I had an offhand conversation with a friend the other day about the cost and quality of US healthcare relative to the rest of the world. I then came across this “infographic” republished in Fast Company earlier this year, and originally by National Geographic. The visual is startling: upward sloping lines indicate value for $$ […]
Last week Newsweek published an article entitled “The Death of Generosity.” The article outlines a decline in the West’s commitment to the aid goals set in the 1990s and makes ominous predictions for the future of the developing world: the Millennium Development Goals will not be met, corruption will run rampant in over-bureaucratized governments, and […]
The recent “victory” of GSK’s Avandia raises questions about protocols in clinical trials. Curious about a trial participant’s perspective? Ana Cantu at the American-Statesman recalls her own participation in a drug trial 5 years ago.
How is health measured? A consistent measure used by global health practitioners is the DALY, or Disability Adjusted Life Year, which compares one disease with another and uses this comparative measure to quantify the overall disease burden. Karen Grepin recently posted about a collaboration between the WHO, Harvard University, among others, to update and revise the […]
Somali militant group bans 3 aid agencies (shockingly, all agencies are Christian) (AP) More about the aid workers killed in Afghanistan (CNN) Huffington Post is sponsoring three blogs from women leaders in aid. Check out the posts by Melinda Gates on saving children and rotavirus, Mia Farrow on the value of education, and Susan Smith […]
Click on the map to view the interactive version. Photo Credit: IRIN/Plus News
Chris Blattman doesn’t think so. Read his reasons below: Aid is not a mythical goddess, walking through a barren field, greenery spouting in her wake. None of us, really believe such a thing, but we do approach charity as though rapid transformation is possible. It’s uplifting (well… less depressing) to remember a few things. 1. […]
Taliban fighters ambushed and killed a 10-member medical team, including six Americans (three of which were women), as they were returning from a trip to a remote northern area to provide eye care to villagers. The Taliban claimed that the aid workers were spies and preachers of Christianity. This attack is one of the deadliest […]
My favorite of the development aid innovations I’ve come across: the Lifestraw! The Lifestraw is a simple looking device: essentially it’s a plastic tube, containing a powerful water filter. This filter is capable of killing bacterial and viral pathogens and filtering particles down to the size of 15 microns. The Lifestraw itself costs only about […]
Researchers at the University of California, Davis have discovered that breast milk sugars promote the growth of a subspecies of bacteria important to protecting a baby’s intenstinal lining. The NYTimes reports: Dr. German sees milk as “an astonishing product of evolution,” one which has been vigorously shaped by natural selection because it is so critical […]
As newspapers continue their steady financial decline and the press is criticized for everything from false news reports to jeopardizing national security, those of us who live in the comfort of a democracy may start to say, Who needs them? There are plenty of blogs to fill the gap, and as tech-savvy critical thinkers trained […]
Thirty-eight US billionaires have pledged at least 50% of their wealth to charity through a campaign started by investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. See the list of donors here, and August pledge letters here. Generous and impressive. Thank you! (But don’t you just love initiatives “specifically focused on billionaires”?)
Popular from Press
