Lifespans: Americans 80 years and rising; Africans 40 and falling

12/09/2007 Stephen Africa, developing world, Global Issues and Perspectives, Health

Medical Research Hits Cultural Roadblocks
By Stephen Leahy

The lifespan of a U.S. citizen is 80 and rising while an African’s is 40 and falling.
“That is the mother of all ethical challenges for the world to grapple with,” said Peter Singer of McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto.

Sep 11 (IPS) – Many new medical technologies to improve the lives of people in the global South fail to be adopted not because of the costs but because of ethical, social and cultural issues, a new study reveals.

These issues include community and public engagement, cultural acceptability and gender, according to the comprehensive study featuring interviews with leading health experts in developing countries and published Monday in the U.S. peer-reviewed online journal PLoS Medicine.

Improper consultation with affected communities resulted in public pressure to end to medical trials of tenofovir, an antiviral medication used to treat HIV, in Cambodia, Cameroon, and Nigeria. In that instance, the community was commercial sex workers who weren’t properly consulted and would not benefit from the trials. Continue reading →

Wildlife Vanishing from African Game Parks

09/09/2007 Stephen Africa, developing world, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, WILDLIFE

AFRICA: Game Parks Offering Protection in Name Only?
By Stephen Leahy

“If the international community increased funding by 10 times then there is hope. But I don’t think that’s realistic,” said Paul Scholte of the Institute of Environmental Science at Leiden University

Sep 8 (IPS) – The sharp decline of Africa’s abundant wildlife is now happening inside the continent’s protected areas, a new analysis indicates. Africa’s world renowned parks are destined to become isolated pockets of wilderness with few large animals left, as is the case in Europe, conclude the authors of an article in the current edition of the ‘African Journal of Ecology’.

“It is not a pleasant conclusion,” said Paul Scholte, co-author of the article, and a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“Where we have good data, there are dramatic declines in wildlife inside parks and protected areas,” he told IPS. “It was a shock. The declines are far worse than we expected.” Continue reading →

Roads Lead to Deforestation in Untouched Peruvian Amazon

16/08/2007 Stephen developing world, ENVIRONMENT, Forests, Indigenous People, News, Science, WILDLIFE

Satellites Show Logging Decline in Peruvian Amazon
By Stephen Leahy

Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, intense in zones near roads and mining operations, has had little impact in protected forests, say researchers.

Aug 13 (Tierramérica).- Rainforest conservation policies are reducing the rate of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, but roads are unquestionably the drivers of change, new satellite data reveal.

Although Brazil’s Amazon forests draw the most international attention, Peru’s 661,000 square kilometers of rainforests are recognized as a unique and important ecosystem.

However, the impacts of human activities throughout the region have been poorly understood, until a study published Aug. 10 in the journal Science.

“Peru’s forest reserves and conservation areas appear to be working well,” said Greg Asner, director of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, at Stanford University in California.

Continue reading →

Overweight? Hungry? Blame “Hollow Food”

27/07/200706/05/2014 Stephen 1 Must Read, Agriculture/Food, developing world, Food, Health, News, Organic, Pollution and Toxics, Science/Tech, sustainability agriculture, Cornucopia Institute, Emory University, Food Commission, Organic food, Pesticide, Rollins School of Public Health, Toronto

New Studies Back Benefits of Organic Diet: Conventional agriculture produces “hollow food”, with low levels of nutrients and vitamins

By Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Canada, Mar 4, 2006 (Tierramérica)

(Originally published in 2006, two authoritative 2007 studies with similar findings are referenced at the end)

Organic foods protect children from the toxins in pesticides, while foods grown using modern, intensive agricultural techniques contain fewer nutrients and minerals than they did 60 years ago, according to two new scientific studies.

A U.S. research team from Emory University in Atlanta analysed urine samples from children ages three to 11 who ate only organic foods and found that they contained virtually no metabolites of two common pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos. However, once the children returned to eating conventionally grown foods, concentrations of these pesticide metabolites quickly climbed as high as 263 parts per billion, says the study published Feb. 21 (2006).

Organic crops are grown without the chemical pesticides and fertilisers that are common in intensive agriculture.There was a “dramatic and immediate protective effect” against the pesticides while consuming organically grown foods, said Chensheng Lu, an assistant professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

These findings, in addition to the results of another study published in Britain earlier this month, have fueled the debate about the benefits of organically grown food as compared to conventional, mass-produced foods, involving academics, food and agro-industry executives and activists in the global arena.

