RSSRegions
Categories
These articles have appeared in newspapers worldwide, including:
2001, Venezuela
Accra Daily Mail
The Age, Australia
Al Ahram, Egypt
Al Ahali, Iraq
Al Arab, Qatar
Assabaha, Morocco
The Arusha Times, Tanzania
The Australian
Bangkok Post
Boston Globe, USA
Boston Herald, USA
Botswana Guardian
Business Daily, Kenya
Business Day, South Africa
Business Recorder, Pakistan
Chicago Sun-Times, USA
Chicago Tribune, USA
China Post, Taiwan
Daily Mail, UK
Daily Monitor, Uganda
Daily Monitor, Ethiopia
Daily Nation, Thailand
Daily News, Egypt
Daily Pioneer, India
Daily Telegraph, UK
Daily Times, Malawi
Daily Yomiuri, Japan
DC Examiner, USA
Der Tagesspiegel, Germany
Duluth News Tribune, USA
Eagle-Tribune, USA
East Brunswick Home News Tribune, USA
Economic Times, India
El Diario de Hoy, El Salvador
El Panamá América, Panama
European Voice, Belgium
Financial Express, India
Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, USA
The Forum, USA
Frontier Post, Pakistan
Ghanaian Times
Globe & Mail, Canada
Hamilton Spectator, Canada
Hindustan Times, India
The Independent, Zimbabwe
International Herald Tribune, World
Investors Business Daily, USA
Iowa City Press Citizen, USA
Iran Daily
The Island, Sri Lanka
Jerusalem Post
Jordan Times
Korea Herald
Korea Times
Manila Times
Miami Herald, USA
Modern Ghana
La Nación, Argentina
La Nación, Costa Rica
The Namibian
The Nation, Thailand
National Review, USA
Nature, UK
New Statesman, UK
New Straits Times, Malaysia
New Times, Rwanda
New Vision, Uganda
New York Sun, USA
New Zealand Herald
Omaha World Herald, USA
Philippines Star
Providence Journal, USA
The Pioneer, India
The Post, Pakistan
The Post, Zambia
The Post, Cameroon
Le Potentiel, DR Congo
La Prensa, Nicaragua
Pueblo Chieftain, USA
Le Quotidien, Senegal
Al Rai Alaam, Kuwait
La Republica, Costa Rica
Rwanda Times
Salisbury Review, UK
San Francisco Chronicle, USA
The Scotsman, UK
Siglo XXI, Guatemala
South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
The Spectator, UK
The Standard, Hong Kong
State Journal Register, USA
The Statesman, Ghana
Straits Times, Singapore
Taipei Times
Taiwan News
The Times, UK
Times Herald, USA
Times of Zambia
This Day, Nigeria
Tucson Citizen, USA
Turkish Daily News
Wall Street Journal, World
Washington Post, USA
Washington Times, USA
Windsor Star, Canada
Yorkshire Post, UK
Health Posts
US FDA BRINGS GOOD HIV/AIDS DRUGS TO THE POOREST7 Mar 2008
CLICK HERE FOR FULL ANALYSIS at the Campaign for Fighting Diseases In the global fight against HIV/AIDS, there is perhaps no greater single contribution to public health than the US FDA Fast Track Process: the World Health Organisation had been giving “prequalification” approval to untested medicines on the grounds that it was better to give poor drugs to the poor than nothing. In fact, those drugs could be harmful to patients as well as helping the disease mutate. As the prequalification scandal broke in 2004, the FDA offered free testing to any foreign drug being sold as a generic: this meant better drugs in general for the poor but also meant that the huge US PEPFAR programme could buy these approved drugs in the sure knowledge they were getting the right products. Now, 70% of PEPFAR beneficiaries, or about half of all HIV/AIDS patients, get these FDA-approved generics. What the FDA and the reformed WHO prequalification system have achieved is only an indication of what more can be done for the benefit of poor patients. Jeremiah Norris Center for Science in Public Policy, Hudson Institute, Washington DC.
