By K. S. Harikrishnan, IPS | Staff, Rediff Business. American pharmaceutical companies, taking advantage of a Congressional provision called The Pediatric Exclusivity Provision, have been carrying out clinical trials in poor and developing countries where the drugs might never be available.
Continue reading →By University of Plymouth Scientists, Phys.org. The tropical regions of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans appear to act like a heart: accumulating heat and then pulsing it in bursts across the Earth.
Continue reading →By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans, IPS | UPDATE from Haiti Chery. The United Nations is increasingly hiring Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) for its missions across the world, raising concerns over the use of firms known for participation in human rights abuses, as well as an overall lack of accountability structures governing these contractors within the U.N. system. UPDATE 1: DynCorp boasts of having trained 400 “Haitian police” and is awarded a $48.6 million contract to insert 100 contractors and 10 advisors into the “UN police force” in Haiti.
Continue reading →By Staff, AsiaOne | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Bangladeshi UN “peacekeepers” have sent home nearly $1.24 billion during the past three years. In 2010 Bangladesh sent its first female MINUSTAH contingent, a group of 110, to Haiti.
Continue reading →By Emmanuel Bruno Marino, AlterPresse | All-India Drug Action Network | Translations by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Within two months of the start of a campaign of vaccination with pentavalent vaccine in India by the World Health Organization (WHO), four healthy inoculated children died. Nevertheless, on April 16, 2012 Haiti announced that it would introduce the pentavalent vaccine Quinvaxem into its national immunization program at a cost $11 million. (English | French)
Continue reading →All-India Drug Action Network open letter | Ranjit Devraj, IPS | Haiti Chery. Despite widespread concern over their safety, efficacy and cost, India’s central health ministry approved the inclusion of pentavalent vaccines in its universal immunization program for seven provinces. Dr. Jacob Puliyel likened the deaths in vaccinated children to the penicillin sensitivity reaction and said it borders on criminality to administer pentavalents to children without first testing them for hypersensitivity.
Continue reading →By Muriel Kane, Raw Story | Interview of Isak Gerson with Alison George | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. “Life as we know it originated with the DNA molecule’s ability to duplicate itself, irrespective of the original creation of the Universe.… Copying is fundamental to life and runs constantly all around us…. ‘From all at one and from one to all – and then back – exchange without beginning and without end.'”
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A medical trial in Haiti — presumably of the oral cholera vaccine Shanchol — on poor women and children is being presented as a vaccination campaign. To avoid possible abuse it is essential that the Declaration of Helsinki guidelines be followed.
Continue reading →By Richard Raznikov, The Rag Blog | Democracy Center | Haiti Chery. About 20 years ago, it dawned on the bankers and some major corporations that if oil was a lucrative commodity, water would be even more so…. The trick was how to take it away from the people and sell it back to them.
Continue reading →By Aline Sainsoivil, Le Matin | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) presented a plan to strengthen its Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) at a meeting on Monday, March 12, 2012 with UN organizations UNICEF, PAHO, and WHO. Might this strengthened EPI involve the administration of oral cholera vaccines? (English | French)
Continue reading →By Bobby Naqvi, Editor, XPRESS via Gulfnews. In five Indian states, the mostly women Indian voters put their confidence in grassroots development, instead of Rahul Ghandi’s charisma and dynasty. Overall, voter turnout was 50 to 82%.
Continue reading →By Rashid Haider, Haiti Chery. Prof. Richard A. Finkelstein, an eminent microbiologist and Nobel-Prize nominee for his pioneering studies on cholera, advises that for cholera “the best solution resides in providing safe drinking water and sewage disposal.” In Dec 2010, alarmed by the oral vaccination plans for Haiti, he wrote to the health officials, including Jon Andrus, the Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) that the proposed use of Dukoral was “a useless and expensive waste of resources.” This vaccine was not adopted, but a campaign immediately started for the use of Shanchol, another questionable oral cholera vaccine. (English | French)
Continue reading →By staff, AHP | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Haitian Senate has strongly condemned the latest rape of a boy on Jan 20, 2012 by Pakistani UN soldiers and noted that in such cases it is the law of the place where the crime is committed that should prevail. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Thalif Deen, IPS. Compared to the $5.4 B U.N. budget for 2010-11, the 2012-13 budget will be cut by $260 M. This is a cut of less than 5%, but the news are still significant because, since its inception over 50 years ago, the U.N. has expanded every year, except for one instance 14 years ago. (English | Spanish)
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