Salud (Continuación)

MundoAsia, ,

Le peuple japonais vit l'un des pires accidents industriels de l'histoire du capitalisme. A l'occasion du 20e anniversaire de Tchernobyl, Sveltana Alexievitch, auteur biélorusse d'un livre de témoignages des victimes de Tchernobyl, avait eu cette pensée prémonitoire : "Tchernobyl : notre passé ou notre avenir ?" (Le Monde, 25 avril 2006). Hélas, en ce 25e anniversaire de Tchernobyl, le cauchemar de Fukushima renoue, au Japon, avec cette expérience terrible de l'accident nucléaire.

Tant l'exploitant japonais Tepco et les autorités japonaises que leurs homologues français n'ont admis la gravité de ce qui se passait à Fukushima qu'à reculons, au compte-gouttes, cherchant à protéger le plus longtemps possible l'industrie nucléaire elle-même des conséquences économiques et symboliques de ce désastre, plutôt que ses victimes.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Banned books and milk powder: What do they have in common?

This: They are among the most prized commodities on the must-buy list for many of the millions of Chinese tourists who come to Hong Kong every year.

In this former British colony, books considered too politically sensitive for mainland China are widely available in bookshops. And since news emerged two years ago that many young children in China had died or fallen seriously ill after drinking local formula adulterated with the toxic chemical melamine, imported milk powder has become a priority purchase for our visitors.

When a Chinese writer whose books are banned in China visited Hong Kong recently, I asked if he would have time to meet up for a chat.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU, ,

An army of health activists and world leaders will gather at the United Nations this week to review the eight Millennium Development Goals agreed to at the start of the century and to recalibrate and recommit to more effectively achieve them by 2015. The overarching and noble goal is reducing global poverty. But the most compelling and achievable objectives -- huge reductions in maternal and child mortality worldwide -- will be severely undermined if the Obama administration either directly or covertly integrates abortion into the final outcome document.

If the summit is sidetracked by abortion activists, the robust resolve required at national levels to deploy the funds needed to achieve the internationally agreed targets will be compromised.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU, , ,

As 140 heads of state and government gather Monday at the United Nations for the Millennium Development Goals summit, they and the public will ask what has come out of this decade-long effort.

The answer will surprise them: A great deal has been achieved, with some of the most exciting breakthroughs occurring in Africa.

I recall how the Millennium Development Goals were initially greeted with cynicism — as unachievable, pie-in-the-sky, a photo-op rather than a development framework. Cynicism has been replaced by hope, born of experience, commitment and breakthroughs.

Back in 2000, the situation in Africa was widely regarded as hopeless.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU, , ,

Ten years ago, heads of state from across the world promised “to spare no effort to free their fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.” The historic Millennium Declaration was duly adopted and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established, with the aim of reversing the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people.

Ten years is a long time, and many millions will be looking to the United Nations General Assembly’s summit meeting next week to assess progress on the MDGs for a beacon of hope, a chink of light.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

Isabel is four years old. Her belly and ankles are swollen and she walks as if it hurts a little bit. Her family, who live in eastern Guatemala, have not had the means to feed her properly, so she is being treated for kwashiorkor – acute malnutrition.

Even though it is classified by the World Bank as a middle income country, the level of inequality in Guatemala is such that almost half its children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition. This is the fifth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world, higher even than that in Haiti, which is by far the poorest country in the Americas.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU, , ,

The global economic crisis has claimed many victims – unemployed workers, flooded homeowners and bankrupt pensioners – but nowhere have the repercussions been as devastating as in the developing world.

The setback to the fragile gains of recent years, particularly in Africa, threatens to return millions of people to the extreme poverty from which they had just managed to escape. In addition to the prospect of enormous human suffering, severe economic, political, and social pressures now threaten to overwhelm and destabilise developing countries, triggering conflict on an unprecedented scale.

