In The News

Doctors Who Kill

Regina Dwyer July 6, 2007
As reports emerge about physicians accused of planting and setting car bombs in the UK, the world grapples for reasons why. Doctors are only human, writes Regina Dwyer, a retired physician, in an essay for the International Herald Tribune. She suggests that a physician intent on terrorism could find rationalizations with the concept of triage, comfort with death and even the situational nature of...

Brilliant Student, Doctor – and Now a Terror Suspect

Ian Herbert July 3, 2007
Physicians worldwide have long shared the motto, “First, do no harm.” Reports suggesting that the suspects in failed car bombings throughout the UK are physicians from the Middle East, Australia and India are unsettling – and make the job of combating terrorism all that more difficult. Analysts have long assumed that soft-power tools, education and economic development, take time, but worked...

In the Amazon, Giving Blood but Getting Nothing

Larry Rohter June 26, 2007
Blood samples from Amazon tribes are ideal for certain types of research because their isolation from the outside world allows scientists to track illnesses through generations. Researchers promised future medicine to Amazon tribes in Brazil in exchange for donating blood. The first research teams arrived in the 1970s. Using the internet, the Karitiana tribe has since discovered that their blood...

Discount Dentistry, South of the Border

Manuel Roig-Franzia June 20, 2007
Consumers who lack insurance for health care tend to make decisions based on price – and travel to neighboring countries known for low costs. US consumers who don’t have dental insurance head to Mexico, where prices are about one quarter what’s charged in the US. Costa Rica, Hungary and Thailand also offer low-cost dental havens. Some US consumers even decline insurance, because the premiums cost...

Fake Lipton Tea, Nescafe Leak Into EU, Hurting Unilever, Nestlé

Stephanie Bodoni June 19, 2007
Low costs in shipping and packaging allow counterfeiters to apply their skills beyond luxury goods to ordinary products, including tea, shampoo or soap. Some counterfeit toothpaste contained chemicals found in anti-freeze, and imitation teabags include sawdust or dyed wood chips. One factory in Pakistan with 20 people made a ton of counterfeit tea each day. With the internet easing ways to find...

How Dr. Chan Intends to Defend the Planet from Pandemics

June 19, 2007
Diseases can emerge on any point on the globe, spreading quickly, and health providers cannot have vaccines ready for every disease in every location. Complicating the treatment of any infectious disease: Entities within any country may regard disease as a business opportunity, a security risk, a reason for shame or a matter to hide. Indonesia only recently provided the World Health Organization...

Globalization in Every Loaf

Alexei Barrionuevo June 18, 2007
Ingredients for any processed food product, from bread to vitamins, can come from all over the world. “The lowering of trade barriers more than a decade ago has pushed food companies to scour the globe for more exotic – or the cheapest – ingredients to compete in a more global marketplace, not unlike automakers shipping in parts from all over,” writes Alexei Barrionuevo for the New York Times. A...