Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Dec 1 2006 (IPS) – Deliberately putting human health before economic considerations, according to local experts, Cuba has launched full-tilt into the vaccine industry to compete on the international market with its products, some of which are unique.
Cuban scientists are devoting themselves to investigating therapeutic products against cancer, malaria and cholera, diseases that ravage the people of poor nations.
However, the first destination of every new pharmaceutical is the Cuban market and the national hospital network. Medical sources indicated that eight of the 13 vaccines included in the national immunisation programme are produced locally.
Half of our research projects deal with vaccines, which are financially unattractive to th…
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Apr 24 2007 (IPS) – The Mexico City legislature voted Tuesday to legalise abortion, after several weeks of heated debate in which conservative groups and the Catholic Church traded insults with pro-choice activists and threatened them with excommunication.
Mexico City has now joined Cuba and Guyana as the only places in Latin America where abortion is legal.
The bill must now be signed into law by Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the leftwing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), who said he would do so quickly. The new law will make abortion on demand legal in the city in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Women s groups and the PRD, which has dominated the municipal government and the city legislature since 1997, said the new law wa…