What makes the downward spiral particularly disheartening is that the economic crisis has hit at a time of the first glimmerings of progress, notably in healthcare.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública,

The right of every human being to safe drinking water and basic sanitation should be recognized and realized.

The United Nations estimates that nearly 900 million people live without clean water and 2.6 billion without proper sanitation. Water, the basic ingredient of life, is among the world’s most prolific killers. At least 4,000 children die every day from water-related diseases. In fact, more lives have been lost after World War II due to contaminated water than from all forms of violence and war.

This humanitarian catastrophe has been allowed to fester for generations. We must stop it.

Acknowledging that access to safe water and sanitation is a human right is crucial to the ongoing struggle to save these lives; it is an idea that has come of age.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

Pretend it didn't happen. That's apparently the strategy of the Chinese government, the World Health Organisation, and the International Olympic Committee toward China's melamine milk contamination scandal during the Beijing Olympics.

An official ban on reporting of "all food safety issues" during the games stifled domestic media coverage of revelations that at least 20 dairy firms were spiking milk products with the chemical melamine. That cover-up contributed to the deaths of six children and illness among 300,000 others.

But there's not a whisper of melamine – or of the reporting ban – in a May 2010 book jointly issued by the Chinese government, the WHO and IOC, The Health Legacy of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games: Successes and Recommendations.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSanidad y Salud Pública,

La creciente incidencia en el entorno laboral de la psicopatología conocida como burn-out ("quemado por el trabajo") recomienda orientar su difusión, incidiendo en los aspectos de prevención. Mas allá del tratamiento individual, analizando el origen de un síndrome individual, pero que implica a dos componentes; al trabajador y a la organización. En consecuencia podremos establecer criterios compartidos de intervención para prevenir esta patología desde la doble vertiente de responsabilidad.

De entre las dos decenas de definiciones de burn-out existentes, la de Gil Monte - "todo trabajador que se enciende con su trabajo, puede llegar a acabar quemándose en él"-nos permite ubicar el origen de este síndrome en la decepción que siente el trabajador al no ver logradas sus expectativas, ni compensados sus esfuerzos laborales...…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Amid the news about U.S. failures in Afghanistan stands a clear success: a vast expansion of primary health-care services, including a major increase in the number of female health workers to provide prenatal care, attend births and treat female patients. By supporting the capacity of the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health to develop and implement these services, the United States has contributed to a dramatic reduction in deaths of Afghan infants and young children. Yet the approach that fueled this success is in jeopardy of being subordinated to the objective of employing health development resources to support military operations. Such a shift has no proven linkage to enhancing stability in the short term and undermines policies that can contribute to the emergence of a legitimate state.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial, ,

As leaders of the world’s largest economies gather today in Pittsburgh for the Group of 20 meeting, people in the world’s poorest countries will likely look on with a mix of hope and trepidation, wondering whether their needs will figure in the deliberations at all. The G-20 nations could help both the poor and the global economy by fully financing lagging efforts to fight poverty and disease worldwide, and the best way to do this would be to impose a very small tax on the prosperous foreign exchange industry.

The eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals — which include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, establishing universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating AIDS, malaria and other diseases — are meant to be reached by 2015.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública,

There are two reliable ways of telling if you have won an argument. The first is if your disputants switch from discussion of the facts to accusations about motives; the second, more obviously, is if they descend to mere abuse.

Alan Dangour, a nutritionist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, should therefore feel he has had an encouragingly uncomfortable week. He is the author of a peer-reviewed meta-study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that concluded, from 50 years of scientific evidence, that so-called “organic” food was no healthier than conventionally farmed products. By the end of last week Dangour felt as if he had been covered with the brown stuff the organic lobby holds most sacred.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

As the global recession puts government aid budgets under pressure, and with the UN revealing a funding shortfall of nearly $5bn last week, calls are being made to expand the role of private philanthropy. There have even been suggestions that the wealthy should be given tax breaks to incentivise more private giving.

