Harvard World Health News - Chinese products, TB, AIDS, Bioterrorism, and "Post-Abortion Syndrome"

[brdgt]

China Sentences Official to Death for Corruption
David Barboza (The New York Times, July 6, 2007)
"For the second time in three months, a former high-ranking official at China’s top food and drug watchdog agency has been sentenced to death for corruption and approving bogus drugs, according to the state-run news media." Free registration required.

CDC Should Own Up to Its Errors in TB Diagnosis
Editorial (The Denver Post, July 3, 2007)
"As it turns out, famed tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker isn't as sick as we were led to believe...That's good news for him, certainly,
but it begs the question of how and why there was an international health scare about his condition and travels."

The Not-So-Fair Sex
(The Economist, June 28, 2007)
"In AIDS epidemiology, one orthodoxy -- particularly in Africa, where things are at their worst -- is that the main route of transmission is male promiscuity...But perhaps not quite as much as orthodoxy would have it. For work by Vinod Mishra of Macro International, a research firm under contract to the American government, suggests women are not always the innocent vessels that HIV epidemiology takes them for. And that, in turn, means the models that epidemiology relies on may be wrong."

Fear, Inc.
David Willman (The Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2007)
"In the fall of 1992, Kanatjan Alibekov defected from Russia to the United States, bringing detailed, and chilling, descriptions of his role in making biological weapons for the former Soviet Union...His expertise, combined with his dire pronouncements, solidified his cachet in Washington. He simplified his name to Ken Alibek, became a familiar figure on Capitol Hill, and emerged as one of the most important voices in U.S. decisions to spend billions of dollars to counter anthrax, smallpox and other potential bioterrorism agents...No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review...And, as Alibek raised fear of bioterrorism in the United States, he also has sought to profit from that fear." Free registration required.

Is Post-Abortion Syndrome Real?
Cherie Black (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 1, 2007)
"Many anti-abortion activists insist there are proven, profound emotional and psychological effects from having an abortion -- a so-called post-abortion syndrome. One outgrowth has been religiously affiliated retreats such Project Rachel, aimed at helping to purge guilt. Others say the syndrome is non-existent and just a new way to push the 'pro-life' agenda, and that most women live productive, psychologically and emotionally normal lives after an abortion."
Related editorial: Abortion: A Disease It's Not (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 3, 2007)

Comments

[resurgam.livejournal.com]

I'm really interested in Project Rachel - I was actually considering getting involved with it, because it seemed to me to be about *not* judging women who have had abortions. It seems sometimes that esp. evangelical Christian groups and Catholic groups have the attitude that once a woman has had an abortion she is just worthless and will never be a "good" person again. Project Rachel appeals to me because it doesn't say that, it says the opposite - that people are not the total of one of the hardest choices they've made. I am very hesitant at getting involved with anything even remotely "pro-life", but perhaps project Rachel is more life-affirming. I don't think it's confusing with the syndrome talk- for crying out loud, it's the pharmaceutical companies that are making syndromes every week and trying to sell medications.