'Grey's Anatomy' Doctor Is In -- Battling Malaria

Dec. 17, 2006 — -- "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington was with the White House this week to champion President Bush's billion-dollar push to beat malaria once and for all. Washington said that in fighting the illness that still kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds, "our hope is that by working together we can make malaria no more and give African children the gift of growing up."

Isaiah Washington: It just doesn't have to be that way when you could take $1 or $10 -- $1 to treat it and $10 to buy a bed net -- so these people can survive on their own and sustain themselves just as human beings. …

When I was in Sierra Leone, the people, the villagers, had to use … blades of grass … and it would go into their shanty where they were -- or shack or home or whatever, or abode -- and just swipe in the darkness. I took out my flashlight and thousands of mosquitoes just like blackened the floor. I mean, it's like sliding on black smoke. And that's all they have to combat. No spray, you know, or bug killer or defogger or anything like that, you know. That's what they have to defend themselves off from that one, two or three or four mosquitoes that may be carrying this deadly disease. …

Your money will go to helping this situation. … And when it is eradicated, and there is no more malaria … then the people can sit back and go: "Hey, I was a part of that; my dollar actually went to help something that helped someone; my $10 actually went to something or someone to save their life."