This essay asks whether the global burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors (GBD) shouldbe measured in terms of their consequences for health, as maintained by most of those whoare attempting to measure the GBD, or in terms of their consequences for well-being, asargued by John Broome. It answers that the burden of disease should be understood in termsof the consequences of disease for health, and it defends the wider efforts to measure healthby those who are in other ways skeptical of the project of measuring the GBD.