Medicine and Health
South African government to appeal against AIDS drug verdict
By Barry Mason and Chris Talbot, December 27, 2001
The South African government is to appeal a court decision instructing it to make the drug Nevirapine universally available in order to prevent maternal transmission of the HIV virus. It is appealing ...
AIDS epidemic grows unchecked
By Barry Mason, December 8, 2001
The United Nations (UN) has just issued its latest AIDS epidemic update. It is now 20 years since the immunodeficiency syndrome that came to be known as AIDS was first reported. In that time the disea...
Britain: Government suppresses report showing hospital patients face danger from Human BSE
By Paul Mitchell, November 29, 2001
The Labour government has suppressed a damning report into the procedures used by hospitals to prevent the spread of the incurable brain-wasting disorder variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).
Britain: Labour government accused of cover-up over BSE experiments
By Paul Mitchell, October 26, 2001
Farming and Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett has been accused of seeking to suppress how vital experiments concerning the safety of British lamb and mutton were botched-up. Scientists had hoped ...
Britain: Big increase in human form of "Mad Cow Disease"
By Paul Mitchell, September 11, 2001
The incidence of variant Creutzfeldt Jacobs Disease (vCJD)—the human form of “Mad Cow Disease”—has increased 20 percent in the UK since last year. In his announcement last week...
Sleeping Sickness rampant in Sub-Saharan Africa
By Barry Mason, September 7, 2001
The recent announcement that the Microsoft Gates Foundation has donated $15 million to fund research into sleeping sickness has only served to highlight the abysmal response by pharmaceutical companie...
Diabetes: a major new health problem
By Leanne Josling, August 21, 2001
According to various studies and statistics, diabetes has become the fourth leading cause of death in most developed countries and will be one of the most challenging health problems worldwide in the ...
TB poses growing international health threat
By Barry Mason, July 19, 2001
Tuberculosis, or TB, poses a growing threat to world health. According to an article in the New Scientist magazine, it is estimated that a third of the world’s population carry the disease, but ...
A "modest proposal" from tobacco giant Philip Morris
By Joanne Laurier, July 19, 2001
In a move that cries out for a response from a master satirist on the order of Jonathan Swift, Philip Morris, the New York-based tobacco giant, recently handed the government of the Czech Republic a s...
World Health Organisation says BSE is a major threat
By Paul Mitchell, July 6, 2001
Scientists last month warned that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease, “has joined AIDS as a major health challenge facing the world.” A conference organised by the ...
Australian jury finds passive smoking causes cancer in landmark legal case
By Kaye Tucker, May 12, 2001
For the first time anywhere in the world, an employee has successfully sued an employer after contracting cancer as a result of passive smoking. Former bar attendant Marlene Sharp, 62, was awarded $46...
BSE / "Mad Cow Disease" spreading in Spain
By Vicky Short, May 7, 2001
Forty-three animals infected with BSE, or “Mad Cow Disease,” have so far been registered in Spain. According to official information provided by the department of agriculture and fisheries...
