In The News

WHO Calls for Spraying Controversial DDT to Fight Malaria

Betsy McKay September 15, 2006
Intent on eradicating malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced plans to use DDT to combat a disease that still infects about 500 million people per year, most in impoverished countries. Malaria was eradicated in the US more than 50 years ago through extensive outdoor spraying of DDT, but the chemical was later banned or restricted throughout much of the world. Alternatives to...

Push for New Tactics as War on Malaria Falters

Celia W. Dugger June 30, 2006
Malaria should be easy to control. Mosquito nets, insecticides and even medicine are inexpensive – and yet funds have tended to go toward consultants and research rather than treatment. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of children die from malaria, more than any other disease – a statistic that attracts yet more funds from major donors along with new scrutiny. In the US, Bush administration...

Climate Change Drives Disease to New Territory

Doug Struck May 5, 2006
Politicians tend to procrastinate when it comes to long-term problems. But rising temperatures are causing immediate problems, as diseases like malaria, cholera, Dengue fever, Lyme disease and West Nile virus make inroads into new territory, including the US, Europe and Canada. Common insects like ticks and mosquitoes live through mild winters and find new habitats, thus transforming from...

How Academic Flap Hurt World Effort on Chinese Bird Flu

Nicholas Zamiska February 27, 2006
A standoff has arisen between Chinese scientists and international health officials over bird flu. The Chinese have expressed reluctance to share avian-flu samples –needed to develop an effective antidote. Last spring, deaths of thousands of wild birds in a secluded region of western China, led officials from the WHO and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to ask China’s Ministry of...

The World’s Drinking Glass Is More Than Half Full

G. Jeffrey Macdonald February 14, 2006
Throughout the developing world, about 700 million people have acquired household access to drinking water since 1999. According to the WHO and UNICEF, more than half of people around the globe now have drinking water piped into their homes. In rural developing regions, women typically collect household water. Eliminating the trek to and from the nearest water source, sometimes up to ten miles...

Unpopular Globalization: Why So Many Are Opposed

David Dapice February 2, 2006
The world economy has done well in recent years, yet workers in rich nations remain anxious about how globalization will affect future jobs, wages and benefits. In the US, Ford and General Motors have slashed jobs and closed plants. Plentiful skilled labor in emerging countries raises fears about depressed wages worldwide. More importantly, specific policies and conditions in Europe and the US...

HIV/AIDS: A Truly Global Response Needed For a Global Scourge

Michael Merson November 29, 2005
Two years after its first appearance in 1981, the AIDS virus had spread to 60 countries. It rapidly became a global epidemic that clearly required a global response. Organizing such a response, however, has proved to be difficult. The first fifteen years of the global struggle against AIDS were marred by low funding, political infighting and controversy over prevention methods. The new...