Wealth equals health
18 Feb 2008
A new report from British pressure group Save the Children claims that economic growth does not necessarily translate into a healthier population. The report cites examples such as India, which still suffers high rates of child mortality despite having undergone a prolonged period of economic growth. This report saysnothing new. Reading between the lines, it is a fairly standard call for governments to redistribute wealth and intervene more heavily in the economy, in order to iron out the inequalities which they perceive to perpetuate ill health. However, economic growth certainly does improve health of the individuals who are able to benefit from it, not least because it enables people to afford better sanitation and living conditions, which are the key to reducing most of the disease burden in less developed countries. The point is that not everyone is able to share in economic growth, largely because of counterproductive governance. For example, if the poor do not have property rights, it makes it impossible for them to borrow capital to invest in their own businesses and education and climb up the economic ladder. Meanwhile, the poorest countries erect massive, costly regulatory obstacles to entrepreneurship, meaning that only the politically well-connected and rich can start businesses and create wealth. And so on. Save the Children are right to point out that the poor are still suffering unacceptably poor health as a result of poverty. Their diagnosis is way off the mark, because the redistributory measures they advocate would stifle economic growth and cut off the one mechanism that is vital for improving health. It would be more constructive for Save the Children to talk about empowering the poor instead of clobbering the rich.
Unintended consequences of aid
12 Feb 2008
Foreign aid programmes suffer from the curse of good intentions: while billions pour into high-profile drug-focused programs targeting malaria and Aids - in the US, 43% of foreign health assistance funds HIV efforts - less glamorous but more widespread problems such as maternal care and the public health infrastructure are overlooked. Dr. Santa comes to town, by Jon Entine: It is the curse of good intentions...
New report shows that donor-supported local drug production harms patients
5 Feb 2008
A new study (PDF link) published today by the Campaign for Fighting Diseases shows that local drug production is not always best. It shows that donor agencies such as the World Bank are trying to defy this basic law of economics by trying to foster local production in entirely inappropriate markets...
Health
Health tourism can be healthy
By Lucy Davis, Fredrik Erixon27 Jun 2008
Healthcare costs are rising everywhere: in the developed world things can only get worse with ageing populations, while in poor countries there is minimal progress plus a debilitating brain drain. But health tourism could change all that: health tourism is simply free trade in services – a World Trade Organisation clause that has been ratified by very few countries, although Thailand, Singapore, South Africa and India are already demonstrating how to make big bucks in this specialist trade.
How surveys twist rankings on health care
By Glen Whitman11 Jun 2008
A major theme of the presidential race is healthcare, with frequent reference to World Health Organisation figures repeated in Michael Moore’s “Sicko. ” The trouble is, the figures are distorted by ideological factors: economist Glen Whitman redresses the balance.
SA should avoid Britain's healthcare mistakes
By Eustace Davie, Philip Stevens2 Jun 2008
The South African government is hoping to create a 'universal' health system by imposing increasingly onerous regulations on the private sector. Evidence from Britain's health system shows this is doomed to failure.
View the Full Article »UN's Russian roulette for poor patients
By Jeremiah Norris26 May 2008
Sub-standard AIDS and malaria drugs can cause parasite resistance and clinical failure. Yet the Global Fund has been using taxpayer's money to procure such drugs for millions of low-income patients.
View the Full Article »Get Real About AIDS
By James Chin18 May 2008
UNAIDS has systematically perpetuated myths about the nature and scope of the AIDS pandemic in order to keep the disease high on the political agenda. As a result, many billions of dollars have been wasted on prevention programmes that have no basis in science.
View the Full Article »Malaria keeps killing millions
By Jasson Urbach15 May 2008
Fake and substandard drugs produced by unscrupulous manufacturers are a real worry for African patients.
View the Full Article »One in Three malaria drugs failing in Africa
By Roger Bate12 May 2008
New field research shows that a third of legal, not counterfeit, malaria drugs collected in six African cities fail at least one quality test - and aid agencies continue to fund these and other untested substandard drugs. The Global Fund, bureaucrats and activists have become part of the problem : patients, health workers and governments in poor countries need to start protesting loudly against this hypocrisy.
View the Full Article »1960s economics and modern medicines: a fatal combination
By Philip Stevens25 Apr 2008
The WHO’s plans to push subsidised local drug production in Africa threaten to worsen the problem of substandard generics, placing the most vulnerable at risk.
View the Full Article »Attack on patents hurts the poor
By Franklin Cudjoe, Alec van Gelder9 Apr 2008
The “patients not patents” campaign has a simplistic appeal but will only make things worse for the poor, as well as distracting attention from the real causes of ill health: poverty and corruption. Africans must not let their health and growth be damaged by populist propaganda.
View the Full Article »A dose of reality on climate change
By Philip Stevens16 Feb 2008
Britain’s Department of Health says we face killer heatwaves and the Royal College of Physicians president says "the effects of global warming on health could eclipse those of smoking, alcohol and obesity." But more people in the UK routinely die of cold than of heat. And the cure for so-called tropical diseases is not cool temperatures but prosperity.
View the Full Article »