Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
From a letter in Health Affairs: In 1996 Pfizer came to Kano to administer a test of the drug Trovan for a meningitis outbreak. One hundred children were given Trovan, and another hundred were given chloramphenicol, a drug approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). Of the 200 children, eleven died due to Trovan and…
In The Healing of America, T.R. Reid discusses some ‘interesting’ urinalysis techniques practiced by Dr. Tenzin in Nepal. “When they do urinalysis up at Khunde [a Western-style clinic in Nepal], all the do is stick a slip of paper into a sample,” he said. “But that can’t be enough. I just don’t think it…
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have become very popular among development economists. This programs pay poor families to have their children attend school and/or get vaccinated. Some of the larger programs include Bolsa Família in Brazil and Oportunidades in Mexico. Should economists support CCTs that pay the poor to get vaccinated? This depends on 2 factors: 1)…
Case and Paxson (2009): “We document the impact of the AIDS crisis on non-AIDS related health services in fourteen sub-Saharan African countries…Regions of countries that have light AIDS burdens have witnessed small or no declines in health care, using the measures noted above, while those regions currently shouldering the heaviest burdens have seen the largest…
Cuba is well known for its high quality cigars and sugar production, but is less well-known for its production of high quality pharmaceuticals. According to MSNBC, “With more than 7,000 scientists dedicated to researching new drugs, Cuba has one of the most sophisticated biotech industries in the developing world. Last year the country earned $350…
I just finished reading an interesting book on plumbing. I can just see that I lost half my readers with that last sentence. How can plumbing be interesting? It turns out that if you are interested in health, you must be interested in plumbing. Disposing of human waste is one of the biggest health problems,…
The Think Progress Wonk Room says that President-elect Obama will reverse the Bush-era rule that NGOs must refrain from promoting family planning measures if they wish to receive federal funding: “…While the policy was “purportedly designed to reduce abortion by limiting a woman’s access to abortion services, and to ensure that U.S. funding for family…
In the July/August 2008 edition of Health Affairs, health economist Mark Pauly discuss his opinions with respect to the evolution of health insurance in India and China. He notes that in both countries, rising incomes has lead to increased demand for medical care, especially in urban areas. Despite the increased demand for medical care, there…
This blog has repeatedly reported on the success of microfinance organizations such as Nobel-prize-winner Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank and ACCIÓN (see 26 Mar 07 and 26 May 06 posts). Up to this point, the organizations who have worked to make loans to the world’s poor have been nonprofit organizations. Now, however, The Economist reports (“Doing…
An estimated 1.6% of Ethiopia’s the population is blind, with approximately 12% of this blindness caused by trachoma. Trachoma is a highly infectious disease; it is spread through contact with an infected person’s hands or clothing, or by flies that have come in contact with the discharge from an infected eye or nose. One good…