A new buzzword is "philanthrocapitalism", a view that the talents and methods of successful capitalists should be applied to the "business" of social welfare and poverty alleviation because governments, traditional charities and NGOs are comparatively ineffective and inefficient. This is part of the "New Philanthropy", the ascendancy of private foundations within public policy and international development, dominated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública

¿Cuánto vale ese halcón que tiene debajo del mostrador? Alan Bennett, el gran escritor inglés, oyó la pregunta cuando hacía cola en una freiduría del norte de Inglaterra. Desde su puesto en la larguísima cola no podía ver el mostrador, y tuvo que echar a volar su imaginación para deducir cómo podía estar aquella noble bestia atrapada en un sitio tan insólito. ¿Qué extraña circunstancia habría llevado a un halcón a parar debajo del mostrador de una tienda inglesa de pescado empanado y patatas fritas? ¿Se habría muerto el halcón y, echando de menos el inmenso cielo había acabado allí debajo?…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública,

China's food supply appears to be awash in the industrial chemical melamine. Dangerous levels have been detected not only in milk and eggs, but also in chicken feed and wheat gluten, meaning that melamine is almost impossible to avoid in processed foods. Melamine in baby formula has killed at least four infants in China and sickened tens of thousands more.

In response, the United States has blasted lax Chinese regulations, while the Food and Drug Administration, in a rare move, announced last week that Chinese food products containing milk would be detained at the border until they were proved safe.

For all the outrage about Chinese melamine, what American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is how much melamine has pervaded our own food system.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública,

Numerous media reports followed a federal task force's announcement this month that there is insufficient medical evidence to assess the risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening in men younger than 75 and that doctors should stop testing men over age 75 [" U.S. Panel Questions Prostate Screening; 'Dramatic' Risks for Older Men Cited," front page, Aug. 5].

It's important to note that consideration was not given to the overwhelming body of emerging evidence that screening with PSA tests and digital rectal exams saves lives. Rates of death from prostate cancer and rates of diagnosis at advanced stages have decreased markedly since testing became widespread.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSanidad y Salud Pública,

El cocinero Santi Santamaria ha desatado un debate sobre lo que es y debería ser nuestra cocina, y el papel que pueden tener en ella los aditivos alimentarios. Los resultados gastronómicos del trabajo de los cocineros son una cuestión de gustos, y las diferentes visiones sobre si la cocina debe ser tradicional o creativa e innovadora, no tienen que ser excluyentes por fuerza, del mismo modo que la pintura puede ser figurativa o abstracta por un lado, y buena o mala por el otro, y todas las combinaciones son posibles.

Ahora bien, respecto al papel de la tecnología en la elaboración de los alimentos y en su seguridad, hay que tener en cuenta datos científicos y no percepciones emocionales.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea, , ,

It is unusual for politicians to face up to the obvious, but the Scottish Executive seems for once to have done so: it has recognised what has long stared it in the face, namely that dishing out methadone to drug addicts is not the answer to their problems or to the problems that they cause society. A different approach is needed.

Perhaps in 100 years historians will wonder why so many of the governing elite, from senior doctors to Cabinet ministers, persisted for so long in the belief that doling out methadone was the answer. The explanation, I think, will be that they wilfully misunderstood the nature of the problem.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSanidad y Salud Pública,

Cuando el brutal encarecimiento de los alimentos provoca protestas en medio mundo y se habla ya de crisis alimentaria universal, puede parecer muy frívola una polémica entre cocineros de ringorrango que no dan de comer por menos de 100 o 150 euros. Y puede causar asombro la repercusión mediática y popular de este debate, cuando el 99% de la población no ha catado ni catará nunca un plato elaborado por Santi Santamaría o por Ferran Adrià... Pero, en más de un sentido, esta pelea entronca con aquella crisis y está sirviendo -en medio del estruendo y de las descalificaciones- para colocar sobre el tapete algunas cuestiones que van a pesar en el futuro sobre la forma de alimentarnos y la calidad de lo que comemos.…  Seguir leyendo »