As Leopold Leonisky, My father (god bless his soul... he was a believer, I am not) used to say:

On the health-for-all theme, this commentary by Pittet in the current The Lancet - Clean hands reduce the burden of disease - was based on the research reported in Effect of handwashing on child health.

Both articles can be accessed (as far as I can tell), free of charge, after registration.

From Pittet's comments - The time has come to shout from the roof tops that hand-hygiene promotion should be a worldwide priority for public health and health care, and I call on policymakers, medical and nursing schools, chief medical and executive officers, and all health-care workers and community members with the potential to be a role model, to help highlight, support, prioritise, and fund research and intervention to improve hand-hygiene behaviour.

Pittet's message is that more attention to simple hand hygiene will yield significant health benefits, at all levels, including domestic households in the illuminated West. More than that, he is calling for health professionals to be role models, so that political pressure will force cheap resources out to where they are needed most.

My question to the gallery is - will shareholders get more benefit from sales of vaccine technology to poverty stricken countries, or from gifts of soap and teachers?

Take CSL, based on prime real estate in Melbourne. Would the management of an Australian biotech company do anything to lessen the burden of diarrheal disease, with soap and water, when there is a fortune to be made from a rotavirus vaccine? [Rotavirus is a common cause of diarrhea in infants.]

Who needs health care—the well or the sick? by Iona Heath. This one definitely needs a subscription, so here is a brief extract.

Investment in health care, especially when it is driven by the interests of pharmaceutical companies, seems to produce a J curve. For most of the curve, the more money spent, the better the health outcomes, but after a certain point, the more spending and the more emphasis on health at the expense of other areas of human activity and achievement, the worse overall health becomes. Many poorer countries are trapped high on the long arm of the curve while richer countries seem intent on exploring the upper end of the short arm through the excessive self confidence of preventive medicine. The emphasis on preventive care damages patients in rich countries by tipping them towards misery. This process is built on a foundation of fear and is fanned by economic and political pressures.

Another great article from the Moscow Times...

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/12/120.html

Too funny to be sad but true

Global Eye
Grease Monkeys

By Chris Floyd
Published: August 12, 2005

One of the grubby little secrets of the Great Potomac Grease Pit -- otherwise known as the U.S. government -- is that the massive amount of bribes given and taken there often has little effect on the final outcome of policy decisions and legislation. etc...