Mark Weisenmiller

TAMPA, Florida, Nov 6 2006 (IPS) – When Texas death row inmate Michael Dewayne Johnson slit his throat with a homemade razor blade in the early morning hours of Oct. 19, he took a life that the state wanted to claim later that day.
In doing so, he called attention to the stress endured by more than 3,300 inmates sitting in U.S. prisons for years as they await execution.

Johnson woke up every day for 10 years knowing that someday in the future someone would inject a poisonous drug into his veins to avenge a crime that the 29-year-old claimed he did not commit.

Johnson was at least the seventh death row inmate known to take his life in Texas since that state reinstated executions in 1974. The Death Penalty Information Centre estimates 301 peopl…

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…

Pratap Chatterjee

WASHINGTON, Jan 19 2007 (IPS) – While some critics of the stumbling rehabilitation of Iraq s health care system focused on the failure to deliver basic infrastructure and supplies, others questioned the whole U.S. approach.
Unlike other poorer countries, which focused on mass health care using primary care practitioners, in the 1970s, Iraq had developed a Westernised system of sophisticated hospitals with advanced medical procedures, provided by specialist physicians and financed by oil revenues.

A July 2003 report by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation noted that prior to 1990, 97 percent of the urban dwellers and 71 percent of the rural population had access to free primary health care; just 2 percent of hospital beds were privately managed.

มีประเด็นเกี่ยวกับการใช้ AI ในการสร้างผลงานมาให้ทุกคนได้ติดตามกันอีกแล้วครับ โดยในครั้งนี้ทางเฟซบุ๊กของขายหัวเราะหนังสือแก๊กที่อยู่คู่คนไทยมาอย่างช้านานที่ในช่วงหลังได้มีการปรับตัวให้ทันสมัยมากยิ่งขึ้นได้ออกมาประกาศว่าพวกเขาเตรียมวางจำหน่ายหนังสือแก๊กที่วาดโดย AI!

“เล่ม�…

• เปิดตัวซิมูลาครัมลิมิเต็ดคนที่ 2  ‘เรย์’ และ อาวุธคู่ใจธนู ‘ไถ่บาป’ สาวผมฟ้าเป็นประกายผู้ขับหุ่น EVA-00
• พบกับเนื้อเรื่องและคอนเท้นท์พิเศษจากคอลแลปอนิเมะชื่อก้องโลก Evangelion ในอีเวนต์ ‘Evangelion Fantasy’
• กิจกรรมแจกฟรี! ชุดคอลแลป ‘โจมตีแฟนตาซี’ และ หุ่นยนต์รับใช้สุดลิมิตเต็ด ห้ามพลาด!

…

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom เกมใหม่ล่าสุดจากซีรีส์ The Legend of Zelda โดยเรียกได้ว่าเป็นภาคต่ออย่างเป็นทางการของ The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ซึ่งเกมนี้ก็ได้รับความสนใจเป็นอย่างมากตั้งแต่เปิดตัว และก็ไม่น่าแปลกใจเมื่อเกมนี้วางจำหน่ายเราก็จะได้เห็นกระแสตอบรับบนโลกออนไลน์จำนวนมาก

และแน่นอนว่าเหล่าดารานักร้องข�…

Keya Acharya

BANGALORE, Feb 13 2007 (IPS) – As public health groups await the outcome of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG s legal challenge to India s patent law, a campaign is building up against a parallel move to obtain data exclusivity on clinical trial data submitted to government for marketing approval.
Under the drug regulatory process any drug, whether patented or not, must pass safety, efficacy and quality tests for marketing from the Drug Controller-General of India (DGCI). The DGCI thus requires the manufacturer to submit data from three phases of clinical trials.

As per current law, the DGCI can rely on previous test data to approve subsequent generic versions of the same drug. This allows generic drug manufacturers to circumvent expensive repeats of…

Ernst-Jan Pfauth

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 23 2007 (IPS) – Although most people in the developed world view tuberculosis (TB) as a disease of the past, this curable ailment still kills a human being every 20 seconds.
According to the World Health Organisation s Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2007, 1.6 million people died of TB in 2005, making it the second most deadly disease in the world after HIV/AIDS.

Lee Reichman, executive director of the New Jersey Medical School National Tuberculosis Institute, said at a press briefing here Thursday that, Governments are interested in dramatic epidemics, like avian influenza. However, the avian flu killed 166 people, [but] on a daily basis, TB kills 30 times more people. The priorities of governments are outrageous.

We …

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…

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Jun 3 2007 (IPS) – Russia s HIV infection rate continues to rise most notably in the heterosexual and non-drug-using populations despite steady increases in funds to fight the disease. Experts and medical researchers say dramatic changes in sexual attitudes and behaviour are essential if the trend is to be reversed.
Funds allocated for prevention are not enough and prevention programmes implemented in Russia are very limited in terms of coverage, sustainability and effectiveness. The disease is spreading further into the heterosexual population [beyond] drug users, and especially from men to women. And this trend will continue, Roman Dudnik, regional adviser at AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW), told IPS.

To change behaviour, people need a…