Continue reading →

Coke Spraying with Roundup Damages DNA in Ecuador/Colombia

15/06/200722/08/2007 Stephen developing world, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Health, News, Pollution and Toxics

New Studies Reveal DNA Damage from Anti-Coca Herbicide
By Stephen Leahy

Scientific studies have collected evidence of the negative effects of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup on human and animal health. The chemical is used in aerial spraying to eliminate illicit coca crops in Colombia.

TORONTO, Jun 11 (Tierramérica).- U.S.-funded aerial spraying of suspected coca plantations in Colombia near the Ecuador border has severely damaged the DNA of local residents, a new study has found.

Blood samples from 24 Ecuadorians living within three kilometers of the northern border had 600 to 800 percent more damage to their chromosomes than people living 80 km away, found scientists from the Pontificia Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador.

The border residents who were tested had been exposed to the common herbicide glyphosate — sold by the U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto under the brand Roundup –during a series of aerial sprayings by the Colombian government begun in 2000, part of the anti-drugs and counterinsurgency Plan Colombia, financed by Washington.

The Ecuadorians suffered a variety of ailments immediately following the spraying, including intestinal pain and vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness, numbness, burning of eyes or skin, blurred vision, difficulty in breathing and rashes, says the study, which is to be published in the journal Genetics and Molecular Biology.

But the extensive damage to DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) found in the randomly selected individuals may activate the development of cancer or other developmental effects resulting in miscarriages, according to lead researcher César Paz y Miño, head of human molecular genetics at the Catholic University of Ecuador. Continue reading →

Feeding the World Without Destroying It

03/05/200709/05/2007 Stephen Agriculture/Food, developing world, ECOLOGY, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives

Farming Will Make or Break the Food Chain
By Stephen Leahy

May 2 (IPS) – As the world population swells to nine billion by 2050, global biodiversity will be under extreme pressure unless new ways to grow food are developed, experts say.

An additional one billion hectares of wild lands — mainly forests and savanna — will be converted to food production fields by 2050. While this may provide enough food, it is likely to result in a massive decline in biodiversity, undermining ecosystems that provide vital services such as clean water and air, and capture carbon to slow the build-up of climate-altering gases in the atmosphere.

Sixty percent of the Earth’s ecosystems are in trouble right now, warned the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report last year.

What state will they be in by 2050? Continue reading →

Pacific Islanders Preyed on by Bio-Pirates

21/03/200716/04/2007 Stephen Culture, developing world, Global Issues and Perspectives, News

By Stephen Leahy

Mar 20 (IPS) – The Pacific region has long been a favourite target of gene hunters, unethical bio-researchers and “patent bottom trawlers” looking to profit from its unique flora, fauna — and human beings.

Pacific Islanders have had their genes patented against their will. T-cells from the Hagahai tribe in Papua New Guinea can be purchased today on the internet for 216 dollars.
Continue reading →

Justifiable Rage Over Global Warming

17/03/200720/03/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, developing world, ECOLOGY, Global Issues and Perspectives

Paraphrase of the Day:

Around the world there is growing anger that while the rich are the cause of global warming it is the poor who will suffer the most.
— Satish Kumar, director of programmes at Schumacher College International Centre for Ecological Studies in Britain.
See Story

40 Million Tonnes of Electronic Waste Each Year

11/03/200711/03/2007 Stephen developing world, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, Pollution and Toxics

E-Waste Dumping Needs International Solution

By Stephen Leahy

Mar 9 (IPS) – A global public-private partnership was launched this week to reduce the toxic mountains of electronic waste and recycle increasingly valuable metals and components.

Much of the nearly 40 million tonnes of “e-waste” — discarded electronics and electrical appliances — produced globally each year ends up in China, India and other developing countries.
Continue reading →

Tackling the E-waste Pollution Monster

09/03/200724/11/2009 Stephen developing world, ENVIRONMENT, News, Pollution and Toxics

Paraphrase for the day:

One tonne of discarded mobile phones has about 7000 euros worth of precious metals.

— Ruediger Kuehr of the United Nations University

Story about a global public-private initiative is now available see 40 Million Tonnes of Electronic Waste. Describes global effort to reduce the toxic mountains of electronic waste and recycle increasingly valuable metals and components.

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