalock | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Rh kidney transplants - Thomas Starzl | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Surfactant for infants' lungs - Mary Ellen Avery, John Clements and Tetsuro Fujiwara | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Rh incompatible blood in infants and mothers - Alexander Wiener and Ronald Finn | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Hib influenza vaccine - Porter Anderson, David Smith, John Robbins and Rachel Schneerson | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Aspirin for preventing heart attacks - Lawrence Craven, Paul Gibson and Charles Hennekens | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Leukemia and gout curing drugs - Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| COVID-19 vaccine (ChAdOx) - Sarah Gilbert and team | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Heart bypass surgery - Robert Goetz | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Coronary bypass surgery for heart bypass surgery - F. Mason Sones | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
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| Influenza vaccine - Thomas Francis, Jr. | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumpy'Nut for childhood malnutrition - Andre Briend | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| 3-point seat belt - Nils Bohlin | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Pap smear to cure cervical cancer - Georgios Papanikolaou, Aurel Babes and Herbert Traut | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Mammography curing breast cancer - Stafford Warren, Raul Leborgne and Robert Egan | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Hepatitis B vaccine - Kenneth Murray, Baruch Blumberg, and Irving Millman | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Whooping cough vaccine - Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Scribner shunt making kidney dialysis routine - Belding Scribner | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Kidney dialysis machine - Willem Kolff | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Discovered HIV causes AIDS and of HIV curing drugs - Luc Montagnier, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Jerome Horwitz, Wolfram Ostertag, and Bernard Belleau | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Implantable pacemaker with lithium battery - Wilson Greatbatch | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Vitamin A cuts child mortality - Al Sommer | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) - James Jude, James Elam, Guy Knickerbocker, William Kouwenhoven and Peter Safar | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Statins averting heart attacks & strokes - Akira Endo | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| TB curing dots protocol - Karel Styblo | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Balloon angioplasty to widen arteries - Andreas Gruentzig | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| ORT for cholera and diarrhea - David Nalin, Richard Cash, David Sack and Miguel Ondetti | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Blood pressure lowering medications - James Black, David Cushman and Miguel Ondetti | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Diphtheria and tetanus vaccines - Gaston Ramon | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| TB curing drug Rifampicin - Piero Sensi and Maria Teresa Timbal | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Innovations that enabled smallpox eradication (6% vaccination method, bifurcated needle, improved vaccine, peel-jacket) - William Foege, Benjamin Rubin, Leslie Collier, and Aaron Ismach | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Measles vaccine - Maurice Hilleman, Samuel Katz, Ann Holloway, Kevin McCarthy, Milan Milovanovic, Anna Mitus, John Enders and Thomas Peebles | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Safe water by calculated chlorination - Abel Wolman and Linn Enslow | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Insulin for diabetes - Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip and John Macleod | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Penicillin to cure bacterial diseases - Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, Norman Heatley and Alexander Fleming | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| High yield crops enabling the Green Revolution - Norman Borlaug and Fritz Haber | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer enabling blood transfusions. More than a billion lives saved - Karl Landsteiner and Richard Lewisohn | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
| Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. More than two billion lives saved - Carl Bosch and Fritz Haber | ~100 | Estimate | 0.30 |
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Use this chart via API
On the Max plan you can pull this chart's numbers with the provenance of each one, as JSON or CSV, with its redraw spec, or call it from an agent over MCP. Chart id fb511a15dea2.
Approximate values. Our two readings of this chart agreed only in part (confidence 0.30 of 1), so check the original before you quote a number. The API marks it lowConfidence, and ?min_confidence=0.5 leaves it out.
| Path | Returns | Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GET | /api/v1/charts/fb511a15dea2 | Title, publisher, date, form, point count; with a Max key, the data link | Open |
| GET | /api/v1/charts/fb511a15dea2/data | Every point with its provenance and confidence, plus the redraw spec. Add ?format=csv for CSV | Max |
| GET | /api/v1/charts/fb511a15dea2/render?view=1 | The draw-only view this page uses | Open |
| POST | /mcp | Tool get_chart_data with this id, for Claude, Cursor and other agents | Max |
curl -s https://viral-chart.com/api/v1/charts/fb511a15dea2/data \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VIRALCHART_KEY"claude mcp add --transport http viralchart https://viral-chart.com/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Bearer $VIRALCHART_KEY"60 requests a minute per key; over that you get 429 with Retry-After. Up to 5 keys per account, made on your account page and shown once. Without Max, the data route answers 402 with a link to the plans. The numbers describe a chart its publisher owns, and every file carries a license note.
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How accurate are these numbers?
They are estimated from the image by two independent passes, with confidence 0.30 on a 0 to 1 scale. Printed numbers read well; values read off an axis can be a few percent off.
Can I reuse this data?
The numbers describe a chart that Our World in Data published. The image, layout and styling belong to them. Use the numbers with a credit to the publisher, and make your picture from your own data.
How do I get the file?
The JSON, CSV and agent skill file are under the email gate on this page. In this prototype they are static files at /api/charts/fb511a15dea2.json and /api/charts/fb511a15dea2.skill.md.