Archives: Morning Breakouts

Scientific American examines the interface between climate change and human health, writing, "WHO research suggests that current warming of global average temperatures of just under one degree Celsius is responsible for an additional 150,000 deaths per year, largely due to agricultural failures and diarrheal disease in developing countries. ... As a result, WHO -- and a consortium of other public health organizations -- declared climate change to be among the most pressing emerging health issues in the world at the recent climate negotiations ... in South Africa."

BBC News Magazine examines an antiviral drug called Draco, developed by Todd Rider, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "which has proven successful against all 15 viruses to which it has been applied in lab trials with human tissue and mice," including "the common cold, H1N1 or swine flu, a polio virus, dengue fever, and the notorious and fatal Ebola virus." The magazine discusses ongoing research, provides information on how Draco works, and provides a link to an audio program discussing "the search for a broad-based antiviral" on Discovery from the BBC World Service (Hegarty, 12/20).

Though Russia is doubling its budget for HIV in 2012 over 2010 levels, "no money will go to such internationally recognized efforts as needle exchanges" and methadone replacement therapy, Reuters reports. "Moscow doesn't believe these approaches help slow the spread of HIV/AIDS," and "[s]ome health workers and global HIV authorities are angered and baffled by Russia's approach, which they say will only aggravate the problem," the news service writes. The article examines how government spending for HIV will be used, with only three percent of about $600 million expected to go toward prevention programs in 2012, and how non-governmental organizations are coping with cuts in funding from international donor programs (Ferris-Rotman/Koppel, 12/21).

Recounting the factors that led to and conditions that persisted during the North Korean famine between 1995 and 1998, New Yorker staff writer Steve Coll says in this opinion piece in the magazine, "Better harvests and international food aid ended the worst suffering by 1998. Yet chronic food insecurity and shortages persist to this day."

"Humanitarian groups fear that the death of Kim Jong-il could worsen North Korea's dire food situation, after the U.S. postponed a decision on potential aid," the Guardian reports (Branigan, 12/21). "'We need to see where (the North Koreans) are and where they go as they move through their transition period,' said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland addressing questions about food aid on Tuesday. 'We will obviously need to reengage at the right moment, but ... we haven't made any internal decisions here,'" MSNBC.com notes.

A UNICEF measles immunization campaign in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) aimed to vaccinate 1.7 million children under age five between December 19 and December 21, IRIN reports. "At least 128,965 measles cases, with 1,573 deaths, have been recorded in the DRC in 2011, and 89 wild polio-virus type 1 cases had been reported up to 13 December, UNICEF said," the news service writes (12/21).

A report released last week by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues examining federally sponsored research involving human volunteers, called "Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research," said that "current rules and regulations provide adequate safeguards to mitigate risk," "recommended 14 changes to current practices to better protect research subjects, and called on the federal government to improve its tracking of research programs supported with taxpayer dollars," according to a Commission press release. "In the report's central finding, the Commission found that the 'U.S. system provides substantial protections for the health, rights, and welfare of research subjects,'" the press release states.

"Haiti has seen a steady decline in the number of cholera cases, as the Caribbean nation settles into its dry season, humanitarian groups said Tuesday," the Associated Press reports, adding, "The seasonal decline in the number of cholera cases is consistent with the findings of a report released Tuesday by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs." According to the report, health officials are recording about 300 cases nationwide per day, compared with 500 cases one month ago, and the mortality rate has dropped or leveled in nearly all of Haiti's 10 departments, the AP notes (Daniel, 12/20).

In this Guardian opinion piece, Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., writes that the U.N. "must face up" to a cholera outbreak allegedly brought to Haiti by peacekeeping troops in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. "More than 500,000 have been infected, and the disease -- which Haiti has not had in more than a century -- is now endemic to the country and will be killing people there for many years to come," he writes.

In this post in GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog, journalist John Donnelly reports on tuberculosis (TB) in Estonia and how the country has significantly reduced the proportion of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases since 1998. He writes, "The numbers of new TB cases in Estonia were five times that of the Nordic countries in 1998, but the numbers have tumbled since then and last year Estonia had cut that in half, to 2.5 times the number." MDR-TB still represents 22 percent of all TB cases, but several factors -- including "a decision by government leaders to fully fund anti-TB efforts; banning sale of TB drugs in pharmacies in order to cut down on misuse; annual training of all TB medical staff by international experts; and the country ensured it would have enough of the scarce drugs needed to fight MDR-TB" -- have helped bring down the numbers, he reports. Donnelly is reporting independently on a trip made through the Philippines, Estonia, and Peru with photographer Riccardo Venturi "at the invitation of the Japanese company Otsuka Pharmaceutical to look at the human impact of TB" (12/20).

Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concluded the nation's public health capacity is being undermined by funding cuts to state and local health departments.