Am Johal
VANCOUVER, Canada, Oct 3 2007 (IPS) – For more than two decades, the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has tried to discourage nations from developing harm reduction programmes and other HIV/AIDS prevention programmes.
Insite safe injection and health centre in Vancouver, Canada. Credit: Vancouver Coastal Health
Civil society critics have argued that the position of the INCB is built upon a fundamental misunderstanding of drug addiction viewin…
David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Oct 23 2007 (IPS) – Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are seeking that pesticide use be halved within a decade in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals in the environment.
Some 40 percent of all fruit and vegetables on sale in the European Union could be contaminated with pesticide residues, with 5 percent exceeding legal thresholds, according to studies cited by green campaigners.
The Pesticide Action Network Europe has argued that the young are particularly vulnerable. By some estimates, children are 164 times more at risk from organophosphates chemicals routinely used in farming worldwide than adults. Nine out of ten children in the U.S. are exposed to 13 different organophosphates in the food they eat each day.
In…
Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Nov 27 2007 (IPS) – Drug firms are missing potentially valuable business opportunities by failing to meet the needs of consumers in developing countries, an international charity said Tuesday.
The group Oxfam International, in a new report, said the 700-billion-dollar-a-year pharmaceuticals industry continues to price their products beyond the reach of the world #39s poor. Additionally, it said market opportunities also were being squandered by firms #39 failure to develop more medicines relevant to poor countries and their intransigence over trademark issues.
The industry is burying its head in the sand, said Jeremy Hobbs, the group #39s executive director. More than 85 percent of world consumers are underserved or have no access to its medici…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jan 9 2008 (IPS) – Thai environmentalists are banking on the country s courts to overturn a decision by the military-appointed government to allow field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops.
A court battle is the only way to keep the country free from being contaminated by GM crops say green groups aghast that the government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has moved to secure cabinet approval to permit field trials just two days after the Dec. 23 parliamentary elections.
There also is anger at the military-backed government s failure to develop and pass a bio-safety law that would protect farmers and consumers before lifting the ban for field trials.
This has been a very sensitive public issue and any changes to the ban …
Interview with Jean-Bosco Ouedraogo
TORONTO, Feb 13 2008 (IPS) – Malaria continues to cut a swathe through Africa, which accounts for most cases of the disease and the majority of malaria-related deaths. Globally, more than a million people die from malaria each year. In the case of children, this translates into a death every 30 seconds, according to the World Health Organisation.
Jean-Bosco Ouedraogo, director of research at the Health Scienc…
David Vargas
REPATRIACION, Paraguay, Mar 11 2008 (IPS) – The first red stains on Nicanor s white shirt reads the inscription on a memorial niche at the side of the road to Ypecuá, 230 kilometres from Asunción, where peasant farmers are fighting for their land and against the diseases caused by agrochemicals used on nearby soybean plantations.
The road to Juliana Fleitas. Credit: David Vargas/IPS
The rustic cemetery here is the final resting place of the remains of two farm workers from the settlement known as Juliana Fleitas, in the southern Paraguayan state …
Sarah McGregor
DAR ES SALAAM, Apr 25 2008 (IPS) – Tatu Shabani Tumbo #39s first born was diagnosed with strength-sapping anaemia, and died a toddler. Doctors had no medical explanation for the sudden death of her second child at age one. She then tried to get pregnant a third time, initially without success.
Tanzania's president, Jakaya Kikwete, who this week announced plans to…
Diego Cevallos* – Tierramérica
MEXICO CITY, Jun 4 2008 (IPS) – Government funds to fight tobacco use in Latin America, which kills one million people each year, pale in comparison to the health costs of this epidemic and receive only a small portion of the tax revenues from the tobacco industry.
Children are often second-hand smokers. Credit: Photo Stock
Most countries in the region violate their own commitments to ban tobacco advertising and to prohibit smoking in public places, including hospitals and schools.
Eliminating ci…
Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY, Jul 2 2008 (IPS) – Gaza is being forced to pump 77 tonnes of untreated or partially treated sewage out to sea daily due to the Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. The fear is that some of this is creeping back into drinking water.
The drought in the Palestinian territories has exacerbated Gaza s shortage of drinking water. Credit: Mel Frykberg
The health of Gaza s 1.5 million people is at risk, Mahmoud Daher, from the UN …
Interview with Luis Soto Ramírez, co-chair of AIDS 2008
MEXICO CITY, Aug 1 2008 (IPS) – Mexican virologist Dr. Luis Soto Ramírez, co-chair of the 17th International AIDS Conference, which opens Sunday in the Mexican capital, says that ramping up prevention efforts is the most urgent step to be taken in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Luis Soto Ramírez Credit: Daniela Estrada/IPS
While rushing from one commitment to another in the run-up to the event, also known as AIDS 2008, which will draw 25,000 participants from 188 countries, Soto Ramírez takes time to question the way the Uni…