I agree that the resource curse elements of aid exist (and think it plausible that 'development aid' has had minimal or negative effects), but they have to be quite large to negate the direct lifesaving effects of the best medical aid, e.g. vaccines or malarial bed nets.

Cheaper crops harm farmers.

The Green Revolution did not harm poor Indians, by a very wide margin. I'm talking about developing new strains, not providing food aid purchased from rich-country farmers.

Treatments for tropical diseases cause Malthusian problems, must be administered by medical staff dictators approve of in buildings dictators allow to be built.

There is some bribery and theft bound up with medical aid too, aye. But the Malthusian argument is basically saying better that they die now to expedite growth later? Really?

"But of the vast increase in the well-being of hundreds of millions of people that has occurred in the 200-year course of the industrial revolution to date, virtually none of it can be attributed to the direct redistribution of resources from rich to poor."

The Green Revolution, smallpox eradication, financial support for vaccination and malaria control all involved rich country denizens spending on benefits for the poor. Hundreds of millions of lives involved. The benefits of economic growth dwarf the benefits of aid, but the latter are not negligible.