Although I definitely agree with the thrust of the article, I don't feel that lives-saved is necessarily a very good metric of utility. A child in the Third World might be saved from malaria, but grow up nutrient deficient leading to reduced mental capacity, work on a subsistence farm, contract HIV, and die after having three kids, who subsequently starve. A charity that prevented fewer deaths in a predictable causal sequence might still be a better utility maximizer if it had a greater positive effect on people's quality of life.

Of course, a lot of us already agree on the best available utility maximizing charity, but even among the more "mundane" options I think that causes such as promoting education in the third world may beat out direct life-saving maximizers.