In The News

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...

Avian Influenza: Pandemic Skeptics Warn Against Crying Wolf

Dennis Normile November 28, 2005
The threat of a bird flu pandemic has only recently received international attention that many believe is necessary to prevent a catastrophic loss of human life. Skeptics are raising their voices, however, asserting that there is no reason to expect a bird flu pandemic spreading amongst human beings in the near future. One skeptic argues that a repeat of the overcrowded trenches of World War I...

Hundreds of Thousands Used ‘Lethal’ Water

Peter Goff November 28, 2005
Days after a massive chemical spill in industrial northern China, water supplies are still cut off in the major city of Harbin. Residents of Harbin must count themselves lucky, however, because their neighbors upstream learned of the contamination too late to avoid exposure to lethal levels of benezene. The authorities of Jilin and Heilonjiang provinces concealed the danger for 10 days, in...

Asian Countries Gear Up to Tackle Bird-Flu Threat

Nicholas Zamiska November 4, 2005
Asian governments are gradually beginning to confront the possibility of widespread bird-flu infection among humans, and it is their state of readiness, still to be determined, that may prove the most crucial in preventing a global pandemic. Western countries have been preparing themselves for months by stockpiling antiviral drugs, but despite many experts’ warning that a pandemic will most...

Migrant Birds "Should Not Be Bird Flu Scapegoats"

Mike Shanahan October 26, 2005
Since the avian flu broke international headlines again this year, most reports have focused on the poultry business and how governments can best tighten health standards within the industry. Many scientists are now concerned about the spread of the potential pandemic in the wild, beyond the control of health officials and government regulators. Worse still is the possibility that migratory birds...

The Spreading Bird-Flu Menace Reaches Europe

October 21, 2005
After killing millions of fowl and more than 60 people in Asia, the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has arrived uninvited on Europe's doorstep. Outbreaks in Turkey, Romania, Russia, and possibly Greece threaten to sweep through the European Union, forcing EU ministers to think about how to tackle an epidemic that could decimate the poultry industry – or worse, set off a global flu epidemic that...

Emergency Measures Set on Dengue Fever

Wayne Arnold September 29, 2005
Avian influenza might claim more headlines, but dengue fever is claiming more victims, killing at least 990 people across Southeast Asia this year alone. First identified three centuries ago, dengue fever spread throughout Asia during World War II – one of the more insidious forms of globalization to stem from that conflict. The prohibition of DDT for use against mosquitoes in the New World...