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/ 5 November 2007

Aircons and cars for drugs

Multinational drug companies are targeting doctors in developing countries with dinners and lavish gifts, such as air conditioners, washing machines and down payments on cars, as incentives to prescribe their drugs, a new report revealed this week. The report from Consumers International says that self-regulation by the multinational drug giants has failed.

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/ 23 April 2007

Religion risk to women’s health

A key figure in the World Bank, said to have links to the Roman Catholic sect Opus Dei, was accused this week of undermining its commitment to the health of women by ordering the deletion of goals, targets and policies relating to family planning. uan Jose Daboub, the bank’s managing director, ordered staff to remove all references to family planning from its country assistance programme document for Madagascar.

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/ 20 November 2006

Rich nations ‘blocking’ cheap drugs

Poor people are needlessly dying because drug companies and the governments of rich countries are blocking the developing world from obtaining affordable medicines, according to an Oxfam report released recently. Five years to the day after the Doha declaration — a ground­breaking deal to give poor countries access to cheap drugs — was signed at the World Trade Organisation, Oxfam says things are worse.

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/ 1 December 2003

Free drugs offer hope against Aids

Esther is one of the least fortunate children on earth, but one of the luckiest of those, although she can’t know it. At first glance she looks to be two or three years old, but her eyes are too large, her head is too big. She is five years old, and although she has not been tested, the clinical officer has no doubt she has Aids.
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/ 12 July 2002

Aids causes orphan crisis

The number of children orphaned by HIV/Aids has risen three-fold in six years to reach an all-time high of 13,4-million. Many are growing old before their years, looking after younger siblings, working to earn money and sometimes living on the streets, a major international report revealed on Wednesday.